CCSN grows up fast … like its coach

By Rob Miech

Thursday, May 22, 2003 | 10:02 a.m.

The casket lay there in the Oklahoma funeral parlor, but Tim Chambers needed to be convinced his father occupied it.

Chambers, the Community College of Southern Nevada baseball coach, asked the funeral director to open the cherry wood box, a request that was denied. Then Chambers demanded to see the body.

Chambers threatened to disrupt the proceedings if the casket wasn't opened. Again, the director declined.

"OK," Chambers said, "you guys are making a big mistake."

The late Connie Chambers had remarried a few months earlier, so the director went to his surviving wife. She said Connie requested that the casket remain closed during the function, but the director said Tim was "determined" to have his way. She relented.

The preacher walked to the microphone and asked every attendee to leave the funeral home for five minutes. Then the director lifted the top section of the casket, and Tim Chambers looked at his father for the last time.

"He was in there, and I said, 'OK, that's all I need to see,' " Chambers said. "There was no emotion. It's heavy stuff, and I've never talked about it before. He was in there, and I said, 'OK. Great. Thank you.'

"I needed to see him. I needed to know that that's my father, he's gone and I can move on with that part of my life being gone. It was part of my past. There was never emotion there. Never, never, never."

As Chambers, 38, prepared for the shining moment of his coaching career, having guided CCSN to the NJCAA World Series that begins this weekend in Grand Junction, Colo., he looked out over Lied Field and the program he built from scratch in four years.

Tears threatened those eyes only once, when he spoke about Pleasant Grove (Utah) High coach John Hoover. Chambers turned his head, composing himself for a few seconds, before continuing about the man he calls "Pops."

Hoover didn't flinch when he first found out what Chambers had done at his father's funeral.

"I knew there was such a bitter feeling there," Hoover said. "It didn't surprise me a bit. If you treat him right, he's a friend for life. If you treat him wrong, you don't want to be his enemy."

Connie Chambers had left his wife, Rena, and his two small boys when Tim was 4. Rena took the children from Oklahoma to Ontario, Calif., juggling two or three jobs at a time to support the family and taking welfare for stretches.

With his mother always away, Tim went astray. He constantly fought with year-older brother Anthony, stole bikes and became accustomed to life as a hooligan. "I wasn't a good kid," Chambers said. "I was a wild kid."

To remove her children from a fast Southern California environment, Rena moved the family to Pleasant Grove when Tim was 14.

A few months later, when Tim began high school, he ran into Hoover. The baseball coach grasped the scruffy, skateboarding California kid, whose hair ran down to the middle of his back, by the nape of his neck.

Hoover asked, What do you want? Chambers said he wanted to become a professional baseball player or, at least, be a part of the game, in some way, when he got older.

"You're not going to do that being the person you are today," Hoover said. "If you want to do those things, I want you to do everything I tell you to do for the next four years. Then you'll achieve those goals you set for yourself.

"And the first goal is to cut your hair."

Chambers cut his hair. At that first practice, Chambers -- a left-hander -- ran to play third base. Hoover shrugged. He couldn't be moved to first, already manned by one of the area's all-time best players, so Hoover sent Chambers to the outfield.

Hoover figured to run Chambers off within two weeks. Chambers, though, listened to Hoover's every suggestion about baseball, school and life, matriculated through four colleges and eventually established himself as Bishop Gorman's baseball coach.

When Chambers was hired at CCSN, before the baseball diamond and facility had even been designed, he predicted it would become a "powerhouse" and play in a World Series within three to five years.

"He ended up being the hardest worker I ever coached," Hoover said. "He hung in there, man, and made himself into an unbelievable player, in center field. I don't know what he would have done without baseball. He was going down the wrong path."

Upon Tim's graduation from Pleasant Valley, Rena moved back to Oklahoma. The following year, when he was attending Dixie College, Tim visited his mother during Christmas break when Connie called Rena.

He wanted to see his youngest son. Tim relented, but Rena insisted.

"He came over, and he was shaking," said Tim Chambers. "I'm 185 pounds, a college athlete. And he's 5-foot-6 and a drunk. He was shaking in fear that I'd beat him up. He tried to get involved in my life. But John Hoover's my father, not him.

"He had a heart attack and died at the age of 52. I don't even know the date, six years ago? He was a heavy alcoholic. He'd sit on a bar stool, sometimes, for seven or eight days straight without getting up. Ultimately, that ended his life."

Connie gave Tim some financial support through college, and the two occasionally played golf. They talked on the telephone, but only when Tim rang. When he got married in 1990, Tim vowed not to call Connie as a test.

The next time Tim came in contact with his father, Connie was in that casket in Oklahoma.

The only father figure that Chambers has ever known, Hoover attended the Coyotes' Scenic West Athletic Conference tournament-clinching victory at Lied two weekends ago and will be at Suplizio Field in Grand Junction this weekend.

"I talk with a lot of his old teammates and people who knew him, and everyone says, 'Can you believe what that guy's done, knowing his roots?' " Hoover said of Chambers. "He's done it all by himself, and he hasn't had anything given to him. He's worked his fanny off. He's done it the hard way, the right way."

Chambers moved his mother to Las Vegas to live with him, his wife and 9-year-old daughter a year ago, and he said it would be difficult to imagine where he'd be today without the influence of his mother and Hoover.

"I could be in jail," Chambers said, "or out digging ditches."

After 30 years at Pleasant Valley, Hoover, 52, retires June 7, and Chambers will be a keynote speaker at the ceremony.

"I place my success on what my kids do after they leave me," Chambers said. "What did they do with their college opportunity? Do they get their degrees? How many became productive citizens in our community?

"Those are the things I weigh heavily, teaching young people to be productive citizens and good people. That's what I'll talk about at his retirement. Not baseball. It's the influence he had on me outside the game that made me the person I am today."