When Dave Bennett talks about success, he rarely starts with championships.

That might seem unusual for a man whose coaching résumé includes more than 500 victories, eighteen regional championships, eleven sectional titles, a sectional record that, in the Class 1A era, can never be broken. A 1991 state championship, and induction into the Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame.

But Dave Bennett grew up in Martinsville. And in Martinsville, the work came first.

Growing up on a 300-acre farm outside of town, he learned that early. "When you live on a 300-acre farm with a family, and you've got livestock, you learn how to work," he said. There were no travel leagues then, no private trainers, no year-round camps. Improvement was a matter of personal initiative. For Bennett, that meant a telephone pole, a wooden backboard, and a rim.

That's where the work happened.

After graduating from Martinsville in 1960, he attended Evansville College, now the University of Evansville, playing football for four years and basketball for two. His basketball career ended somewhat abruptly when a young man from McLeansboro arrived on campus: Jerry Sloan.

"Jerry Sloan showed up to play basketball. They didn't need me on that squad anymore."

Evansville basketball won several college division championships in that era. Bennett watched from the football field and filed it away.

From there, he went to Western Military Academy in Alton. 300 kids living in barracks, reveille every morning and where he spent three years teaching and coaching football, basketball, track, and wrestling while serving as athletic director. "It was a great learning experience," he said. After that, five years in the Alton public schools working under football coach Ed Yopkis, followed by a season at Proviso West. Nine years of being an assistant, learning from every coach he encountered.

Then came Pittsfield.

He stayed for 23 years.

The teams won nearly 80 percent of their games. They made it to the Elite 8 four times, going home with hardware only once, in 1991, when they beat Rockford Luther on Friday and won every game in the state tournament by double figures.

The record stands as the best it can ever be now. Eleven sectional championships in single-class basketball, a number that simply cannot be surpassed.

And yet when he describes those years, the statistics yield quickly to something else.

A player from the Class of 1979 stopped by recently and brought his whole family out from California just to show them where he'd grown up, and Bennett's house was one of two stops they made. A 1985 graduate gathered some old teammates together for a visit. At the 25th anniversary celebration of the 1991 championship team, fourteen of the seventeen players showed up. They came from all over.

"Stuff like that, you feel pretty good about when that happens," he said.

The philosophy behind those relationships was never complicated. "It's got to be more than just winning. It's got to be those showing up day after day, trying to get better, willing to sacrifice a lot of time and effort to develop the skills necessary to be successful."

He also made that case to the people running the sport.

When Dave got onto the IHSA basketball committee, he pushed for a rule change, expanding the state tournament travel roster from 12 to 15 players. Not so that more kids could dress. Just so they could be there. "I don't care whether they play or not," he said. "They get a chance to have that experience, be part of it." The rule passed. "I can at least say I put my name on that."

Hundreds of kids have ridden that bus since.

The influence continued in the way it always does. A former Pittsfield player named Matt Ellage went on to win extensively at Highland and is now in the Basketball Hall of Fame. The current coach at Pittsfield is one of Bennett's former players. His son Lee built a powerhouse program at Centralia and one Dave still talks about with visible pride.

When Dave tells Lee he does a lot of the same things they used to do, Lee says, "Oh, Dad, they're all new."

Bennett laughs. He knows better.

He is 83 years old. He played golf recently until the rain stopped him. He keeps in touch with former players by text. He still gets to Centralia for the occasional game.

The village that gave him his foundation sent him outward. He took what it gave him and multiplied it through two sons who chose careers around helping young people, through former players who became coaches themselves, through a rule change that filled three extra seats on every state tournament bus.

"There are good people in Martinsville," he said. "Always have been."

From where he stands now, that's where it all started.

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