Metro hoops community mourns loss of Goulet
Back when he was coaching boys high school basketball with Richmond's McNair Marlins, Paul Eberhardt named a particular offensive play after his Pitt Meadows Marauders counterpart, Rich Goulet.
Eberhardt called the play “Gooch,” after a nickname that Goulet was always lukewarm on at best, and Eberhardt admits to having found a certain satisfaction in bellowing it out to his McNair players in the middle of a game against Pitt Meadows and then looking down the floor to see Goulet shaking his head at him.
Truth be told, the play-naming was a tribute to a mentor. Eberhardt spent two summers early on in his coaching career working as Goulet's assistant with provincial teams. He says that it was a play that Goulet had taught him
Eberhardt has considerable company in learning from Goulet. He coached for more than 50 years in this province, and often ran two or even three teams during a season. He also founded and administered Steve Nash Youth Basketball in Pitt Meadows.
Goulet died Sunday. He had experienced several health issues over the past few months, including vascular disease that led to his right leg being amputated above the knee. He was 74.
“The number of people who have reached out to me on social media to share stories has been amazing,” Eberhardt, a vice-principal of the West Vancouver District Premier Academies as well as coach of the Langara men's team, said Monday.
“As sad as it is, I've gotten a lot of joy over the past couple of days talking about him.”
Rich Chambers is someone with Goulet stories. He was one of Goulet's closest friends in basketball. He was also one of his longest-standing coaching rivals.
They had first met up on the court in 1972, when Chambers was guiding a junior boys Moody
Jr. side and hosted a tournament at his Port Moody school in which Goulet enrolled his Burnaby-based St. Thomas More squad.
Goulet's Marauders would go on to duel for years with Chambers when he was guiding Coquitlam's Centennial Centaurs and then Port Coquitlam's Terry Fox Ravens in the Fraser Valley North senior boys league.
Chambers went to Goulet's home the morning after the Marauders won the triple-A provincial championship in 1989. Goulet didn't have much time to talk, since he had a full day of kids' basketball to coach.
“Rich didn't want any pats on the back,” Chambers said. “He was excited that they had won the provincials. He was. But he was also on to the next thing. He was on to thinking about that next provincials. That was Rich.”
Goulet was inducted into the Basketball B.C. hall of fame in 2012.
Both Chambers and Eberhardt say that the gym at Pitt Meadows should be named after Goulet.
He did have a messy split from the school. In a September 2017 Postmedia story, Goulet said he was asked by the school's principal to resign over complaints from some parents that he was too hard on players, only to have other parents step up and ask for him to return, which he did for a time. But after a school district investigation he was asked to resign again, which he did.