Basketball coach hangs up whistle
Majority of Jim Feltham’s 50 seasons spent with Deer Lake’s Elwood Lakers
There’s something about Jim Feltham that might surprise some people given he’s been coaching basketball for 50 years.
“I wasn’t a very good basketball player,” said Feltham, who for the bulk of those 50 years has coached the Elwood Lakers at Elwood Regional High in Deer Lake.
It hasn’t been a continuous 50 years, as Feltham said he took time off a couple of times, but at 75 he has decided this will be his last season.
“Fifty is a nice round number,” he said with a laugh.
When he was growing up in Glovertown, badminton was the sport he played, but basketball was the sport he loved.
His fascination with basketball began with listening to Johnny Most, the voice of the Boston Celtics, on the radio.
“We used to have this big ole battery radio back in 1962, no television, no electricity. I’d be there, probably the only guy in Newfoundland listening to the Boston Celtics.”
When he went to university at Memorial in St. John’s, Feltham played some intramurals, while a lot of his buddies played on the varsity or junior varsity basketball teams.
“And I watched every game Memorial played while I was at university,” he said.
Feltham’s first go at coaching was while teaching in Lewisporte in 1964-65. He then returned to university and finished his education degree and moved to Deer Lake in 1969.
That was the first year he coached the Lakers.
The next year, he headed to Alberta, where his wife, Audrey Feltham, is from and taught at Bowness High School in Calgary, where he coached the Grade 9 team.
After two years he returned to Deer Lake to teach English at the high school, and in 1973 started coaching the Lakers again.
For a time, he coached both the boys’ and girls’ teams, and once attended 19 tournaments in one year.
He even coached his own daughters, Miriam Sheppard and Sarah Feltham.
He retired in 1997, but for the next 10 years travelled to Alberta, Manitoba, Nunavut and Labrador to teach and, along with it, coach.
He returned to Deer Lake for good in 2009 and started coaching the Lakers again.
PASSION FOR THE GAME
A former player and now one of his assistant coaches, Troy Coish, remembers Feltham as being stern but fair.
Since started coaching about six years ago, he has gained a lot more appreciation for what Feltham does. Coish said the biggest thing he has learned from Feltham is understanding the players.
“Looking out for everyone as a whole and not just individual players.”
Savior (Saj) Joseph also saw the fierce side of the coach when he played for Feltham just a few years after Coish.
“He was fiery and competitive,” said Joseph, who now lives in Halifax.
The Lakers are a 3A team and in his final year Joseph, one of the team’s top players, pushed to have the team play at the 4A level. That was something Feltham believed in doing if he felt he had a strong team and that earned him respect.
Coaches like Charlie Barker and Joseph’s own dad, P.C. Joseph, who died in 2013, taught him and other players skill development from a young age.
“Because of all the dedication and the effort that those coaches put in, there’s a lot of kids now who are in much better positions than they would have been without them,” said Joseph.
Joseph’s basketball career didn’t end in Deer Lake when he graduated in 1997. He went on to play for Acadia University, where he studied business administration, and was the all-time leader in assists in the school’s history, a conference all-star and a most valuable player. He later had opportunities to play in Europe, but knew he’d taken basketball as far as he could and decided to use his skills for other things.
But basketball is still a part of his life, as chair of basketball at Armbrae Academy and in coaching his nine-year-old son, Micha Joseph — M.J. for Michael Jordan.
NOT DONE YET
Feltham said he’s finishing his coaching career with a great bunch of boys.
They won the gold medal at home at the 44th annual Elwood Invitational in November. This year’s provincials for the 3A are in Pasadena, and 4A is at Gonzaga in St. John’s, so depending on the situation with the COVID-19 pandemic the team will have to decide if they’ll continue to play at the 3A level or move up to 4A.
“The 4A is the only thing I haven’t won in all these years,” said Feltham. He doesn’t know how he’ll feel when he leaves the court for the last time but expects it will be emotional.
Basketball will still be in his future, though only as a fan.
His grandson, Jacob Sheppard, is in Grade 8 and plays in St. John’s.
“I never get to see Jacob play because I’m always on the road with my team here,” Feltham said, adding he’s looking forward to that changing.
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