Basketball linchpin Hardnett dies

Doug Overton was sitting in his car Tuesday night on 50th Street in West Philadelphia outside John Hardnett's apartment.

"This cold night, there are so many people coming here - coaches, players, young kids who John influenced," said Overton, an assistant coach with the New Jersey Nets.

Hardnett, 56, may not have been a household name, but to the Philadelphia basketball community, he was a linchpin figure. He was a longtime Sonny Hill League coach, and his workouts at gyms all over the city attracted budding high school stars and NBA talents for more than three decades. He was a constant presence at city basketball games, bringing the next generation of ball players to Big Five games.

After Hardnett didn't show up for a workout Tuesday, he was found dead at his apartment, according to friends. The cause had not been determined.

"I know he was looking pretty run down the last couple of weeks," said Lee Berry, director of the Mallery Playground in Germantown. "He was up here all the time. He had started walking around with a cane."

His death hit a lot of people hard.

"I'm 40 years old; I've been with John since I was 10," Overton said. "That's 30 years. He introduced me to basketball. He taught me everything I know about basketball. But it wasn't just basketball. It was life, getting off the streets, everything. I was just a kid. He took me to the Sonny Hill League. I got to see basketball on a bigger scale."

"This is going to be a major loss," said Berry, who played for Hardnett in 1975. "A lot of young kids and a lot of pros depended on him to work them out."

"I think it goes well beyond the city," said St. Joseph's coach Phil Martelli. "There were agents who helped their guys get ready for the draft; they sent players to John. College coaches all over the country, if they had a Philadelphia kid, they would tell them to go see John. He touched the Temple program, and he equally touched the St. Joe's program and the Villanova program and the La Salle program. It's a real loss for the Philadelphia community. This is the smallness of Philadelphia basketball and also the breadth of it."

Martelli was driving home last night from an Atlantic Ten Conference meeting in Williamsburg, Va. Temple coach Fran Dunphy was his passenger.

"He was a unique character, in what he did and how he helped so many of these young guys," Dunphy said. "I've talked to a couple of them tonight. They're pretty torn up."

A reporter was at La Salle in June 2008 to watch one of Hardnett's workouts. That summer, Michael Beasley had been showing up, sent by his agent. That day, former Temple guard guard Mardy Collins teamed with Duke guard Nolan Smith, facing Tasheed Carr, then of St. Joseph's, and Ramone Moore of Temple, part of a three-on-three game. At one point, former longtime foreign pro Terquin Mott was chirping in the ear of soon-to-be La Salle center Vernon Goodridge about a missed defensive assignment as Goodridge covered Ahmad Nivins, then of St. Joe's.

"When you come here, you're not coddled," Hardnett said that day.

Overton's son was working out with Hardnett.

"I saw him on Friday; he had a workout at St. Joe's," Overton said. "That was a nice influence."