New London — Imagine Craig Parker, the man they call “Chop,” his scowl on the sideline as much a part of his makeup as his assortment of green and gold button-down shirts, riding a bicycle through the streets of New London to see his then-future wife play in a women’s league basketball game.

“A Tour de France kind of thing,” Missy Parker said this week of her husband. “I was playing in a women’s league at Toby May. He rode his bike there. I just remember he was all in his bicycle gear. I said, ‘Oh, wow, he takes this serious.’

“When he does something, he does it all out.”

Parker was on his bike, as well, the day New London High School boys’ basketball coach Ralph Roggero offered him a job as New London’s assistant coach prior to the 1988 season.

He got the girl and began the coaching career that lasted a lifetime, both riding the custom JP Weigle he once used for runs all the way to New Haven and back.

There is a lot behind the scowl.

For 29 seasons, following Roggero, Parker was the head coach of the New London boys’ basketball team, through 515 victories and four state championships. Those are the obvious things to associate with him.

There’s also Parker, the family man and father of four: CJ, Matt, Marissa and Caylee.

There’s Parker, the lifelong New London resident, who has long admired the city’s lighthouses and who, following the Whalers’ 2011 state championship, remained loyal to his roots by celebrating that night at local hangout Mr. G’s.

He was a fan of the legendary Kareem Abdul-Jabbar since he was Lew Alcindor.

He kept a journal during his time at New London, which includes his list of the program’s all-time players, picking first, second and third teams.

The upcoming school year will be New London’s first without Parker, 70, following his retirement from the position on May 18. Athletic director Jim O’Neill hired Parker, by then a seven-year assistant, to replace Roggero before the 1995 season and Parker responded with a Class M state championship.

O’Neill describes the scope of what Parker accomplished.

“I have never been happier about someone I hired than I was when I hired him,” said O’Neill, on hand last season to see Parker amass his 500th win. “His record really speaks for itself. He carried on his duties, he brought dignity and respect to the profession and he did it with more than aplomb.

“He was a shining example to this town. This town should be so proud of his legacy, one of the most successful coaches in New London High School history, and there wasn’t a hint of indiscretion about this man. The man performed his duties with all the respect he could possibly imagine.

“Life lesson to a lot of people.”

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O’Neill, also a lifetime resident of the city, doesn’t mean to be smart-alecky with his answer, asked what’s so special about New London.

“There’s a connection. You want me to explain it? I can’t,” O’Neill said. “It’s hard to articulate that the town has a history of taking care of each other. It goes back a long way.”

Here’s where we hear from Parker, who, asked where he’d like his portrait taken for this story, chose the cityscape from the area of Fort Trumbull.

“It’s not just the high school, I think it’s the town,” Parker said. “I mean, I’ve hitchhiked across the country more than once, so I’ve seen a lot of the country and cities and towns. I’ve been in the middle of nowhere.

“I find New London is just a unique place. It’s just a unique little town. Why? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s six square miles (of land), some of it’s water and we have three colleges in this little town. Most communities in this country don’t even have a college. We have three in six square miles.

“The people here are unique, just the diversity of the people, just the water, being on the water, you know? At the end of the day we’re just this quintessential little New England seaport town. A lot of the quintessential seaport towns in New England don’t have the issues we have, but at the end of the day, that’s what we are.”

Parker, the youngest of six children of the late Robert and Mildred Parker, grew up in a neighborhood near State Pier.

He was a 1972 graduate of New London High, where he was an All-Capital District Conference defensive back. He played under legendary coach Jim Buonocore Sr. and alongside program great Tommie Major, a freight train at linebacker.

But it was basketball that stuck.

“Between my freshman and sophomore years, one of my older brothers took me to the park and he taught me how to shoot a jump shot. So I went out for the team my sophomore year and I had this jump shot which I shot at a high percentage. I could not miss. I’m being honest,” Parker said.

Parker first coached at the youth level — spurred on by Reggie Wheeler, whose son Tyson, then in the 9-12-year old preteen league, went on to become one of the best Whalers of all-time — then as Roggero’s assistant.

CJ Parker was a part of the New London High bench, where he kept statistics growing up, reminded by his father even at a young age that “at the end of the day this is business, make sure I’m putting my best foot forward.”

Parker, the coach, has an intuitive sense when it comes to the game, Parker, the son, said.

“He’s been flexible,” CJ Parker said. “My senior year’s team (2014-15), we had Seth (Lake), and Collin (Sawyer), me, Bryan Cespedes (a 6-foot-7 offensive lineman). Next thing you know, my dad comes up with a matchup zone (defense) and we go 23-1. He can adjust to what’s in front of him.

“... When you watch a basketball game on TV with my dad, he says what’s going to happen. It happens. If he says, ‘Call a timeout’ and they don’t call a timeout, he yells at the TV. He’s made some gutsy calls as a coach that worked out.”

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There is Parker, the coach, the one with the furrowed brow. He spent three years in the U.S. Army beginning at the age of 24 and said they tried to get him to stay and attend Officer Candidate School.

“I had had friends growing up who wouldn’t want to come to my house,” CJ Parker said.

Jason O’Reilly, a member of Parker’s first state championship team, got off to a rough start with the man who would one day become his coach. O’Reilly was in seventh or eighth grade when his mother sent him into the high school locker room to retrieve his older brother Mike, a member of the boys’ basketball team.

“I knew coach Parker from the rec days,” said O’Reilly, a Columbia University grad who is now baseball coach and principal at John Bapst Memorial High School in Maine. “Everybody knew him as ‘Chop.’ My mother sent me in and I called him ‘Chop.’ That didn’t go very well. ... He was intense, kind of quiet-intense; you knew he meant business.”

New London’s state championships came in 1995, 2004, 2005 and 2011.

The 1995 team beat a loaded Trinity Catholic squad 49-43, with Trinity Catholic boasting UConn-bound Rashamel Jones and Earl Johnson, headed for Rutgers, while New London employed an offense which spread the floor, slowing the pace to the Whalers’ benefit.

New London’s 2004 title came against Holy Cross in the Division III championship game 64-57, one year after the Whalers finished 5-15. One year later, they conquered Wethersfield for the 2005 Division II title 72-68 behind 25 points from Kareem Brown.

Then came the Kris Dunn era, the future first-round draft pick of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves, now of the Utah Jazz. Dunn averaged 26.5 points per game as a junior, with New London capping a 27-0 season with a Class L championship over Northwest Catholic (63-55) in 2011.

“First of all, it’s an honor just to speak about coach and to be part of his legacy and to know him and everything,” said former Whaler Allan Chaney, a 2008 graduate who played at Florida and Virginia Tech before being sidelined due to his health.

Chaney moved to New London from Baltimore when he was 15 and lived with his grandmother, Sara Chaney.

“At first when I met (Parker), it was a little rocky,” Chaney said. “He was always firm and solid in his beliefs. If you were selfish, if you weren’t selfless, if you came in with the attitude it was all about you, he wasn’t for it.

“That’s one thing I took away from him, it’s not about yourself. I came here to New London and I instantly became a winner.”

Parker went 515-174 for a winning percentage of .747. There were 13 20-win seasons, two undefeated state championship teams (2005, 2011), 12 Eastern Connecticut Conference tournament titles, 11 trips to the state semifinals.

Parker’s teams made 10 straight appearances in the ECC championship game from 2004-13, winning six straight. New London fashioned a 40-game win streak between 2004-06.

“What I cultivated was our tradition,” Parker said. “Tradition. We set a standard. Catholic schools are one thing. Public schools, we’re at a different playing level. Let’s be perfectly honest, in terms of public schools in the state of Connecticut, we’re right up there.”

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Parker, known as “Chop” for as long as he can remember, smiles easily now, displaying a full complement of teeth.

He talks of maybe driving with Missy, who is the head volleyball and softball coach at New London, to see his sister Donna in Los Angeles.

He adds the idea of getting involved in refereeing basketball games at the middle school or freshman levels, then lets go with a deep laugh when he’s asked what the reaction of his fellow overtly competitive high school boys’ basketball coaches would be to see him coming with a whistle.

This is the “Chop” his friends see.

“He’s coach Parker,” said New London grad D.J. Exum, currently the head coach at Ledyard High School. “Off the court, ‘Chop’ is a completely different person. He’s a really funny guy, a great story-teller.”

Exum, who coached as Parker’s assistant at New London, is one of a legion of Whalers who keep in touch with and remain loyal to the program and its recently retired coach.

Upon being taken in the first round of the NBA Draft, for instance, Dunn opened his suit jacket to reveal the word “Whalers” sewn into the lining.

“He basically took me in like family,” said Chaney, who has three children of his own and runs a nonprofit in New London called Positive Adversity Youth Services. “I only had my grandmother here. They always welcomed us over to have dinner. He invited us over plenty of times. ... ’Til this day, I still talk to coach Parker. It’s been a blessing always.”

Parker attended Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. He worked as a state school instructor for more than 20 years in Connecticut, teaching job skills, then did the much same at New London High School for 14 years, working with students.

Dave Cornish, a New London grad and a nine-year assistant under Parker, was named on June 22 as Parker’s successor.

“Someone that shows you can stay dedicated to New London, that you can follow your passion, follow your dreams and stay in New London,” CJ Parker said of his father’s legacy.

“I think at the surface there’s been so much success on the court, but it’s really the off-the-court part to me that’s the most impressive. We need role models, Black male role models. He coached rec basketball for a long time. He’s just as excited coaching those kids ... his passion is just helping the youth and he’s done that.”

v.fulkerson@theday.com