Crim: Wootten carves own niche at Bishop O’Connell while following in legendary father’s footsteps

QUINCY. — Joe Wootten returned the phone call from his car four hours before his Bishop O’Connell High School boys basketball team was scheduled to play Fairfax (Va.) Christian in a Monday afternoon matinee.

The severe winter storm that descended upon the Washington, D.C. area earlier this month forced teams to postpone and reschedule games. This would mark the fourth game in seven days for the Knights, who will then turn around and fly from their Arlington, Va., home to play twice this weekend in the seventh Quincy Shootout.

It’s a grueling stretch, even by their standards, but it’s part of the job and coaching basketball is what Wootten was seemingly born to do.

“My wife says I’m organized in basketball and nothing else,” he quipped.

The youngest of five children, Joe grew up hanging around the gym while his father, Morgan Wootten, coached at DeMatha Catholic High School.

Morgan Wootten won 1,274 games (against just 192 losses) and five unofficial national championships over 46 seasons at the school in Hyattsville, Md. He never had a losing season and failed to win at least 20 games just once. Only Robert Hughes of Fort Worth (Texas) Dunbar compiled more coaching victories (1,333).

The elder Wootten’s teams won 33 Washington Catholic Athletic Conference (WCAC) championships and 22 Washington city titles. He also was among the founders of the McDonald’s All-American game, and the summer basketball camp he started with 20 campers in 1962 that bears his name is now the oldest and largest in the country, with 4,000 players participating each year.

He became the first high school-only coach to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000.

Joe, who now oversees both the McDonald’s All-American game and summer camp, was not yet born when his father went from successful coach to national celebrity on Jan. 30, 1965.

That’s the day DeMatha played Power Memorial, led by 7-foot-2 Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdual-Jabbar), in sold-out Cole Field House on the campus of the University of Maryland. Power Memorial had won 71 straight games, including a 65-62 victory a year earlier over DeMatha.

As John Feinstein of the Washington Post later wrote, Morgan Wootten had his players use tennis rackets in practice to simulate what it was like to shoot over Alcindor’s reach. DeMatha played all five starters the entire 32 minutes and won 46-43. All five went on to play Division I college basketball.

Feinstein, writing after Morgan Wootten’s passing in 2020, noted the list of college and NBA stars to play for the coach is long. Sid Catlett and Bob Whitmore, two of the starters against Power Memorial, played at Notre Dame, as did future Hall of Famer Adrian Dantley.

Sidney Lowe and Dereck Whittenburg started on Jim Valvano’s 1983 NCAA championship team at North Carolina State. Danny Ferry played on three Final Four teams at Duke and was the 1989 national player of the year.

“He was a very normal guy, and I say that as a compliment,” Joe said when asked what it was like to grow up with a legend as a father. “I played for him, coached with and against him, and was his business partner.

“I was fortunate to learn a lot from him. He was just a great leader. He treated all his players like sons. He had a unique way to make everybody feel important.”

Joe was a senior on DeMatha’s 1990-91 team that went 30-0 — one of only two undefeated teams in Morgan’s tenure — and won the Washington city title to finish ranked fifth nationally. He walked on at Maryland before a shoulder injury his sophomore year ended his playing career.

“I was 19 and told my dad I would like to coach,” Joe said. “He had me take over the JV summer league team and I fell in love with the connection with the kids. It was what I was supposed to do.”

After graduating from Maryland in three years, Joe spent one season as a restricted earnings coach at Furman University in South Carolina. He returned to DeMatha in 1995, and a year later was his dad’s top assistant.

Morgan had wanted his son to replace him at DeMatha once he retired — he stepped down following a 32-win season in 2001-02 — but Joe struck out on his own in 1999 and took over another WCAC program, Bishop O’Connell, that had enjoyed little success, winning just six games the season before.

That soon changed.

The Knights won 30 games for the first of four times during Joe’s third season and are on a pace (14-5) to reach at least 20 wins for the 16th time this season. Bishop O’Connell has captured three WCAC regular-season titles, two WCAC tournament crowns and five state championships under Joe.

Now 52, Joe can notch his 550th career victory either Friday night against Booker T. Washington from Tulsa, Okla., or Saturday night in a marquee matchup against Quincy High School.

To put that win total in perspective, five of the 10 WCAC teams are currently in the MaxPreps top 25 national high school rankings, led by Gonzaga College High School at No. 4 and St. Paul VI at 17. Bishop O’Connell is ranked 18th.

“It’s like the Big 10 — no off nights,” Joe said. “There are bigger games some nights, but no off nights. The only difference is that the worst team in our league has three Division I players rather than seven.”

Bishop O’Connell, coming off a 24-win season, has five players averaging between 8.1 and 11.6 points per game. Junior guard Darius Bivins, the leading scorer, already has received about 40 college offers, including from Rutgers, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

“He’s one of those guys who won’t wow you the first time you see him, but he has a very good feel for the game,” Joe said.

The coach says 6-foot-3 sophomore guard Makel Minor “can really shoot it” and “will be a big-time player.” Another guard, 6-foot-5 senior Shane Lincoln, “is a slasher who can get to the rim and is a good off-ball defender.”

The Knights have more size in 6-foot-8 Wyatt Norton and 6-foot-10 Liam Koelsch, both seniors, at forward. A pair of 6-foot-5 players, senior Aiden Caulker and junior Justin Edwards, come off the bench.

“We have a good collection of guys who really like each other and take advantage of who has the hot hand and who has the mismatch,” Joe said.

Bishop O’Connell played in a preseason tournament in Las Vegas. It opened the regular season by splitting two games in the Thanksgiving Hoopfest in Texas. It lost twice in the Hoopfest in Paradise in the Bahamas and swept all three games in the Beach Ball Classic in South Carolina in December.

“We have played a monster schedule,” Joe said, pointing out the Knights already have played nine games against teams in the MaxPreps top 25. “We wanted to test ourselves. We play in the best conference in the country. We have to be ready for our league and a tough schedule gets you better.”

That’s why he added the Quincy Shootout to the schedule when the opportunity arose. The host school is ranked No. 1 in Illinois Class 4A.

“I’ve heard about the great fans and gym and passion of the town,” he said. “We’re super excited about it.”

Joe, who has been a featured speaker at clinics around the country, said he has relied on many of the same principles his father taught.

“He’d always say it’s the fundamentals,” Joe said. “When in doubt, stick with the fundamentals. The game has changed, but the fundamentals are the same.”

That not only has enabled him to help 75 players go on to play in college, but 15 former assistants are either high school or college head coaches, college assistant coaches, or, in one instance, a Division I athletic director.

“It’s all about relationships, which is what my dad did so well,” Joe said. “Try to set a high standard for young men as people and help them get to college and move along in their careers. Surround yourself with good people — good coaches, good players, good families.

“Every year is a new challenge, a new group of kids. We have a motto: ‘What can I do today to get better?’ That’s the challenge of life, to be better today. If you had a bad day yesterday, then strive for a good day today. And if you had a good day yesterday, then let’s have a great day today.”

Sound advice from a son following in his father’s legendary footsteps.