Longtime Truman basketball coach Billy Guinnee dies after playing hoops with his kids
Billy Guinnee had an iron-fist sort of reputation during his 13-year tenure as the head boys basketball coach at Truman High. But that represented his exterior persona only, say those who knew him best.
His longtime assistant coaches will tell you how his least favorite day of each season was “cut day.” How he could handle the finality of a season or even the tougher losses. But telling a kid he wouldn’t make the team?
“He would get physically ill over it,” said Nathan Jacobson, who coached in his program for a decade. “It was never just about basketball with him — he saw that it was about life. He always saw the importance of the difference he could make in a kid’s life.”
That will be his lasting legacy.
Guinnee died Friday. He was 58.
His death was every bit as unexpected as it was devastating to the Truman basketball community in Independence. Guinnee became ill while playing basketball with his kids in the driveway. An ambulance drove him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. A heart attack is suspected, but the cause of death won’t be known until an autopsy is completed, according to his family.
Funeral arrangements are pending, and a GoFundMe has been started to raise funds for the services.
Guinnee, who had retired from Truman in 2016, leaves behind his wife, Jami, and two kids — 14-year-old Gunnar and 10-year-old Dayton.
“In a way, it was a beautifully tragic way to pass,” said Simon Morefield, who played for Guinnee before later coaching as one of his assistants. “The things he loved the most, it was basketball and his kids. You wouldn’t hear him talk music or politics or whatever else. It was always about his boys and basketball. It’s what he lived for. You think about all the ways you can go, to be surrounded by the things he loved the most ...”
His voice broke before he could complete the thought. “I’m sorry,” he said. Those who spoke with The Star by phone Monday did so with regular interruptions of tears and deep breaths.
“My God,” said Jimmy Page, his longtime assistant. “This is a hard one.”
They knew Guinnee as a a fiery, compassionate coach who had studied as a 12-year assistant under Steve Broughton, who died in 2015 after a battle with cancer.
When Page learned his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, Guinnee organized school fundraising. Soon, Page had cash and gift cards to local restaurants. “He’d give you his last $5 if you needed it,” Page said.
When one of his players’ fathers became in such poor health that he could no longer care for his son, the student had the option of moving back to the inner city with his mother or live in a group home. Guinnee offered a Plan C — the player lived in his basement for more than a year instead.
And those cut days. Man, he hated them. The coaches each carried clipboards during tryouts, rating players on a number of attributes. As they met to discuss who would and wouldn’t make the team, using the numbers as a guide, Guinnee always considered non-basketball criteria.
Personal circumstances.
“He knew there were kids who needed the program more than the program needed them,” Jacobson said. “That mattered to him.”
Morefield, a member of the first team Guinnee coached at Truman, played collegiality at Graceland. He has since became a head coach at Plattsburg.
His style? It mimics Guinnee’s.
“As a person, he was such a caring man, but he was the best at saying just one word and having the gym go silent,” Morefield said. “He had such an ability to command respect, but he loved every kid like his own, and his kids played with passion and energy for him because of the energy he brought to the gym every day.
“He understood his players. He understood every player is different; every player goes home to a different situation. If I’ve taken anything from Billy, it’s that. Empathy.”
This story was originally published June 1, 2020 at 8:07 PM.