From basketball to golf, Feeley was unconventional and loved

Don Feeley liked to plant pansies each spring and loved to make egg sandwiches for his three daughters. Grilled the onions, broke the eggs into a little frying pan, with cheese on top. Had to be on an English muffin. Had to have ketchup.

“He served them as the ‘Feeley Special,’ ” his daughter Dawn Fox said Wednesday. “It was our thing.”

It is 6,302 air miles from Fairfield to Khartoum, Sudan, and this was 38 years ago. A man, who would split his career coaching basketball and teaching golf, stepped over a hill in Africa and caught his first glimpse of a 7foot-7, 190-pound stick figure. The greatest “Feeley Special” J. Donald Feeley served to the world went by the name of Manute Bol.

“I remember my dad said ‘This is going to be a gamechanger,’ ” Fox said.

Feeley, who lived his final two decades in Woodbury, died Friday at age 82. And when I called longtime Sacred Heart coach Dave Bike, his successor at SHU in 1978, for a column on Feeley, Bike had a quick answer.

“Just one?” he said. “Don was a unique individual. He was ahead of a time in a lot of his thinking. I remembered how he pushed for getting rid of consolation games (in tournaments). They told him, ‘ You can’t do that. It’s sacrilegious.’

“He wasn’t afraid to say sacrilegious things. He (was) always looking for something innovative. He was one of four men who were most instrumental in my career. And as I’m talking about him, I’m smiling.”

So you weren’t surprised he discovered the tallest player in college and NBA history in Sudan?

“I wouldn’t have been surprised by anything Don Feeley did,” Bike said.

Feeley, who received his master’s degree in physical education at Bridgeport, got his coaching start at Fairfield Warde High School. Bike was just completing his senior high school year at nearby Notre Dame as Sacred Heart started varsity sports in 1965-66. Feeley became the school’s athletic director and head basketball coach. Bike, who had signed a pro baseball contract with the Detroit Tigers, wasn’t allowed to play any other sports by the NCAA. He couldn’t play basketball at Fordham. He went to Sacred Heart as a student.

And a coach.

“I was Don’s assistant coach as a freshman in college,” Bike said. “I coached the freshmen and assisted him with the varsity. It was only Don and I. Did it for two years. It was a unique experience.”

Feeley was only 28 at the time.

Bike said Feeley was always looking to adapt to new things. He ran the shuffle offense, a predecessor of modern motion offenses. With Sacred Heart not fully funded for athletic scholarships, Feeley would recruit kids who needed financial aid.

“He’d say, ‘Warm fuzzies and cold pricklies,’ ” Bike said. “You know how some people say you get more with honey than vinegar? He was an easy-going guy. He knew how to stroke the guys.

“He knew the game. He was a tactician. He also let the guys play. He was encouraging. He wasn’t throwing chairs or getting in kids’ faces.”