BASKETBALL: Bears legend Herman is a hit in America

HERMAN HARRIED has a one-touch telephone number on his mobile. It's Michael Jordan's. And the greatest player ever to have shot a ball through a netted ring now has Worthing on his own world basketball map.

That is because Harried, twice a Worthing Bear, the second time in the 1990s Three-Peat team, has gone on to become an elite coach in American high school hoops.

Once he had coached the multi-nation team, who meet the American one annually in The Jordan Classic high school all-star game, Jordan had no hesitation in reappointing Harried for a second year to play-call the showpiece at the New York Knicks' home court of Madison Square Garden.

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Harried recently returned to Worthing to share the glow of his greatest season in 12 years of coaching since retiring after he had thrilled fans across Britain in the 1994 Play-offs Final at Wembley Arena.

Now the PE teacher and athletics director of Lake Clifton HS in his home town of Baltimore, he has coached his boys into young men, and to Lake Clifton's maiden Baltimore State title '” and as only the third team in its history to have done so unbeaten. The Lakers added a 5-0 play-offs record to a perfect school and regional conference record 23-0 regular season.

They retained the Baltimore City Championship, added the regional title, completed back-to-back unbeaten seasons, and ranked 18th of the more than 40,000 USA high schools. Harried was named coach of the year alongside his guard-forward, Will Barton, who was player of the year.

Harried, 44, schooled at Lake Clifton's rivals, Dunbar HS, and was a Syracuse University Orangeman in the US national college NCAA Final.

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Then, as a 6ft 7in, left-handed power-forward with a seismic catalogue of exploding dunks, he made Worthing history alongside Three-Peat starters Alan Cunningham, Colin Irish, Cleave Lewis and Steve Nelson, after he replaced centre Kalpatrick Wells in 1993-94.

No Worthing player has gone on to move and work in such exalted basketball circles. Yet, before this elevated close-season commenced, Harried was urgently returning to Worthing to look up old friends.

He told me: "Worthing is like a second home to me. I've made lifetime relationships here. Revisiting means a lot to me. I'm getting older and tomorrow's not promised. I just want to get to see people while I can.

It's a long journey, but if I could come here for just one day it would be worth the trip.

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"I didn't only care about Worthing when I played here. I care about it now. I want to feel part of Worthing for the rest of my life. When I left here, I knew I would come back. I know a lot of Americans don't do that."

Harried has had a golden year. Yet, he emphasised to me: "As well as the Baltimore State title, the second highlight of my year was the cancer awareness charity game I put on at the school for the first time."

In tough American city schooling, Harried's work goes way beyond the basketball court: "I select a final 15 for the year, from 100 in a public try-out. I'm hard on these guys. They are my children. It'll hurt me but it has to be done. No exceptions. No privileges. It's made clear."

So Harried has moved on from Worthing basketball to become part of the USA's bedrock ability to breed not only winners, not only champions, but great sportsmen of outstanding integrity.

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It is being an ultimate example of this that singles out Michael Jordan in world sport. And he plainly sees Harried as nurturing the legacy Jordan himself has bequeathed.

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