“Bob Riley: The Legend of Caen Basket Calvados and his Love Affair with France”

In his dreams, he still hears the clamor from the spans of the Palais des Sports, when up to 4,500 people gathered to support Caen Basket Calvados in its exploits. We are in the 70s, and the Norman club is experiencing its hours of glory, marked in particular by three podiums in the French championship of the first division from 1976 to 1979, and a semi-final of the European Cup in 1978. A man emerges from this magical period for basketball fans in Caen: Bob Riley and his famous number 13.

Nine years at the CBC

The native of Columbus, Ohio, now 74, wore the CÉBEC colors of 1972 to 1981. Nine seasons all played at the Palais des sports. So inevitably, the approach of the last match in the emblematic room of the CBC makes him like a little twinge in the heart. The Caen club challenges Orchies this Friday April 28, 2023 (8 p.m.), in the first round of the playoffs. In September, the team will move into the brand new room under construction near the Zénith.

In the NBA a few months earlier

“In my memories, I particularly remember my first match at the Sports Palace in 1972”, recalls the former interior, which had tasted the NBA a few months earlier with the Atlanta Hawks. It also comes from the past a victory over Berck in 1973, who will finish champion of France a few weeks later. “I also remember the successes at Villeurbanne or Le Mans, and the European Cup matches. »

Images race through his head. The sounds also come back to him, with the sometimes unreal atmosphereborn from the encouragement which found a formidable sounding board on the metal structure of the room.

During my years in Caen, I always experienced an extraordinary atmosphere at the Palais des Sports. The palace was most often crowded, with an audience that has always been behind its team, in victory as in defeat.

French love

Fans who lived through those times and arrived early before games remember the 2.08m American giant’s routine. He used to, before each home game, to walk up and down the grandstand steps for 30 minutes, without stopping. He was sometimes accompanied in this exercise by two players with whom he has long kept in touch: Dan Sadlier who now lives in Dayton, Ohio, and Ansley Truitt who spent his retirement in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he is died in February 2021.

After his years in Caen, Bob Riley went to Cognac. There he continued his love affair with France, whose jersey he also wore 27 times in the national team. In Cognac, he became a coach with a rise to Pro B as a result. It is also there that he started another professional career, in… cognac.

Back in the United States in 2002, he became Purchasing Director for Pernod Ricard Americas. “We took advantage of this professional transfer to get closer to the children who were studying in the United States. His wife, Daniele, then had the opportunity to take early retirement from the BNIC (Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac).

“Bravo to the city of Caen”

They now benefit from the family and in particular their two children, Philippe, who works in Atlanta, and Isabelle, who after a doctorate in French, exercises in Charlottesville, Virginia. It is from Fayetteville in Georgia, a city known to host the Trilith studios (Spiderman, Avengers…) and where they have been established since 2017, that Bob Riley and his wife will follow the CBC playoffs.

“Congratulations to the city of Caen for building a new sports hall! Such a structure will allow athletes to reach the heights! The former Mayor, Jean-Marie Girault, would have been happy to attend this inauguration. I wish a maximum of victories to the clubs of Caen in their new palace, with so many good memories that I had the chance to have during my stay in Normandy! »

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