It’s been 40 years since Jerry Vermillion coached his last basketball game at Saint Martin’s.
Twelve of his former players gathered this week to pay tribute to Vermillion, who coached the Saints from 1963-70 and was inducted into the school’s hall of fame in 1991.
“He had the ability to put that fire in your belly,” said Vince Strojan, a 6-foot-3 guard for Vermillion who owned the Saints’ career scoring record for more than four decades. “He had this way of motivating you.”
Vermillion’s life was inspirational. When he was 15 and growing up in Montana, he was thrown by a horse while working on a cattle ranch, breaking his ribs and injuring his back. Scoliosis set in, leaving him with a hunched back.
“It happened right when I was growing,” he said.
Doctors didn’t permit Vermillion to turn out for basketball until his senior year in high school. When he did, it was enough to catch the attention of a Gonzaga coach.
And halfway through Vermillion’s freshman year at Gonzaga in 1952, he moved into the starting lineup.
By the end of his career in 1955, he was Gonzaga’s all-time leader in scoring and rebounding. He’s still No. 1 in rebounds with 1,670, 760 more than the second-leading rebounder. He’s now 10th in scoring with 1,547 points.
“He taught us how to be physical inside,” Strojan said.
Now 79 and living in Union on the Hood Canal, Vermillion is retired, finally.
Last year, he sold his oyster farm with 1,200 feet of shoreline on Puget Sound. Before that he sold an RV park near Chehalis.
“It’s been an interesting journey,” he said.
Eight years after pulling down his last rebound as a Bulldog, Vermillion became Saint Martin’s head men’s basketball coach in 1963. He took over a struggling program that lost more than it won.
But with his brother, Greg, as an assistant coach, and with his accomplishments at Gonzaga as his foot in the door with recruits, Saint Martin’s turned into a winner. Eventually, Vermillion strung together four consecutive winning seasons in the mid-1960s, still a school record.
“These guys here carried us,” Vermillion said, pointing to his former players sitting around a table at O’Blarney’s Pub in Olympia.
Vermillion coached seven years of high school basketball before coming to Saint Martin’s, three at Westport and four at Shelton.
“There wasn’t much of a program here when I first arrived,” Vermillion said. “They were down and out. It took a while to get it going.”
After going 5-19 in his first year, Vermillion’s team won 11 of its last 13 games and finished 11-15 in his second season, proving to recruits they could win at Saint Martin’s. Vermillion’s prized recruit was Strojan, who turned down an offer from Oregon State to play at Saint Martin’s to be on the same team as his brother.
“Vince could do everything,” Vermillion said. “He was the best all-around player I ever had.”
But it was Mike Bruner, a 6-5 jumping-jack of a center from Gig Harbor who was among Vermillion’s early recruits, that helped the Saints turn the corner.
“Mike averaged a double -double,” Vermillion said. “He was small, but he was strong.”
Early on at Saint Martin’s, Vermillion scrimmaged with his players, schooling them on boxing out and defensive positions. He could dunk until he was 47.
“Jerry was a great coach and an amazing man,” said Mike Endicott, who played baseball and basketball at Saint Martin’s in the mid-1960s. “He knew how to motivate a team.”
Gail Wood: 360-754-5443 gwood@theolympian.com
