When word got out Sunday that Flip Saunders was dead, I dug through a dresser drawer, pulled my gold wedding band out of a box buried under some socks and smiled.

I am still married — happily, as far as I know — and have been for going on 23 years. I love my wife; it’s the ring I’m not fond of. That’s why it’s in a box instead of on my finger. The ring represents a lesson Flip taught me as much as it does the bond I share with my wife. I’ll explain in a moment.

But first, the back story. In the early 1990s, I left the deep south for the first time to become sports editor at the La Crosse Tribune in La Crosse, Wis., and barely had settled into my seat when I got a phone call from someone saying, “Flip wants to meet you.”

Before Flip was a big-deal NBA coach and part-owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves, he had to pay his dues. And one of his stops was La Crosse, where he coached the Catbirds in the Continental Basketball Association from 1989-94.

The CBA was a roguish league of has-beens and never-weres, with enough wiggle room to give an edge to a smart guy willing to hustle. That was Flip.

On the court, he was always teaching players the way he expected them to play. And he spent most of his time off the court working the phones with his multitude of basketball contacts, looking for the best players you never heard of.

It wasn’t unusual to see a player arrive on the bus in La Crosse in the morning, practice with the team that afternoon and either suit up for a game that night or get back on the bus headed back to nowhere.

To fill out his 12-player roster, Flip’s lineups featured 30 or 40 guys every season. In the end, the team was always better. He won a couple of CBA championships in La Crosse and contended for the title every other year.

You knew Flip was headed for bigger and better things back then, but he never let on that he knew, too. He was too involved in the moment, teaching his players, refining his roster. Just coaching.

Catbirds games were a big deal in La Crosse. I know what you’re thinking: bumpkin league in a bumpkin town. And maybe that’s true. But it didn’t feel that way when sellout crowds kept turning out to see Flip’s team.

Everybody in La Crosse loved Flip — media, players, fans, even most of his opponents — because you could feel his enthusiasm about basketball, about life, about you.

A year after his stint in La Crosse, Flip was coach of the Timberwolves, right where we figured he’d be. A year after that, he started an eight-year run in the playoffs with what had been the worst team in the NBA. Flip made it, big time.

But early in the 1992 season, he was just coaching another game in the CBA. I covered many of his games and was stationed courtside a few seats down from Flip. I had just returned from my honeymoon and still was adjusting to that ring on my finger. I never kept it on for long, fiddling with it endlessly, twirling it between my fingers.

Well, it popped out of my hand during that game and started rolling and rolling and rolling across the court, like a penny that didn’t know whether to land on heads or tails. When it finally came to rest, it was at midcourt, and players were zipping back and forth. I just sat there, watching, waiting, dreading the next moment, when some 6-foot-10, 230-pound behemoth would slip on my ring and break his neck.

The third time players zoomed past midcourt, Flip rose from his seat, slowly walked onto the court, bent down and picked up the ring. He walked over to me and with a smirk said, “You might need this.” He tossed it into my hands, and just like that, was back coaching his team, yelling and pointing at players, arms flailing, as if nothing had happened.

I have told that story dozens of times over the years, and during the first few accounts, my wife was none too pleased, understandable for a new bride looking for the proper amount of commitment from her spouse. But over the years, she — we — came to appreciate the story of Flip rescuing the ring more than the ring itself, and it became acceptable for me to keep the ring in a place other than on my finger.

And if that’s not saving a marriage, I don’t know what is. Thanks, Flip.

Tad Reeve is sports editor of the Pioneer Press. You can reach him at treeve@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5239.