Ron Gates had been at Anoka-Ramsey Community College as a basketball assistant. He was interested in doing the same at MCTC. “I told Piv that I had a line on a couple of Milwaukee kids who were players,” Gates said. “He said, ‘You’re hired.’ ”
Twenty years and Pivec and Gates were a tandem with tremendous success at MCTC. The men’s and women’s programs were dropped in 2010. The Student Senate wanted to put the funds for basketball elsewhere and school President Phil Davis was the willing executioner for the programs.
Jay Pivec gives instructions during practice in 2009, the last year Minneapolis Community and Technical College offered basketball. (Marlin Levison/Minnesota Star Tribune file)
He has now written a memoir, “The Book of Piv,” 173 pages and self-published. There are sure to be many wonderful tales, but this quirky fact — happened upon Friday when trying to contact Gates — was a prizewinner in my opinion:
In the early ‘90s, a sales person for these new gizmos called cellphones walked into the gym. Pivec and Gates each bought one. They were given consecutive numbers … and neither has changed. Piv ends in 6, Ron in 7, that’s it.
“Let me tell you this,” Gates said. “I grew up in New York, playing basketball on a playground with one court in Queens. I was coached by Marvin Kessler, a legend of New York basketball. He was famous for his lectures at the Five-Star Basketball Camp, which really started it all for the summer camp world.
