Jack Herbertson’s teams won three state high school basketball championships in the 1960s at Kamehameha Schools, but his legacy was the coaching tree he nurtured at Kapalama.

“He could be a very intimidating, very direct individual, but he taught you very important lessons about discipline, fundamentals, conditioning and teamwork that stayed with you,” said John Sabas, one of about a dozen ex-players who followed Herbertson into coaching.

Three of them — Al Apo, Clay Cockett and Jim Winchester — combined for nine state high school championships in boys and girls basketball. Another, volleyball hall of famer and Olympian Pedro “Peter” Velasco, created and coached the Lokahi Volleyball Club to prominence.

Herbertson, 88, died in June from a prolonged illness in Fort Collins, Colo.

Velasco was a senior from Papakolea in 1955 when Herbertson was freshly arrived from Wyoming, and they soon clashed one day at basketball practice over fundamentals and attitudes. “I thought he was a jackass,” Velasco said. “We had a one-on-one (argument) right away. But we respected each other and, as I got to know him, I saw that he had a good heart and we became very, very close. He helped so many local kids (across parts of three decades) in any way that he could.”

Herbertson placed Velasco at the University of Denver on a basketball scholarship, Sabas, Apo and others at Colorado State and schools from his native Rocky Mountain area, where he had extensive contacts.

“If it wasn’t for him a lot of us wouldn’t have been able to go to college,” Velasco said.

Activist Walter Ritte said had it not been for Herbertson, “I don’t know if I would have gotten through (Kamehameha). It was a very different time on campus then, very military with ROTC and everything. Coming from Molokai I was an independent kind of person. I had problems following orders. But, playing basketball for him, I had to learn discipline and to follow orders.”

Ritte, who went on to play basketball at the University of Hawaii, said, “He guided us, kept us out of trouble and made sure we had specific goals in mind.”

Players said they came to fear Herbertson’s wrath — which was usually signaled by a sharp “dang it!” — whether it was on the basketball court, in junior varsity football, which he also coached, or in the classroom, where he taught math.

“You learned to be afraid of the flying (chalkboard) eraser,” Cockett said. “But he had a soft side, too.”

Behind the bark was an attention to detail and precision of purpose that paid off in seven trips to the state finals. Herbertson’s teams won boys state titles in 1962, ’63 and ’65. In doing so, the Warriors parted the dominance of Walter Wong’s Saint Louis School teams, who won four titles (1961, ’66, ’67 and ’68) in an eight-year span, the last three with the “Twin Towers” of Jim Nicholson and Howie Dunnam.

“I know that many Kamehameha students were touched by his guidance,” Apo said. “He definitely got me interested in coaching and a lot of what he taught us rubbed off on me.”

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.