When, why to call them has long been a source of debate

Zillah girls basketball coach Mindi Winters instructs her team during a timeout earlier this season.   ANDY SAWYER/Yakima Herald-Republic file

Many who follow the game, after all, regard Wooden as the standard against whom all other mentors are measured. He wasn't known as the Wizard of Westwood for nothing.

Two of the winningest coaches the Yakima and Kittitas valleys have known,
however, are among those who readily take issue with something Wooden once said regarding the use of timeouts.

"The first theory I would want to blow up,"
Ellensburg's Pat Fitterer said, "is the one where John Wooden used to say, 'Never call the first timeout.' If there are 10 all-Americans in the country and they're all at your school, I'd say maybe you'd adopt that philosophy. But for the rest of us, it doesn't make sense."

Said Fitterer's personal mentor, Dean Nicholson, "If you're coaching players like Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) and (Bill) Walton, you might not need many timeouts early. You might not need many, period."

But aside from Wooden's UCLA dynasty, coaches have long debated the use of timeouts -- when (and when not) to use them, how to use them, and how to avoid feeling like a motorist in the middle of nowhere who's running out of gas: Coaches everywhere fear getting caught in a tight spot, late in a game, with no timeouts left.

There is a worse fate, of course. Remember Chris Webber's ill-advised timeout request in the final seconds of Michigan's 1993 NCAA title game with North Carolina? The Wolverines, down 73-71, had used their allotment and were thus assessed a technical foul, which effectively clinched the Tar Heels' victory.

Ray Funk, meanwhile, has different rules for different times of the season.

The Yakima Valley Community College men's coach is more reluctant to rein in his troops in the season's formative stages, preferring to let them sort out their struggles on the court.

"I like to let our guys play early," he said. "As the year goes on, you hope they've learned how to play through their mistakes."

In the NWAACC Tournament, however, it's a different story.

"If the other team goes on a 6-0 run," Funk said, "it's an automatic timeout. And if that means we burn 'em all in the first half, then we're just not good enough to beat that team anyway."

YVCC women's coach Cody Butler follows a similar philosophy, although he admits to a rather radical departure earlier this season.

"At Wenatchee, I took a timeout in the first 10 seconds," Butler said. "We'd drawn up a game plan and then went out and started the game doing the exact opposite."

Fitterer, who began his 34-year career at Highland, and went from there to Kentwood, Sehome and Eisenhower before taking over this season at his alma mater, has never been shy about blowing the whistle, so to speak, on his
teams early in games.

Asked if he'd stopped games in the first minute, Fitterer said, "That's very possible. I've even had a couple of games where I'm sure we've taken maybe two in the first three minutes. You get in a situation where if you wait any
longer, the game will be over.

"It's always nice to have at least one at the end of a game, but on the other hand if we're playing Wapato and they get ahead 19-10, I might call two or three in the first quarter just to stop their momentum and keep our kids in the game."

Nicholson, a master at managing games through his days at Central Washington and YVCC, along with the CBA's Yakima Sun Kings, would sometimes use a different tactic to stop the bleeding.

"I preferred to do that by substitution, actually," he said. "A lot of times a guy could come out of a game and collect his thoughts, then go back in and do a better job."

And here's yet another variation on that theme. Fitterer recalled a coach who would sometimes call time when his team was in the midst of a run.

"He'd call time when his team had it going," Fitterer said, "to let his kids sit down and feel good about themselves."

But of course by game's end, with scores tightening, fans screaming and heads spinning, coaches must often make split-second decisions regarding whether or when a timeout should be used.

Most frequently debated is a situation in which the other team makes a field goal or free throw to take a one-point lead with 10 or so seconds to play.

What then -- call time or let your team improvise?

Fitterer: "Take it and go. I don't want to give the other team's defense an opportunity to set up."

Funk: "To be honest, my feeling on that has varied by teams. My more mature teams with a lot of second-year guys, especially guards, we would let 'em go. We try to work on special situations like that once a week."

Butler: "Usually, no (timeout). But you have to keep in mind that if we have players like Rosetta (Adzadsu) and Elyse (Mengarelli), who were good at creating their own shot, you let them go. But if you still have a timeout and it looks ugly when you get past midcourt, go ahead and call it."

And Central Washington's Greg Sparling: "I think it depends on whether your team's mature or not. And a lot of times you just have to go by the feel of the game.

"If you're rolling, you just take it and go. If you're struggling, you might get it to halfcourt and call a timeout. Another thing to consider is if you're on the road and it's loud as a son-of-a-gun, you might call time and explain things so no one goes AWOL."