Today's article for The Washington Post -------
GREENSBORO, N.C. - A little more than 24 hours before he went past Dean Smith on the all-time wins list for college basketball coaches, Mike Krzyzewski threw his team out of practice.
"I didn't just get angry," he said that afternoon. "I worked my way up to being really angry."
All of which may explain, at least in part, why Duke's 108-62 rout of UNC Greensboro on Wednesday night was Krzyzewski's 880th career victory - one more than Smith and 22 fewer than Bob Knight.
Soon after telling his players they were soft and spoiled and nowhere close to being ready to play in the ACC, Krzyzewski got on a private plane and flew to Washington to watch a high school junior play. That night he was back on the practice court, giving his players a chance to show him they weren't as soft and spoiled as he had told them they were.
At 63, Krzyzewski still gets angry and he's still relentless. He completely understood the significance - especially in the state of North Carolina - of his 880th win because of his respect for Smith and because of how his career at Duke began.
Click here for the rest of the column: Mike Krzyzewski: 880 wins won't dampen his drive and respect for Dean Smith
Showing posts with label Dean Smith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dean Smith. Show all posts
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Not wanting to break the story, I can now discuss Dean Smith
I knew the day would come when I would have to write about Dean Smith’s health. I made the decision last fall that I would not be the first one to write about it or talk about it because I felt my understanding of the situation had come about because of Dean’s willingness to cooperate with me on a biography. We had started working on the book last August.
I had known before then that Dean wasn’t Dean anymore. By that, I mean he no longer had the most remarkable memory of anyone I had ever met. As far back as 2005 he had commented to me when I was researching ‘Last Dance,’ that he knew his memory wasn’t what it had been. Back then though it was still better than most.
There were plenty of stories that he was struggling after he had knee surgery three years ago, that the surgery had not gone that well and there had been neurological issues. A number of people I knew at North Carolina had said to me at times, ‘it’s not good.’ It really hit me that he must not be well when he didn’t come to The Final Four in Detroit to watch the Tar Heels win the national title in 2009.
That was when I sat down with Rick Brewer, who has been one of Dean’s confidants at Carolina for almost 40 years and told him I thought the time was now or never if I was going to do the book on Dean I had always wanted to do. Rick agreed and that led to the meeting I had with Dean in May of 2009. Was it apparent he wasn’t the Dean Smith I had covered dating to my days in college, someone who remembered everything, had an answer for anything and who was always the smartest guy in the room but never felt the need to prove it?
Yes. But he was still Dean; still smart and still funny even with the memory lapses. I was absolutely convinced there was still time for me to do the interviewing I needed to do to write the book, especially since I had spent so much time with him in the past and knew so many of the people who had played important roles in his life. When Dean said yes to the book, I was thrilled.
The sessions I had with him in August were difficult—more difficult, to be honest, than I anticipated. There were still moments when he was classic Dean. His description of the night he met his first wife, Ann, was hysterical: “It was the graduation dance. She came with a football player I didn’t like. The guy was really cocky. I decided to ask her to dance and we hit it off right away.”
Typical Dean; his competitiveness led him to the altar.
But there were other moments when he simply couldn’t remember things. When I asked him to talk about Bob Spear, his first boss at the Air Force Academy, he said, “you tell me about him. Maybe it will come back.”
I left knowing two things: I was going to need more time with him than I’d thought because, unlike in the old days when the only thing that slowed down an interview was Dean asking you something like, ‘why would you ask that question? I don’t see why that’s important,’ there were now long stretches where he simply couldn’t remember details that once came easily to him. And second, I was going to need more help from his friends than I had initially thought.
I talked to both Roy Williams and Bill Guthridge about the sessions I’d had with their old boss. Neither was surprised. “It’s an important book to do,” Bill said to me. “People down here understand what he accomplished that has nothing to do with basketball but I’m know there are a lot of people who don’t understand. It should be done. He’s such a remarkable person.”
Roy, of course, felt the same way. They both said they’d help in any way they could and told me that if I was patient, they were convinced it could get done. That was exactly what I planned to do.
Dean, through his long time assistant Linda Woods, had provided me with phone numbers for all his family members. It was when I started contacting them that I realized I had a problem. They were, understandably, concerned with how the time involved would affect Dean’s health.
I had a long talk with Dean’s son Scott, who at one point offered to sit in on the sessions. That would do two things: it would allow him to make sure his dad was doing okay and not getting too fatigued and it might help him jog his dad’s memory on certain things. I thought it was a great idea. One thing was clear in my dealings with Scott and with Linnea, Dean’s wife: they understood why those who cared about Dean wanted to see the book done and, I think they knew that Dean trusted me to do the book the right way. But I think their concerns about his health out-weighed all of that.
Which I completely understand. After a number of conversations with them and with Rick Brewer and Roy Williams and Bill Guthridge I came to the conclusion that I would be pushing an envelope, which, since I’m not a doctor, I really didn’t completely understand if I kept trying to move forward. I thought briefly about suggesting that I do the project without interviewing Dean any further. Given all the past interviews I had done with him, if I had the cooperation of everyone else involved, I could still write the book. But that didn’t feel right: the agreement Dean and I had was to work together on the book. It was what I had always wanted to do. Going forward with him only being peripherally involved felt wrong.
So, regretfully, I decided not to go forward.
Naturally I’ve been asked about the progress of the book by a lot of people since then. I’ve simply said that Dean’s health became an issue—an honest, but incomplete answer. As I said, it has hardly been a secret in North Carolina for a long while but it wasn’t until last week when The Fayetteville Observer published a story about Dean’s memory problems that it was really talked about in the public domain.
As I said, this was one time when I had absolutely no interest in breaking a story. That’s in part because of how and why I knew the story but also in part because the story is so sad. The Fayetteville story said Dean has good days and bad days. At the very least he had some very good moments last August.
And there was one moment I will always cherish. At one point we took a break. While I was waiting for Dean to come back, my cell phone buzzed. I wasn’t going to answer it but when I looked at it I saw Lefty Driesell’s number come up. I thought Dean would get a kick out of talking to Lefty. When Dean came back, I told him I was talking to Lefty and handed him the phone. (I then had a brief notion that I’d screwed up because he might not remember Lefty. But he did).
While they were talking I could hear Lefty say, clear as a bell, “Dean I can’t believe you’re gonna do a book with a Duke guy.”
Dean laughed. “I don’t think of him as a Duke guy,” he said. “I just think of him as a good guy.”
It only took me 32 years to get him to say that. It was worth the wait.
------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
I had known before then that Dean wasn’t Dean anymore. By that, I mean he no longer had the most remarkable memory of anyone I had ever met. As far back as 2005 he had commented to me when I was researching ‘Last Dance,’ that he knew his memory wasn’t what it had been. Back then though it was still better than most.
There were plenty of stories that he was struggling after he had knee surgery three years ago, that the surgery had not gone that well and there had been neurological issues. A number of people I knew at North Carolina had said to me at times, ‘it’s not good.’ It really hit me that he must not be well when he didn’t come to The Final Four in Detroit to watch the Tar Heels win the national title in 2009.
That was when I sat down with Rick Brewer, who has been one of Dean’s confidants at Carolina for almost 40 years and told him I thought the time was now or never if I was going to do the book on Dean I had always wanted to do. Rick agreed and that led to the meeting I had with Dean in May of 2009. Was it apparent he wasn’t the Dean Smith I had covered dating to my days in college, someone who remembered everything, had an answer for anything and who was always the smartest guy in the room but never felt the need to prove it?
Yes. But he was still Dean; still smart and still funny even with the memory lapses. I was absolutely convinced there was still time for me to do the interviewing I needed to do to write the book, especially since I had spent so much time with him in the past and knew so many of the people who had played important roles in his life. When Dean said yes to the book, I was thrilled.
The sessions I had with him in August were difficult—more difficult, to be honest, than I anticipated. There were still moments when he was classic Dean. His description of the night he met his first wife, Ann, was hysterical: “It was the graduation dance. She came with a football player I didn’t like. The guy was really cocky. I decided to ask her to dance and we hit it off right away.”
Typical Dean; his competitiveness led him to the altar.
But there were other moments when he simply couldn’t remember things. When I asked him to talk about Bob Spear, his first boss at the Air Force Academy, he said, “you tell me about him. Maybe it will come back.”
I left knowing two things: I was going to need more time with him than I’d thought because, unlike in the old days when the only thing that slowed down an interview was Dean asking you something like, ‘why would you ask that question? I don’t see why that’s important,’ there were now long stretches where he simply couldn’t remember details that once came easily to him. And second, I was going to need more help from his friends than I had initially thought.
I talked to both Roy Williams and Bill Guthridge about the sessions I’d had with their old boss. Neither was surprised. “It’s an important book to do,” Bill said to me. “People down here understand what he accomplished that has nothing to do with basketball but I’m know there are a lot of people who don’t understand. It should be done. He’s such a remarkable person.”
Roy, of course, felt the same way. They both said they’d help in any way they could and told me that if I was patient, they were convinced it could get done. That was exactly what I planned to do.
Dean, through his long time assistant Linda Woods, had provided me with phone numbers for all his family members. It was when I started contacting them that I realized I had a problem. They were, understandably, concerned with how the time involved would affect Dean’s health.
I had a long talk with Dean’s son Scott, who at one point offered to sit in on the sessions. That would do two things: it would allow him to make sure his dad was doing okay and not getting too fatigued and it might help him jog his dad’s memory on certain things. I thought it was a great idea. One thing was clear in my dealings with Scott and with Linnea, Dean’s wife: they understood why those who cared about Dean wanted to see the book done and, I think they knew that Dean trusted me to do the book the right way. But I think their concerns about his health out-weighed all of that.
Which I completely understand. After a number of conversations with them and with Rick Brewer and Roy Williams and Bill Guthridge I came to the conclusion that I would be pushing an envelope, which, since I’m not a doctor, I really didn’t completely understand if I kept trying to move forward. I thought briefly about suggesting that I do the project without interviewing Dean any further. Given all the past interviews I had done with him, if I had the cooperation of everyone else involved, I could still write the book. But that didn’t feel right: the agreement Dean and I had was to work together on the book. It was what I had always wanted to do. Going forward with him only being peripherally involved felt wrong.
So, regretfully, I decided not to go forward.
Naturally I’ve been asked about the progress of the book by a lot of people since then. I’ve simply said that Dean’s health became an issue—an honest, but incomplete answer. As I said, it has hardly been a secret in North Carolina for a long while but it wasn’t until last week when The Fayetteville Observer published a story about Dean’s memory problems that it was really talked about in the public domain.
As I said, this was one time when I had absolutely no interest in breaking a story. That’s in part because of how and why I knew the story but also in part because the story is so sad. The Fayetteville story said Dean has good days and bad days. At the very least he had some very good moments last August.
And there was one moment I will always cherish. At one point we took a break. While I was waiting for Dean to come back, my cell phone buzzed. I wasn’t going to answer it but when I looked at it I saw Lefty Driesell’s number come up. I thought Dean would get a kick out of talking to Lefty. When Dean came back, I told him I was talking to Lefty and handed him the phone. (I then had a brief notion that I’d screwed up because he might not remember Lefty. But he did).
While they were talking I could hear Lefty say, clear as a bell, “Dean I can’t believe you’re gonna do a book with a Duke guy.”
Dean laughed. “I don’t think of him as a Duke guy,” he said. “I just think of him as a good guy.”
It only took me 32 years to get him to say that. It was worth the wait.
------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Fred Barakat, ACC insider, passed away last night; Comments on the comments
Fred Barakat died last night. He had a heart attack at a hospital in Greensboro where he had just undergone knee surgery. He was 71 and had dealt with all sorts of health issues for the past several years.
Unless you are a big-time ACC basketball fan you probably have no idea who Fred was. But he played an important role in changing the college game. He came to the ACC in 1981 as the supervisor of basketball officials after 11 years as the coach at Fairfield University. His hiring was an out-of-the-box move by the ACC. Until then, almost without exception, the men in charge of basketball officials had been former officials. They had a tendency to be very defensive about the guys who worked for them, often because they were former colleagues and friends.
There was an aura of secrecy that surrounded college basketball officials. When I was in college, I did a story on officiating in the ACC—a controversial subject then as now—and I was able to talk to all seven conference coaches. (To be fair, I got Dean Smith to call me back by saying I wanted to give him the chance to respond to what Lefty Driesell had said and I got Lefty to return my call by saying I thought he should hear what Dean had said about him. When Lefty asked me what Dean had said, I fessed up and said I’d just told his secretary that to get him to call. Lefty said, “that’s pretty good son, you got me.”).
I couldn’t get anyone from the ACC to comment on officiating. No one. That was the norm until Fred arrived. From day one, he took every call he got—from coaches, from the media, from just about anyone. “I let them talk,” Fred once told me, talking about the coaches. “I knew how they felt because I’d been a coach. Sometimes when they were done I told them why they were wrong. Other times I had to tell them they were right and we’d try to do better. But I think they always felt better because I let them talk.”
According to the coaches he was right. “You always knew Fred would listen,” said Gary Williams, who has complained about ACC officiating as much as anyone through the years. “Sometimes you’d get pissed at him because he’d defend someone you thought shouldn’t be defended but he never cut you off, he never got impatient and you knew he wanted his guys to do better the next time. That’s really all you can ask.”
When Rick Barnes was at Clemson he got so frustrated with what he saw as Duke-Carolina bias in the officiating that he flew to Greensboro armed with tapes to show Barakat what he was talking about. Barakat sat and watched all the tapes with him, then showed him some tapes of his own. “I still wasn’t happy when we were done,” Barnes said. “But I left there knowing that Fred was conscious of what I was talking about. He gave me an entire morning and never flinched.”
“I let him vent,” Fred said later.
Fred was the same way with the media. He always returned phone calls. Sometimes he called YOU if he thought what you’d written was unfair or not entirely correct. He defended his guys but he also knew they weren’t perfect. He was disliked by a number of officials because he stopped giving them ACC assignments. Officiating was very much a good old boy network into the 1980s. Fred began working with younger officials, bringing them along so they could work bigger games. Occasionally they were put in over their heads and couldn’t swim. Others did swim and became very good refs.
Fred and I had our battles but it was more over the way he ran the ACC Tournament than his work with the officials. Fred thought the tournament needed more discipline. He hired a thuggish security company run by a thug and pretty much gave them the run of whatever building the tournament was in. Sadly, that company is still working for the ACC. Two years ago in Atlanta, the guy who runs the company decided the hallway that led to the locker rooms and the interview rooms should be off-limits to the media—it’s about 100 yards wide—until the players and coaches had reached the interview room after a game. That created a five-to-seven minute delay in starting postgame interviews with people scrambling on deadline. When I asked him why he needed such a rule in such a large building he said, “I don’t, I just decided to do it.”
When I told him that was a ridiculous and arbitrary decision he looked at me and said, “What does arbitrary mean?” He was serious.
That disagreement aside, I always liked Fred. He and I had an annual routine at The Final Four (now it can be told I guess) where he would tell me on Friday who the nine referees were for the weekend. The NCAA always tries to keep the names of the refs a secret (I think it has something to do with the way the games are bet on depending on who might be calling them) and it always gave me great pleasure to tell Hank Nichols, who was then the officiating supervisor, who his nine officials were for the weekend. Fred didn’t think Nichols ever selected enough of his guys. This was one little payback for him.
It also helped me to know who the officials were when writing my advance stories: certain guys were going to ref the game one way; others in a different way.
Fred was a gentleman—always. You could disagree with him, argue with him, even tell him his security company buddy was a thug and he’d tell you why you were wrong and when it was over you’d always shake hands and vow to have a drink together soon. Coaches respected him because he’d coached and he understood their frustrations. The media respected him because he never ducked a question and those he worked with him respected him because he worked hard and was fun to work with and work for. My old friend Tom Mickle nicknamed him, The ‘Cat,’ early on and it stuck because Fred was quick and smart and sly.
I always looked forward to seeing him, especially in recent years. He had retired but still had his hand in and knew what was going on in college hoops. He was a good resource to get an expert’s honest opinion on officials, especially those he had NOT worked with because he was completely unbiased. And he always had a good story to tell, one he would tell with a big smile on his face.
I’ll miss him. So will a lot of people.
******
Two notes to some recent posters: For those of you who are bothered by my criticisms of Tiger Woods—seriously—just don’t read the blog anymore. There are enough people out there willing to kiss Tiger’s butt for anything and everything that he doesn’t need me to do it and you don’t need to get all bent out of shape reading what I think about him. As one poster said: “Tom Watson good, Tiger bad, what a surprise.”
Yup, that’s the way I feel. I don’t think Tiger’s changed even a little bit since his fall from grace—one reason he will start winning majors again soon—and I do like and respect Watson. Has he lived a perfect life as one angry e-mail pointed out? No. Neither have I and I suspect neither have you. But he’s learned as much as anyone I’ve ever met from his failings and changed considerably through the years.
Am I biased? Of course I’m biased. As I’ve written before, we’re ALL biased. I’m just more willing than some of my colleagues to admit my biases and try to be aware of them. I’ve always recognized Tiger’s brilliance as a golfer (tough to miss) and thought of him as bright and someone with great potential to do good. His failure to do that—and please don’t tell me about his foundation, that exists for PR purposes as with so many athletes—with his money, power and platform disappoints me. Sorry if you don’t like that. Again, there are plenty of places to go to read about what a great guy Tiger is.
And, as for the one comment that when I wrote “a lot of guys,” thought Tiger was acting like a baby last Thursday that I got that from other media members or The Golf Channel people? Are you kidding me? Do you watch Golf Channel? My God, Tiger walks on water there most of the time to the point where I tease people there about it. And I do NOT quote other media members. I should have written “a lot of players.” I thought that would be understood. But believe me it was players who thought he was being a baby.
So, as I said, if my being critical of Tiger is that bothersome, go on his website and find comfort there.
Second: To the poster who wondered how much I got paid for the rights to ‘A Season on the Brink.’ Let me answer that this way: If giving back the money would have kept the movie from ever being seen, I would have done it in a heartbeat.
-------
John recently appeared on The Jim Rome Show (www.jimrome.com) to discuss 'Moment of Glory.' Click here to download, or listen in the player below:
------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
Unless you are a big-time ACC basketball fan you probably have no idea who Fred was. But he played an important role in changing the college game. He came to the ACC in 1981 as the supervisor of basketball officials after 11 years as the coach at Fairfield University. His hiring was an out-of-the-box move by the ACC. Until then, almost without exception, the men in charge of basketball officials had been former officials. They had a tendency to be very defensive about the guys who worked for them, often because they were former colleagues and friends.
There was an aura of secrecy that surrounded college basketball officials. When I was in college, I did a story on officiating in the ACC—a controversial subject then as now—and I was able to talk to all seven conference coaches. (To be fair, I got Dean Smith to call me back by saying I wanted to give him the chance to respond to what Lefty Driesell had said and I got Lefty to return my call by saying I thought he should hear what Dean had said about him. When Lefty asked me what Dean had said, I fessed up and said I’d just told his secretary that to get him to call. Lefty said, “that’s pretty good son, you got me.”).
I couldn’t get anyone from the ACC to comment on officiating. No one. That was the norm until Fred arrived. From day one, he took every call he got—from coaches, from the media, from just about anyone. “I let them talk,” Fred once told me, talking about the coaches. “I knew how they felt because I’d been a coach. Sometimes when they were done I told them why they were wrong. Other times I had to tell them they were right and we’d try to do better. But I think they always felt better because I let them talk.”
According to the coaches he was right. “You always knew Fred would listen,” said Gary Williams, who has complained about ACC officiating as much as anyone through the years. “Sometimes you’d get pissed at him because he’d defend someone you thought shouldn’t be defended but he never cut you off, he never got impatient and you knew he wanted his guys to do better the next time. That’s really all you can ask.”
When Rick Barnes was at Clemson he got so frustrated with what he saw as Duke-Carolina bias in the officiating that he flew to Greensboro armed with tapes to show Barakat what he was talking about. Barakat sat and watched all the tapes with him, then showed him some tapes of his own. “I still wasn’t happy when we were done,” Barnes said. “But I left there knowing that Fred was conscious of what I was talking about. He gave me an entire morning and never flinched.”
“I let him vent,” Fred said later.
Fred was the same way with the media. He always returned phone calls. Sometimes he called YOU if he thought what you’d written was unfair or not entirely correct. He defended his guys but he also knew they weren’t perfect. He was disliked by a number of officials because he stopped giving them ACC assignments. Officiating was very much a good old boy network into the 1980s. Fred began working with younger officials, bringing them along so they could work bigger games. Occasionally they were put in over their heads and couldn’t swim. Others did swim and became very good refs.
Fred and I had our battles but it was more over the way he ran the ACC Tournament than his work with the officials. Fred thought the tournament needed more discipline. He hired a thuggish security company run by a thug and pretty much gave them the run of whatever building the tournament was in. Sadly, that company is still working for the ACC. Two years ago in Atlanta, the guy who runs the company decided the hallway that led to the locker rooms and the interview rooms should be off-limits to the media—it’s about 100 yards wide—until the players and coaches had reached the interview room after a game. That created a five-to-seven minute delay in starting postgame interviews with people scrambling on deadline. When I asked him why he needed such a rule in such a large building he said, “I don’t, I just decided to do it.”
When I told him that was a ridiculous and arbitrary decision he looked at me and said, “What does arbitrary mean?” He was serious.
That disagreement aside, I always liked Fred. He and I had an annual routine at The Final Four (now it can be told I guess) where he would tell me on Friday who the nine referees were for the weekend. The NCAA always tries to keep the names of the refs a secret (I think it has something to do with the way the games are bet on depending on who might be calling them) and it always gave me great pleasure to tell Hank Nichols, who was then the officiating supervisor, who his nine officials were for the weekend. Fred didn’t think Nichols ever selected enough of his guys. This was one little payback for him.
It also helped me to know who the officials were when writing my advance stories: certain guys were going to ref the game one way; others in a different way.
Fred was a gentleman—always. You could disagree with him, argue with him, even tell him his security company buddy was a thug and he’d tell you why you were wrong and when it was over you’d always shake hands and vow to have a drink together soon. Coaches respected him because he’d coached and he understood their frustrations. The media respected him because he never ducked a question and those he worked with him respected him because he worked hard and was fun to work with and work for. My old friend Tom Mickle nicknamed him, The ‘Cat,’ early on and it stuck because Fred was quick and smart and sly.
I always looked forward to seeing him, especially in recent years. He had retired but still had his hand in and knew what was going on in college hoops. He was a good resource to get an expert’s honest opinion on officials, especially those he had NOT worked with because he was completely unbiased. And he always had a good story to tell, one he would tell with a big smile on his face.
I’ll miss him. So will a lot of people.
******
Two notes to some recent posters: For those of you who are bothered by my criticisms of Tiger Woods—seriously—just don’t read the blog anymore. There are enough people out there willing to kiss Tiger’s butt for anything and everything that he doesn’t need me to do it and you don’t need to get all bent out of shape reading what I think about him. As one poster said: “Tom Watson good, Tiger bad, what a surprise.”
Yup, that’s the way I feel. I don’t think Tiger’s changed even a little bit since his fall from grace—one reason he will start winning majors again soon—and I do like and respect Watson. Has he lived a perfect life as one angry e-mail pointed out? No. Neither have I and I suspect neither have you. But he’s learned as much as anyone I’ve ever met from his failings and changed considerably through the years.
Am I biased? Of course I’m biased. As I’ve written before, we’re ALL biased. I’m just more willing than some of my colleagues to admit my biases and try to be aware of them. I’ve always recognized Tiger’s brilliance as a golfer (tough to miss) and thought of him as bright and someone with great potential to do good. His failure to do that—and please don’t tell me about his foundation, that exists for PR purposes as with so many athletes—with his money, power and platform disappoints me. Sorry if you don’t like that. Again, there are plenty of places to go to read about what a great guy Tiger is.
And, as for the one comment that when I wrote “a lot of guys,” thought Tiger was acting like a baby last Thursday that I got that from other media members or The Golf Channel people? Are you kidding me? Do you watch Golf Channel? My God, Tiger walks on water there most of the time to the point where I tease people there about it. And I do NOT quote other media members. I should have written “a lot of players.” I thought that would be understood. But believe me it was players who thought he was being a baby.
So, as I said, if my being critical of Tiger is that bothersome, go on his website and find comfort there.
Second: To the poster who wondered how much I got paid for the rights to ‘A Season on the Brink.’ Let me answer that this way: If giving back the money would have kept the movie from ever being seen, I would have done it in a heartbeat.
-------
John recently appeared on The Jim Rome Show (www.jimrome.com) to discuss 'Moment of Glory.' Click here to download, or listen in the player below:
------------------------------
John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
Sunday, April 4, 2010
(Updated with championship game preview) Washington Post columns -- Butler sticking to the script; Coach K and Dean Smith similarities
From Monday's The Washington Post
INDIANAPOLIS- There are a number of people here who have grown tired of the comparisons being drawn between Butler 2010 and Milan 1954 -- the Indiana high school team whose story was made into the stuff of legends by the movie "Hoosiers."
Those people are going to have to deal with it -- at least for one more game, and perhaps forever if Butler can beat Duke in Monday's national championship game at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Duke is, without question, the opponent a screenwriter would choose for Butler in this game. The Blue Devils are to college basketball what Muncie Central was to Indiana high school basketball 56 years ago. They are the power team, the one with the superstar coach and the swagger of a team most people will expect to win a fourth national title when they play the Bulldogs.
What's more, the way the two semifinal games played out on Saturday night will give people reason to shake their heads and say that Butler has had a great run that is bound to end against the Blue Devils.
Butler scraped by Michigan State, 52-50, on pure grit. With two starters injured for most of the game's last 10 minutes, the Bulldogs had almost no offense. After a Willie Veasley steal and dunk put Butler ahead 44-37 with 12:18 to play, the Bulldogs made one field goal--a layup by Gordon Hayward with 1:36 to go after Shawn Vanzant had somehow grabbed a Hayward miss and gotten the ball back to him--and scored eight points in all down the stretch.
Click here for the rest of the column - Butler has the talent to upset Duke in the NCAA championship game
------------------------
From Sunday's The Washington Post
INDIANAPOLIS - When Milan beat Muncie Central in 1954 to win the Indiana high school state championship in arguably the most famous game in basketball history, the final score was 32-30.
That game took place about six miles from Lucas Oil Stadium. On Saturday night, in the opening game of the Final Four, Butler and Michigan State almost recreated "Hoosiers," -- without Bobby Plump hitting the winning shot. It was Gordon Hayward, who is to Butler what Plump was to Milan, who made the Bulldogs' only field goal of the last 12 minutes 18 seconds, but this was a game about missed shots, not about a made one.
"I really didn't think 15 for 49 was a great way to approach this game," Butler Coach Brad Stevens joked after his team had survived those shooting numbers to win, 52-50. "I never would have dreamed that we would have won the game that way."
They did win the game, though, with outstanding defense, with a critical offensive rebound late in the game, with a little bit of luck and perhaps a final push from the officials.
As is bound to be the case on a night when the teams shot a combined 33 of 91 from the field, the game came down to one possession.
With Butler leading 50-49, Ronald Nored had a layup go in and out. Michigan State called a timeout with 23 seconds left and -- not surprisingly -- tried to punch the ball inside to try to get the lead. Draymond Green caught the ball in the lane and went right at Hayward, who at 6 feet 9 plays inside on defense and often brings the ball up against pressure on offense.
Green went up and so did Hayward. The ball rolled off Green's fingers and came up well short -- an air ball from six feet -- with the Michigan State bench screaming for a foul. Given that the officials had been calling fouls on just about anything resembling contact all night, it probably wasn't an unreasonable hope.
Click here for the rest of the column: Butler is just one victory from another storybook ending
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From Saturday's The Washington Post
INDIANAPOLIS - In March 1993, Duke and North Carolina played each other in Chapel Hill in a game with all sorts of national ramifications. Duke was the defending national champion. North Carolina was ranked No. 1 in the country.
Early in the game the two coaches, Mike Krzyzewski and Dean Smith, both clearly uptight, were up on every whistle. After several minutes, lead referee Lenny Wirtz had seen and heard enough. He called Krzyzewski and Smith to the scorer's table.
"I know it's a big game," he said. "I know you're both a little hyper. But you have to calm down and let us work the game."
Smith nodded. Krzyzewski did not. "Lenny, there's 21,000 people in here who are all against me," he said. "You three guys are the only ones I can talk to."
Wirtz laughed. Smith did not. "Lenny, don't let him do that," he said. "He's trying to get you on his side."
Krzyzewski glared at Smith, who glared back. Krzyzewski stalked back to his bench and said to his assistant coaches, "If I ever start to act like him, don't ask a single question, just get a gun and shoot me."
Time to round up the guns.
That's not to say that Krzyzewski has morphed into his former arch rival, but as he has become older, more successful and more famous, it is clear that he has come to see the world through a prism far more similar to Smith than he might ever have imagined.
Click here for the rest of the column: Final Four 2010: It's not so easy to tell Coach K and Dean Smith apart
INDIANAPOLIS- There are a number of people here who have grown tired of the comparisons being drawn between Butler 2010 and Milan 1954 -- the Indiana high school team whose story was made into the stuff of legends by the movie "Hoosiers."
Those people are going to have to deal with it -- at least for one more game, and perhaps forever if Butler can beat Duke in Monday's national championship game at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Duke is, without question, the opponent a screenwriter would choose for Butler in this game. The Blue Devils are to college basketball what Muncie Central was to Indiana high school basketball 56 years ago. They are the power team, the one with the superstar coach and the swagger of a team most people will expect to win a fourth national title when they play the Bulldogs.
What's more, the way the two semifinal games played out on Saturday night will give people reason to shake their heads and say that Butler has had a great run that is bound to end against the Blue Devils.
Butler scraped by Michigan State, 52-50, on pure grit. With two starters injured for most of the game's last 10 minutes, the Bulldogs had almost no offense. After a Willie Veasley steal and dunk put Butler ahead 44-37 with 12:18 to play, the Bulldogs made one field goal--a layup by Gordon Hayward with 1:36 to go after Shawn Vanzant had somehow grabbed a Hayward miss and gotten the ball back to him--and scored eight points in all down the stretch.
Click here for the rest of the column - Butler has the talent to upset Duke in the NCAA championship game
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From Sunday's The Washington Post
INDIANAPOLIS - When Milan beat Muncie Central in 1954 to win the Indiana high school state championship in arguably the most famous game in basketball history, the final score was 32-30.
That game took place about six miles from Lucas Oil Stadium. On Saturday night, in the opening game of the Final Four, Butler and Michigan State almost recreated "Hoosiers," -- without Bobby Plump hitting the winning shot. It was Gordon Hayward, who is to Butler what Plump was to Milan, who made the Bulldogs' only field goal of the last 12 minutes 18 seconds, but this was a game about missed shots, not about a made one.
"I really didn't think 15 for 49 was a great way to approach this game," Butler Coach Brad Stevens joked after his team had survived those shooting numbers to win, 52-50. "I never would have dreamed that we would have won the game that way."
They did win the game, though, with outstanding defense, with a critical offensive rebound late in the game, with a little bit of luck and perhaps a final push from the officials.
As is bound to be the case on a night when the teams shot a combined 33 of 91 from the field, the game came down to one possession.
With Butler leading 50-49, Ronald Nored had a layup go in and out. Michigan State called a timeout with 23 seconds left and -- not surprisingly -- tried to punch the ball inside to try to get the lead. Draymond Green caught the ball in the lane and went right at Hayward, who at 6 feet 9 plays inside on defense and often brings the ball up against pressure on offense.
Green went up and so did Hayward. The ball rolled off Green's fingers and came up well short -- an air ball from six feet -- with the Michigan State bench screaming for a foul. Given that the officials had been calling fouls on just about anything resembling contact all night, it probably wasn't an unreasonable hope.
Click here for the rest of the column: Butler is just one victory from another storybook ending
-------------------------
From Saturday's The Washington Post
INDIANAPOLIS - In March 1993, Duke and North Carolina played each other in Chapel Hill in a game with all sorts of national ramifications. Duke was the defending national champion. North Carolina was ranked No. 1 in the country.
Early in the game the two coaches, Mike Krzyzewski and Dean Smith, both clearly uptight, were up on every whistle. After several minutes, lead referee Lenny Wirtz had seen and heard enough. He called Krzyzewski and Smith to the scorer's table.
"I know it's a big game," he said. "I know you're both a little hyper. But you have to calm down and let us work the game."
Smith nodded. Krzyzewski did not. "Lenny, there's 21,000 people in here who are all against me," he said. "You three guys are the only ones I can talk to."
Wirtz laughed. Smith did not. "Lenny, don't let him do that," he said. "He's trying to get you on his side."
Krzyzewski glared at Smith, who glared back. Krzyzewski stalked back to his bench and said to his assistant coaches, "If I ever start to act like him, don't ask a single question, just get a gun and shoot me."
Time to round up the guns.
That's not to say that Krzyzewski has morphed into his former arch rival, but as he has become older, more successful and more famous, it is clear that he has come to see the world through a prism far more similar to Smith than he might ever have imagined.
Click here for the rest of the column: Final Four 2010: It's not so easy to tell Coach K and Dean Smith apart
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Final Four weekend is still a special time; My favorite memories of past weekends – Wooden, Valvano, Manning and more
Late tomorrow night I will arrive in Indianapolis for The Final Four. This will be sixth time The Final Four has been played in Indy and the third different venue it has been played in there. In 1980, which was my second Final Four but my first as the lead writer for The Washington Post—in 1978 I was the newspaper’s night police reporter and George Solomon sent me to St. Louis to write sidebars because I’d covered college hoops in my free time during the season—the games were played in Market Square Arena, which is now long gone.
By the time The Final Four returned in 1991, the games were being played in The Hoosier Dome. Now THAT building is gone and they will play in Lukas Oil Stadium, which I haven’t seen yet but looks absolutely huge on television.
Market Square seated maybe 16,000 people. It was a really nice basketball arena and your sense was that everyone who came to The Final Four was there because they loved basketball. That changed years ago, sort of like The Super Bowl. Now a lot of people are there just to be there and the NCAA is insistent on getting 70,000 people into the dome even though it means playing on a raised court in the middle of the football field.
Look closely at your TV set on Saturday night and you will see Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg and their statistician sitting on raised chairs so that they have a normal view of the court. The two head coaches will be sitting on little stools up on the court—or standing—while everyone on their benches sits below court level looking straight at the feet of those who are playing.
The worst seats in the building belong to the CBS PR people who get to sit directly behind Nantz and Kellogg and can’t see a thing. Everyone else just comes out of there with a strained neck.
The NCAA went to this set-up last year in Detroit and it isn’t going away because it means about 20,000 more tickets it can sell even if most of the seats are in the next county. The REALLY rich fans will be fine. Everyone else will have a better view by watching the message boards—or whatever they call them these days. Of course the NCAA will try to spin this to tell the world they’re doing this for, ‘the student-athletes.’
Here’s an idea for you to pass the time if you’re at home watching on TV this weekend: If you watch the press conferences count how many times the moderator says, ‘student-athletes.’ Last week in Syracuse at one point the moderator said it three times in one sentence. That, I believe, is a new record. I’ve said to different guys, “why not just call them players—what’s WRONG with being a player?” They all shake their heads, look around and say, “I’d get in trouble for that.”
I believe them. Big brother NCAA is always watching.
As with all old people, I find it hard to believe that my first Final Four was 32 years ago. It was a thrill to go then and, you know what, it is still a thrill. I’m jaded and cynical and I hate how late the games start—in the good old days they actually played on Saturday AFTERNOON—and how long they take once they start.
But I still get a kick out of seeing the entire basketball community in the same place for a few days. That’s not to say there aren’t members of the community who shouldn’t be in jail or something close to it. I have a basic theory: If you see a guy standing in the lobby of the coach’s hotel on a cell phone, he’s probably up to no good. If a guy comes up and acts like he’s your best friend and gives you a 70s soul shake run for your life. And if a coach you haven’t heard from for years who is out of work wants to buy you a beer, buy HIM the beer and get out of Dodge because he’s going to ask you to help him get a job.
For the most part though, it’s fun. People stand around the lobby and tell old stories. Old enemies sometimes hang out together laughing and joking. I remember one year bumping into John Chaney and John Calipari who were absolutely cracking one another up. This was not that many years after Chaney burst into a Calipari press conference at U-Mass wanting to fight him on the spot. (I would have bet on Chaney in an instant in that one).
Star coaches don’t like coming to The Final Four without their teams these days. Bob Knight only comes now because ESPN pays him. Prior to that he only came on occasion. Same with Mike Krzyzewski, although he’ll be there this weekend since he gets to bring his team along.
In the old days, they all went. I still remember seeing Dean Smith on the rent-a-car line in Seattle in 1984. “You need a car for the week?” I asked.
Dean shrugged. “I didn’t think I did,” he said. “I thought I’d be coming with my team.”
That was the year Indiana upset North Carolina when the Tar Heels had Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, Kenny Smith, Brad Daugherty and Joe Wolf on the team.
Dean always went. John Wooden always went, even after he retired. I know I’ve told this story often but it bears repeating. At that same Seattle Final Four in 1984, Coach Wooden was there with his wife Nell, who was very sick and in a wheelchair. One night, after they’d spent time in the coach’s lobby, they said their goodnights and Coach Wooden began wheeling his wife across the lobby to the elevators. It was late and relatively quiet though the place was still crowded. Someone spotted them and just began to clap. Others picked up on it. By the time they reached the elevator bank everyone in the lobby was clapping for the Woodens.
That’s probably my favorite Final Four memory, right up there in a different way with N.C. State beating Houston; Villanova beating Georgetown; Kansas beating Oklahoma; Duke beating Vegas and George Mason just being there.
Actually the games are only part of The Final Four for me. Seeing lots of old friends, hanging out in the media hospitality room late at night with the other old guys like Hoops Weiss and Bob Ryan and Malcolm Moran is still great fun. A lot of the stories begin with, “remember back in …”
I guess I should consider myself lucky that I can still remember most of the stories. I DO remember Jim Valvano running in circles looking for someone to hug and the look on Danny Manning’s face when he pulled down the last rebound—among other things.
The Final Four isn’t the same by any stretch of the imagination. But it’s still The Final Four and I’m lucky I still get the chance to go.
By the time The Final Four returned in 1991, the games were being played in The Hoosier Dome. Now THAT building is gone and they will play in Lukas Oil Stadium, which I haven’t seen yet but looks absolutely huge on television.
Market Square seated maybe 16,000 people. It was a really nice basketball arena and your sense was that everyone who came to The Final Four was there because they loved basketball. That changed years ago, sort of like The Super Bowl. Now a lot of people are there just to be there and the NCAA is insistent on getting 70,000 people into the dome even though it means playing on a raised court in the middle of the football field.
Look closely at your TV set on Saturday night and you will see Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg and their statistician sitting on raised chairs so that they have a normal view of the court. The two head coaches will be sitting on little stools up on the court—or standing—while everyone on their benches sits below court level looking straight at the feet of those who are playing.
The worst seats in the building belong to the CBS PR people who get to sit directly behind Nantz and Kellogg and can’t see a thing. Everyone else just comes out of there with a strained neck.
The NCAA went to this set-up last year in Detroit and it isn’t going away because it means about 20,000 more tickets it can sell even if most of the seats are in the next county. The REALLY rich fans will be fine. Everyone else will have a better view by watching the message boards—or whatever they call them these days. Of course the NCAA will try to spin this to tell the world they’re doing this for, ‘the student-athletes.’
Here’s an idea for you to pass the time if you’re at home watching on TV this weekend: If you watch the press conferences count how many times the moderator says, ‘student-athletes.’ Last week in Syracuse at one point the moderator said it three times in one sentence. That, I believe, is a new record. I’ve said to different guys, “why not just call them players—what’s WRONG with being a player?” They all shake their heads, look around and say, “I’d get in trouble for that.”
I believe them. Big brother NCAA is always watching.
As with all old people, I find it hard to believe that my first Final Four was 32 years ago. It was a thrill to go then and, you know what, it is still a thrill. I’m jaded and cynical and I hate how late the games start—in the good old days they actually played on Saturday AFTERNOON—and how long they take once they start.
But I still get a kick out of seeing the entire basketball community in the same place for a few days. That’s not to say there aren’t members of the community who shouldn’t be in jail or something close to it. I have a basic theory: If you see a guy standing in the lobby of the coach’s hotel on a cell phone, he’s probably up to no good. If a guy comes up and acts like he’s your best friend and gives you a 70s soul shake run for your life. And if a coach you haven’t heard from for years who is out of work wants to buy you a beer, buy HIM the beer and get out of Dodge because he’s going to ask you to help him get a job.
For the most part though, it’s fun. People stand around the lobby and tell old stories. Old enemies sometimes hang out together laughing and joking. I remember one year bumping into John Chaney and John Calipari who were absolutely cracking one another up. This was not that many years after Chaney burst into a Calipari press conference at U-Mass wanting to fight him on the spot. (I would have bet on Chaney in an instant in that one).
Star coaches don’t like coming to The Final Four without their teams these days. Bob Knight only comes now because ESPN pays him. Prior to that he only came on occasion. Same with Mike Krzyzewski, although he’ll be there this weekend since he gets to bring his team along.
In the old days, they all went. I still remember seeing Dean Smith on the rent-a-car line in Seattle in 1984. “You need a car for the week?” I asked.
Dean shrugged. “I didn’t think I did,” he said. “I thought I’d be coming with my team.”
That was the year Indiana upset North Carolina when the Tar Heels had Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, Kenny Smith, Brad Daugherty and Joe Wolf on the team.
Dean always went. John Wooden always went, even after he retired. I know I’ve told this story often but it bears repeating. At that same Seattle Final Four in 1984, Coach Wooden was there with his wife Nell, who was very sick and in a wheelchair. One night, after they’d spent time in the coach’s lobby, they said their goodnights and Coach Wooden began wheeling his wife across the lobby to the elevators. It was late and relatively quiet though the place was still crowded. Someone spotted them and just began to clap. Others picked up on it. By the time they reached the elevator bank everyone in the lobby was clapping for the Woodens.
That’s probably my favorite Final Four memory, right up there in a different way with N.C. State beating Houston; Villanova beating Georgetown; Kansas beating Oklahoma; Duke beating Vegas and George Mason just being there.
Actually the games are only part of The Final Four for me. Seeing lots of old friends, hanging out in the media hospitality room late at night with the other old guys like Hoops Weiss and Bob Ryan and Malcolm Moran is still great fun. A lot of the stories begin with, “remember back in …”
I guess I should consider myself lucky that I can still remember most of the stories. I DO remember Jim Valvano running in circles looking for someone to hug and the look on Danny Manning’s face when he pulled down the last rebound—among other things.
The Final Four isn’t the same by any stretch of the imagination. But it’s still The Final Four and I’m lucky I still get the chance to go.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Duke wins the game it had to; Explaining my respect for Ryan Bucchianeri
I guess I have to start this morning with Duke-North Carolina because it is always a game people talk about and because of my obvious connections to the rivalry that date back more than 30 years to my undergraduate days at Duke.
Let’s put aside last night’s outcome for a minute except to say this: It was a game Duke had to win. Carolina is down this year and when your arch-rival is down—especially when it is usually very good to excellent—you have to take advantage. What’s more, the Tar Heels had won three in a row; five-of-seven and seven-of-ten against Duke. The game was anything but pretty, Duke finally pulling away in the last five minutes to win 64-54 in a matchup that certainly won’t be an instant classic anywhere. The Blue Devils were no doubt glad to get out of Chapel Hill with a road win and now face a very tough game Saturday against what will be a rested Maryland team—the Terrapins taking the day off Wednesday after the latest Washington blizzard postponed their game with Virginia until Monday.
All that said and with my usual admission of an anti-ESPN bias, I really am sick of the way the network acts as if every Duke-Carolina game is the next coming of the U.S.-Soviet hockey game of 1980. ESPN hypes everything it televises but it goes to new levels with Duke-Carolina. A lot of it starts with Dick Vitale, who just can’t help himself. To be fair, if Dick was doing Bucknell-American (which I’ll be doing tonight if I can get out of my driveway) he would think IT was the greatest thing he’d ever seen in his life.
At least his hype is genuine.
And look, Duke-Carolina has been a wonderful rivalry through the years. Carolina has had three of the all-time great coaches work at the school in the last 60 years: Frank McGuire, Dean Smith and Roy Williams. Bill Guthridge never got the credit he deserved going to two Final Fours in three seasons. Matt Doherty was a failure—although he DID recruit the key players on Williams’ first championship team in 2005. Duke has also had three superb coaches: Vic Bubas, who made Duke a national power in the 60s; Bill Foster, who rebuilt the program after it had fallen apart in the 70s and, of course, Mike Krzyzewski who won his 853d game Wednesday—putting him 26 behind Smith and 49 behind his old coach Bob Knight for the all-time record.
There have also been truly great players (interestingly there is not ONE Duke player in the basketball Hall of Fame; Carolina has, I believe, 15) and great games and great moments.
So what did ESPN show prior to the game to prove how great the rivalry is?; fights. Instead of showing Walter Davis’s miracle shot in 1974, it showed Doherty and Chris Collins yelling at one another. Oh please. Instead of showing Gene Banks’ buzzer-beater in 1981 it showed a bloodied Tyler Hansbrough. THIS is what makes a great rivalry: coaches yelling at each other and elbows to the mouth?
I’ve said this before and I will say it again: I think the rivalry has been hyped to the point that fans on both sides act stupid. The Duke students lost their spontaneity and humor years ago. All they want to do is paint their faces and get on TV talking on their cell phones. Carolina people are obsessed with Krzyzewski’s success because they feel it somehow diminishes Smith’s accomplishments—which is completely ludicrous. Nothing can diminish what Dean did—on and off the court.
Last year a friend if mine from Carolina grabbed me in a press room and said, “you’ve got to see the FUNNIEST video ever made.” The video was basically some Carolina kids mocking all white Duke point guards and saying they were gay. Maybe I’m just old. I didn’t think it was even a little bit funny—just dumb to tell you the truth.
Anyone who knows me knows how much I respect Dean and Roy (and Bill Guthridge too, one of the best men I’ve ever met) and Mike. I like all of them a lot and think they’ve all done great work building model programs with (for the most part) good kids who graduate. Of course whenever I say something good about Krzyzewski it is because I’m a Dukie. When I say something good about Roy it is because I’m a traitor.
Gee, I wonder why I don’t like being around the rivalry very much. When HBO asked me to be part of their Duke-Carolina documentary I said no. It was a no-win for me. Unfortunately I thought they leaned on some very bad sources—particularly a couple of people on the Carolina side who claim to be journalists but hate Krzyzewski with a passion that defies reason.
So, like I said, it was a good win for a Duke team that I think is far from special and another tough loss in a down year for Carolina. It didn’t come close to being worthy of the hype. But then few things on ESPN can live up to that sort of hype.
By the way, what exactly is Rivalry Week? Other than Pitt-West Virginia on Friday I can’t find a single real ‘rivalry,’ game other than Duke-Carolina on their schedule. Clemson-Florida State? That’s a big rivalry? Georgetown-Providence? Syracuse-Connecticut MAYBE but they don’t even play home-and-home every year anymore because of the silly Big East schedule. You have to love the way the network marketing geeks just make stuff up and throw it out there. Maybe they can have, “Hype Everything Week.” Oh wait, that’s every week.
************
I got a call yesterday from Ryan Bucchianeri. If you read ‘A Civil War,’ you will know the name right away. If you are a football fan, you will know who he is when I remind you. Ryan was a kicker at Navy. He missed an 18-yard field goal as a freshman that would have won The Army-Navy game. The field was soaked, the game was played in a driving rain—there were plenty of excuses available for Ryan after the game.
He took none of them. He just took the blame. “I missed the kick, that’s all there is to it,” he said repeatedly.
For taking responsibility and not making excuses Ryan became something of a national hero. Sports Illustrated did a long piece on him the following fall. Early in the next year’s Army-Navy game he missed another makeable kick. It was the last field goal he ever attempted at Navy.
Many of Ryan’s teammates resented the fact that he was made into a hero—even though he never asked for that status. They thought (correctly) that in accepting blame he had simply done what they are all taught to do: No Excuse Sir is a mantra at both Army and Navy.
I wrote ‘A Civil War,’ during Ryan’s junior season. There was a new coaching staff that basically wanted no part of him. Too many bad memories. He was shunted down to fourth string and got into two games all year—both times to kickoff. He became almost a pariah within The Brigade of Midshipmen and was badly treated—very badly treated—at times. Writing the book, I reported all this. I liked Ryan a lot and appreciated his willingness to talk to me about all that had happened. I thought my version of events was sympathetic to him, which it was meant to be.
Apparently not everyone read the book that way.
Ryan is now running for Congress after a distinguished career in the Navy. He was running in The Democratic Primary in Pennsylvania’s 12th district (that’s in Western Pennsylvania where Ryan grew up) against 19-term incumbent John Murtha. You may know the name: Murtha was well-known for a number of reasons: A marine veteran who served in Vietnam, he came out against the war in Iraq in 2005 after initially voting to support it in 2002. But he also became known as, “The King of Pork,” and was famous for ear-marking bills to give companies whose lobbyists had contributed big money to his campaigns contracts that benefited the companies and, frequently, his district in Pennsylvania. He has been investigated for possible ethics violations more than once.
Ryan’s campaign was a long shot given Murtha’s time in Congress, his contacts and his campaign war chest. On Sunday, Murtha, who was 77, died after complications from gall bladder surgery. Suddenly, Ryan’s campaign isn’t a long shot anymore.
I had seen Ryan in September when he was campaigning outside Heinz Field before the Navy-Pittsburgh game. He still looks 21 even though he’s now 35. The reason for his call was direct: there were people writing and saying that if you read, ‘A Civil War,’ it was apparent that the author (me) didn’t think very much of him.
If so, that was bad writing on my part. I have great respect for Ryan Bucchianeri and it isn’t because he’s a Democrat or that we agree on most issues. He’s just a good PERSON, who has served his country overseas and who I am SURE will work like crazy if he gets to Congress. So, if anyone has any doubts about how I feel about him because of the book, that’s on me. Did his teammates view him as a loner? Yes. A lot of kickers are viewed that way and Ryan took one emotional hit after another and kept coming back.
If you want to know how his teammates REALLY felt about him, I’d read the scene I witnessed in the locker room after the Notre Dame game that year when Andrew Thompson, the team’s defensive captain, told Bucchianeri how much he respected his un-willingness to give up when it seemed everyone at Navy wanted him to give up. Thompson, by the way, is still serving in the marines today and is as tough a guy as I’ve ever met.
So, if you want to know more about Ryan and his campaign, click on: Ryan2010.com. I’m not writing this for any reason except that I like and respect the guy and I feel badly if anyone read ‘A Civil War,’ and didn’t come away knowing that.
Let’s put aside last night’s outcome for a minute except to say this: It was a game Duke had to win. Carolina is down this year and when your arch-rival is down—especially when it is usually very good to excellent—you have to take advantage. What’s more, the Tar Heels had won three in a row; five-of-seven and seven-of-ten against Duke. The game was anything but pretty, Duke finally pulling away in the last five minutes to win 64-54 in a matchup that certainly won’t be an instant classic anywhere. The Blue Devils were no doubt glad to get out of Chapel Hill with a road win and now face a very tough game Saturday against what will be a rested Maryland team—the Terrapins taking the day off Wednesday after the latest Washington blizzard postponed their game with Virginia until Monday.
All that said and with my usual admission of an anti-ESPN bias, I really am sick of the way the network acts as if every Duke-Carolina game is the next coming of the U.S.-Soviet hockey game of 1980. ESPN hypes everything it televises but it goes to new levels with Duke-Carolina. A lot of it starts with Dick Vitale, who just can’t help himself. To be fair, if Dick was doing Bucknell-American (which I’ll be doing tonight if I can get out of my driveway) he would think IT was the greatest thing he’d ever seen in his life.
At least his hype is genuine.
And look, Duke-Carolina has been a wonderful rivalry through the years. Carolina has had three of the all-time great coaches work at the school in the last 60 years: Frank McGuire, Dean Smith and Roy Williams. Bill Guthridge never got the credit he deserved going to two Final Fours in three seasons. Matt Doherty was a failure—although he DID recruit the key players on Williams’ first championship team in 2005. Duke has also had three superb coaches: Vic Bubas, who made Duke a national power in the 60s; Bill Foster, who rebuilt the program after it had fallen apart in the 70s and, of course, Mike Krzyzewski who won his 853d game Wednesday—putting him 26 behind Smith and 49 behind his old coach Bob Knight for the all-time record.
There have also been truly great players (interestingly there is not ONE Duke player in the basketball Hall of Fame; Carolina has, I believe, 15) and great games and great moments.
So what did ESPN show prior to the game to prove how great the rivalry is?; fights. Instead of showing Walter Davis’s miracle shot in 1974, it showed Doherty and Chris Collins yelling at one another. Oh please. Instead of showing Gene Banks’ buzzer-beater in 1981 it showed a bloodied Tyler Hansbrough. THIS is what makes a great rivalry: coaches yelling at each other and elbows to the mouth?
I’ve said this before and I will say it again: I think the rivalry has been hyped to the point that fans on both sides act stupid. The Duke students lost their spontaneity and humor years ago. All they want to do is paint their faces and get on TV talking on their cell phones. Carolina people are obsessed with Krzyzewski’s success because they feel it somehow diminishes Smith’s accomplishments—which is completely ludicrous. Nothing can diminish what Dean did—on and off the court.
Last year a friend if mine from Carolina grabbed me in a press room and said, “you’ve got to see the FUNNIEST video ever made.” The video was basically some Carolina kids mocking all white Duke point guards and saying they were gay. Maybe I’m just old. I didn’t think it was even a little bit funny—just dumb to tell you the truth.
Anyone who knows me knows how much I respect Dean and Roy (and Bill Guthridge too, one of the best men I’ve ever met) and Mike. I like all of them a lot and think they’ve all done great work building model programs with (for the most part) good kids who graduate. Of course whenever I say something good about Krzyzewski it is because I’m a Dukie. When I say something good about Roy it is because I’m a traitor.
Gee, I wonder why I don’t like being around the rivalry very much. When HBO asked me to be part of their Duke-Carolina documentary I said no. It was a no-win for me. Unfortunately I thought they leaned on some very bad sources—particularly a couple of people on the Carolina side who claim to be journalists but hate Krzyzewski with a passion that defies reason.
So, like I said, it was a good win for a Duke team that I think is far from special and another tough loss in a down year for Carolina. It didn’t come close to being worthy of the hype. But then few things on ESPN can live up to that sort of hype.
By the way, what exactly is Rivalry Week? Other than Pitt-West Virginia on Friday I can’t find a single real ‘rivalry,’ game other than Duke-Carolina on their schedule. Clemson-Florida State? That’s a big rivalry? Georgetown-Providence? Syracuse-Connecticut MAYBE but they don’t even play home-and-home every year anymore because of the silly Big East schedule. You have to love the way the network marketing geeks just make stuff up and throw it out there. Maybe they can have, “Hype Everything Week.” Oh wait, that’s every week.
************
I got a call yesterday from Ryan Bucchianeri. If you read ‘A Civil War,’ you will know the name right away. If you are a football fan, you will know who he is when I remind you. Ryan was a kicker at Navy. He missed an 18-yard field goal as a freshman that would have won The Army-Navy game. The field was soaked, the game was played in a driving rain—there were plenty of excuses available for Ryan after the game.
He took none of them. He just took the blame. “I missed the kick, that’s all there is to it,” he said repeatedly.
For taking responsibility and not making excuses Ryan became something of a national hero. Sports Illustrated did a long piece on him the following fall. Early in the next year’s Army-Navy game he missed another makeable kick. It was the last field goal he ever attempted at Navy.
Many of Ryan’s teammates resented the fact that he was made into a hero—even though he never asked for that status. They thought (correctly) that in accepting blame he had simply done what they are all taught to do: No Excuse Sir is a mantra at both Army and Navy.
I wrote ‘A Civil War,’ during Ryan’s junior season. There was a new coaching staff that basically wanted no part of him. Too many bad memories. He was shunted down to fourth string and got into two games all year—both times to kickoff. He became almost a pariah within The Brigade of Midshipmen and was badly treated—very badly treated—at times. Writing the book, I reported all this. I liked Ryan a lot and appreciated his willingness to talk to me about all that had happened. I thought my version of events was sympathetic to him, which it was meant to be.
Apparently not everyone read the book that way.
Ryan is now running for Congress after a distinguished career in the Navy. He was running in The Democratic Primary in Pennsylvania’s 12th district (that’s in Western Pennsylvania where Ryan grew up) against 19-term incumbent John Murtha. You may know the name: Murtha was well-known for a number of reasons: A marine veteran who served in Vietnam, he came out against the war in Iraq in 2005 after initially voting to support it in 2002. But he also became known as, “The King of Pork,” and was famous for ear-marking bills to give companies whose lobbyists had contributed big money to his campaigns contracts that benefited the companies and, frequently, his district in Pennsylvania. He has been investigated for possible ethics violations more than once.
Ryan’s campaign was a long shot given Murtha’s time in Congress, his contacts and his campaign war chest. On Sunday, Murtha, who was 77, died after complications from gall bladder surgery. Suddenly, Ryan’s campaign isn’t a long shot anymore.
I had seen Ryan in September when he was campaigning outside Heinz Field before the Navy-Pittsburgh game. He still looks 21 even though he’s now 35. The reason for his call was direct: there were people writing and saying that if you read, ‘A Civil War,’ it was apparent that the author (me) didn’t think very much of him.
If so, that was bad writing on my part. I have great respect for Ryan Bucchianeri and it isn’t because he’s a Democrat or that we agree on most issues. He’s just a good PERSON, who has served his country overseas and who I am SURE will work like crazy if he gets to Congress. So, if anyone has any doubts about how I feel about him because of the book, that’s on me. Did his teammates view him as a loner? Yes. A lot of kickers are viewed that way and Ryan took one emotional hit after another and kept coming back.
If you want to know how his teammates REALLY felt about him, I’d read the scene I witnessed in the locker room after the Notre Dame game that year when Andrew Thompson, the team’s defensive captain, told Bucchianeri how much he respected his un-willingness to give up when it seemed everyone at Navy wanted him to give up. Thompson, by the way, is still serving in the marines today and is as tough a guy as I’ve ever met.
So, if you want to know more about Ryan and his campaign, click on: Ryan2010.com. I’m not writing this for any reason except that I like and respect the guy and I feel badly if anyone read ‘A Civil War,’ and didn’t come away knowing that.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
A little more on the ‘list’; Touching on the Roy Williams controversy
Let me begin today by trying to explain how in the world I left Jackie Robinson off the most important athletes list yesterday—before realizing on my way to lunch, ‘Oh My God I Left Jackie Robinson out!’ Here’s my explanation: I have none. Sometimes you just mind-block. Usually I do it at the grocery store—‘what the heck did my kids tell me to get?’—or on Christmas shopping—“Is today the 16th, jeez maybe I ought to do something about gifts.”
This one I just screwed up. Curt Flood and Jesse Owens should have been on there too and I somehow mentioned Muhammad Ali as an example of someone whose influence went well beyond his ability to box and then left HIM off the list. That may have something to do with the fact that I almost never think about boxing anymore. Ali was just about the last boxer I really cared about because even though I covered Sugar Ray Leonard a little bit I never really bought into his act.
The other person who was mentioned by posters yesterday who I don’t consider an automatic but deserves serious consideration is Bobby Orr because he did change the way defensemen played hockey. The notion of a defenseman scoring 20 goals, much less leading the league in scoring was unheard of before Orr.
I’m not going to go through the entire list today, maybe I’ll just do one guy at a time over the next few weeks so that I can go into a little more detail than a sentence or two on each. What is interesting, as some people pointed out, is that I had 20 people even with the omissions which means there are about 25 who seemingly HAVE to be on the list. To try to pare that list to say, 10, would be virtually impossible. And all of us can think of others who deserve consideration: Did Cal Ripken save baseball in 1995? Should all the steroid stars—Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Clemens et al—be mentioned because they certainly changed the way their sport was viewed. Althea Gibson? John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors—both of whom certainly changed tennis?
Plus, I didn’t even try to include coaches or managers on the list and trying to pick just ten of THEM would be almost impossible. Let’s just say you were doing Mount Rushmore for those guys: John Wooden, right? Vince Lombardi? Red Auerbach? Scotty Bowman? That would mean leaving out (among others) Dean Smith, Bob Knight, Mike Krzyzewski, Phil Jackson, Casey Stengel, John McGraw, Toe Blake, Al Arbour, Chuck Noll, Don Shula, Bill Walsh, Joe Paterno, Bobby Bowden, Bear Bryant and Knute Rockne. That’s just in the four major sports and no doubt I’m mind-blocking on someone right now.
In short, there’s plenty of room to discuss this more in the future.
This morning though I feel I have to weigh in on this Roy Williams controversy because I keep getting asked about it—which is actually a little bit of a relief because it means a few minutes less of being asked to psycho-analyze Tiger Woods.
Ole Roy—as he often calls himself—had a fan of the Presbyterian Blue Hose removed from the Dean Dome last Saturday during a North Carolina rout of a badly overmatched team. Apparently the guy stood up as Deon Thompson was shooting a free throw and yelled, “Don’t miss Deon!”
My guess is his major crime was waking up what was left of the crowd from a nice nap. Since he was sitting in the section reserved for FOR (Friends of Roy) and since Roy and others could clearly heard him, Roy got upset and had the guy removed.
Okay, let’s not make this into a big deal because it’s not. Did Roy overreact? Yes—even if some of his loyal supporters have jumped in claiming the fan in question was drunk, was rude, didn’t have a ticket (or should NOT have had a ticket) in that section, had used profanity prior to his crack AND was involved in the conspiracy to kidnap the Lindbergh baby. Deon Thompson, by the way, somehow shook off the ‘heckling,’ to make his free throw.
The fact is Roy didn’t have him thrown out for any of that—whether it was true or un-true as the fan in question and others sitting around him have said. Roy had him thrown out for yelling, “Don’t miss Deon.” Roy should just apologize and let that be the end of it.
Let me say this about Roy Williams right here: I really like the guy, which galls some of my Duke friends. If you question his abilities as a coach, you’re insane, just check the record. And I know people roll their eyes at times about all the ‘aw shucks, I’m just an ole country boy stuff,’ but most, if not all of it, is genuine. If some of it is put on because it helps recruiting guess what?—it works.
In 1991 when I was working for the late, lamented National Sports Daily I wrote a column about Dean Smith after the ACC Tournament basically saying that some of the little feuds he picked were beneath him. The freshest example I used was his refusal to go on the Raycom ACC Tournament telecasts either pre-game on tape or postgame live, in part because he was upset that they hadn’t hired any ex-Carolina players to do color commentary and in part because he thought that Dan Bonner (by far Raycom’s best analyst) had defended what he (Dean) perceived to be dirty play by Virginia. Bonner—surprise—played at Virginia so Dean saw a conspiracy.
The column set off a firestorm. Even though I had always had a good relationship with Dean and with almost everyone I knew at Carolina this was proof—absolute PROOF—that I was a Duke apologist and I was out to get Dean. Frank Deford, who was the editor of The National, showed me some of the letters which accused me of being guilty of most crimes committed in the 20th century, virtually all in the name of embarrassing Carolina and Dean.
Eddie Fogler, who I’d been friends with for years, walked up to me at The Final Four and said, “You are the worst sportswriter in America.”
“Coming from you Eddie,” I answered, “I consider that high praise.”
Duke ended up winning its first national championship that year—no doubt because of my efforts—beating Kansas, coached by Roy Williams, in the final.
A couple of weeks after the Final Four I got a lengthy handwritten letter from Roy. He talked about how much he had always valued our friendship and how much respect he had for me. Then he began to talk about Dean—“Coach Smith,”—and how much he meant to him. At the end of the letter he wrote: “John, I know a lot’s been said that’s unfair to you but I think you know not a word of that has come from Coach Smith. He may disagree with you on this but I know he respects you just as I know how much you respect him. I think the two of you should talk at some point this summer. If need be I will fly into Chapel Hill to make the meeting happen. This is that important to me because of how I feel about you and because there is no one in the world more important to me than Coach Smith.”
Dean and I did talk and agreed to disagree on Bonner and who should or should not be doing color on ACC games and on several other topics. I remember him saying, “At least concede this: when you and I argue it’s usually because I’m standing up for my players.”
I told him I knew that he ALWAYS stood up for his players. I also told him about Roy’s letter. There wasn’t anything phony in that letter and I could tell you a half dozen other stories that would illustrate why Roy is a good guy.
The only thing as silly as Duke fans trying to make Roy out to be a bad guy is when Carolina fans try to make Mike Krzyzewski out to be a bad guy. BOTH are Hall of Fame coaches and BOTH are outstanding men. They have very different styles on and off the court and I enjoy them both.
Do they make mistakes? Of course they do—who among us doesn’t? Theirs are just made in public a lot of the time. So Roy overreacted and it set off a minor firestorm. He ought to shrug his shoulders and say, “Ole Roy is probably a little bit sensitive sometimes.”
Because he is. Which doesn’t make him a bad guy by any stretch of the imagination.
This one I just screwed up. Curt Flood and Jesse Owens should have been on there too and I somehow mentioned Muhammad Ali as an example of someone whose influence went well beyond his ability to box and then left HIM off the list. That may have something to do with the fact that I almost never think about boxing anymore. Ali was just about the last boxer I really cared about because even though I covered Sugar Ray Leonard a little bit I never really bought into his act.
The other person who was mentioned by posters yesterday who I don’t consider an automatic but deserves serious consideration is Bobby Orr because he did change the way defensemen played hockey. The notion of a defenseman scoring 20 goals, much less leading the league in scoring was unheard of before Orr.
I’m not going to go through the entire list today, maybe I’ll just do one guy at a time over the next few weeks so that I can go into a little more detail than a sentence or two on each. What is interesting, as some people pointed out, is that I had 20 people even with the omissions which means there are about 25 who seemingly HAVE to be on the list. To try to pare that list to say, 10, would be virtually impossible. And all of us can think of others who deserve consideration: Did Cal Ripken save baseball in 1995? Should all the steroid stars—Bonds, McGwire, Sosa, Clemens et al—be mentioned because they certainly changed the way their sport was viewed. Althea Gibson? John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors—both of whom certainly changed tennis?
Plus, I didn’t even try to include coaches or managers on the list and trying to pick just ten of THEM would be almost impossible. Let’s just say you were doing Mount Rushmore for those guys: John Wooden, right? Vince Lombardi? Red Auerbach? Scotty Bowman? That would mean leaving out (among others) Dean Smith, Bob Knight, Mike Krzyzewski, Phil Jackson, Casey Stengel, John McGraw, Toe Blake, Al Arbour, Chuck Noll, Don Shula, Bill Walsh, Joe Paterno, Bobby Bowden, Bear Bryant and Knute Rockne. That’s just in the four major sports and no doubt I’m mind-blocking on someone right now.
In short, there’s plenty of room to discuss this more in the future.
This morning though I feel I have to weigh in on this Roy Williams controversy because I keep getting asked about it—which is actually a little bit of a relief because it means a few minutes less of being asked to psycho-analyze Tiger Woods.
Ole Roy—as he often calls himself—had a fan of the Presbyterian Blue Hose removed from the Dean Dome last Saturday during a North Carolina rout of a badly overmatched team. Apparently the guy stood up as Deon Thompson was shooting a free throw and yelled, “Don’t miss Deon!”
My guess is his major crime was waking up what was left of the crowd from a nice nap. Since he was sitting in the section reserved for FOR (Friends of Roy) and since Roy and others could clearly heard him, Roy got upset and had the guy removed.
Okay, let’s not make this into a big deal because it’s not. Did Roy overreact? Yes—even if some of his loyal supporters have jumped in claiming the fan in question was drunk, was rude, didn’t have a ticket (or should NOT have had a ticket) in that section, had used profanity prior to his crack AND was involved in the conspiracy to kidnap the Lindbergh baby. Deon Thompson, by the way, somehow shook off the ‘heckling,’ to make his free throw.
The fact is Roy didn’t have him thrown out for any of that—whether it was true or un-true as the fan in question and others sitting around him have said. Roy had him thrown out for yelling, “Don’t miss Deon.” Roy should just apologize and let that be the end of it.
Let me say this about Roy Williams right here: I really like the guy, which galls some of my Duke friends. If you question his abilities as a coach, you’re insane, just check the record. And I know people roll their eyes at times about all the ‘aw shucks, I’m just an ole country boy stuff,’ but most, if not all of it, is genuine. If some of it is put on because it helps recruiting guess what?—it works.
In 1991 when I was working for the late, lamented National Sports Daily I wrote a column about Dean Smith after the ACC Tournament basically saying that some of the little feuds he picked were beneath him. The freshest example I used was his refusal to go on the Raycom ACC Tournament telecasts either pre-game on tape or postgame live, in part because he was upset that they hadn’t hired any ex-Carolina players to do color commentary and in part because he thought that Dan Bonner (by far Raycom’s best analyst) had defended what he (Dean) perceived to be dirty play by Virginia. Bonner—surprise—played at Virginia so Dean saw a conspiracy.
The column set off a firestorm. Even though I had always had a good relationship with Dean and with almost everyone I knew at Carolina this was proof—absolute PROOF—that I was a Duke apologist and I was out to get Dean. Frank Deford, who was the editor of The National, showed me some of the letters which accused me of being guilty of most crimes committed in the 20th century, virtually all in the name of embarrassing Carolina and Dean.
Eddie Fogler, who I’d been friends with for years, walked up to me at The Final Four and said, “You are the worst sportswriter in America.”
“Coming from you Eddie,” I answered, “I consider that high praise.”
Duke ended up winning its first national championship that year—no doubt because of my efforts—beating Kansas, coached by Roy Williams, in the final.
A couple of weeks after the Final Four I got a lengthy handwritten letter from Roy. He talked about how much he had always valued our friendship and how much respect he had for me. Then he began to talk about Dean—“Coach Smith,”—and how much he meant to him. At the end of the letter he wrote: “John, I know a lot’s been said that’s unfair to you but I think you know not a word of that has come from Coach Smith. He may disagree with you on this but I know he respects you just as I know how much you respect him. I think the two of you should talk at some point this summer. If need be I will fly into Chapel Hill to make the meeting happen. This is that important to me because of how I feel about you and because there is no one in the world more important to me than Coach Smith.”
Dean and I did talk and agreed to disagree on Bonner and who should or should not be doing color on ACC games and on several other topics. I remember him saying, “At least concede this: when you and I argue it’s usually because I’m standing up for my players.”
I told him I knew that he ALWAYS stood up for his players. I also told him about Roy’s letter. There wasn’t anything phony in that letter and I could tell you a half dozen other stories that would illustrate why Roy is a good guy.
The only thing as silly as Duke fans trying to make Roy out to be a bad guy is when Carolina fans try to make Mike Krzyzewski out to be a bad guy. BOTH are Hall of Fame coaches and BOTH are outstanding men. They have very different styles on and off the court and I enjoy them both.
Do they make mistakes? Of course they do—who among us doesn’t? Theirs are just made in public a lot of the time. So Roy overreacted and it set off a minor firestorm. He ought to shrug his shoulders and say, “Ole Roy is probably a little bit sensitive sometimes.”
Because he is. Which doesn’t make him a bad guy by any stretch of the imagination.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Stories of Press Box Decorum; Favorite Dinner Guests
The other day, after I joked about reminding Furman Bisher that there was, "no cheering in the press box," a number of people wrote asking how strictly that directive was adhered to and if I had stories about moments when it was not.
Overall, I would say there are few breaches of decorum--certainly not many at all like the one that made the rounds on YouTube a couple weeks ago showing former Saints quarterback Bobby Hebert going nuts after his former team recovered a fumble in the end zone--are pretty rare. But they do happen.
My most embarrassing breach of course was in 2005 when Navy played at Duke and I reacted to a string of terrible calls against Navy by saying "f----- referees!" The weird thing about it was when I said it I actually looked around the radio booth to see who had said it. When I saw everyone staring at me I realized I was in trouble. There's no excuse for that kind of thing and I was lucky the Navy people stuck by me.
Of course an enclosed radio booth is different than the press box itself. No one at Duke that day was aware of what had happened until I came out of the booth to tell Eric Ruden, who is in charge of the radio network, what I'd done. I'll always be grateful to him and to Chet Gladchuk, the Navy AD for the way they dealt with the incident. When I asked Eric to let Chet know what had happened because I was willing to resign on-air if he wanted me to, Eric came back and said, "Chet said to tell you he said the same thing on the play."
To which I replied, "Yeah, but he didn't say it on the air." The next week when Chet and Eric got phone calls from the media wanting to know if I would be punished in some way their answer was the same: "John made a mistake, he apologized for it instantly and he feels bad about it. It's over as far as we're concerned."
To this day people still ask me, "did you get through the broadcast Saturday without an f-bomb?" Hey, I made the mistake, I have to live with it and the stale jokes that come with it. Eric once pointed out to me that about 10 times more people knew I'd been doing the games for nine seasons (now 13) after the incident than before the incident.
Inside the press box or on press row at basketball games you rarely see breaches to etiquette. We all have biases and some are more obvious about them than others. There are also times when guys just get caught up in the emotions of a game. Bob Ryan, the great Boston Globe columnist tells a story about the famous Duke-Kentucky game in 1992 when Christian Laettner made the shot at the buzzer in overtime and he was so stunned and amazed that he leaped to his feet. "I thought, "Oh My God, what am I doing I look like a fan," he said later. "Then I looked around and saw that everyone else was standing too. We were just overwhelmed by the whole game and what we'd seen."
I wasn't in Philadelphia that night. I was in Tampa, Florida watching the game in a hotel room with Tim Kurkijian, then of Sports Illustrated, now of ESPN. In spite of that fact, I got a call on Monday from a Charlotte radio station wanting to know if I would come on the air to discuss the fact that I had been seen leaping the press table to run on the court and hug Laettner. I suggested they call Tim to verify where I was at that moment and told them I did not have the ability to beam myself from Tampa to Philadelphia. I later found out that the rumor had been started by a guy I'd known early in my journalism career who blew up his own career and was very bitter about anyone who'd had more success than he had.
There are also times when people assume biases. When Mike Kryzewski was still trying to build his program at Duke, the one local journalist who stuck with him during the first three seasons was Keith Drum, who was sports editor of The Durham Morning Herald. Because Keith--who is now a scout for the Sacramento Kings---was supportive of Krzyzewski many North Carolina people, including Dean Smith, began to label him, "a Duke guy." As it happens, Keither went to North Carolina, but that didn't matter. In 1984, Duke beat Carolina in the ACC Tournament semifinals, one of Krzyzewski's first really important wins since that Carolina team included Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty and Kenny Smith--among others.
Keith and I have been friends since I was in college. We walked down the steps that led to the locker room area and there was Dean, smoking a postgame cigarette. (He gave up smoking a few years later). As soon as he saw us, he made a beeline for Keith, hand out and said, "congratulations, YOUR team played very well."
Keith and I thought that was pretty funny, congratulating the guy who went to Carolina on a Duke victory while the Duke graduate stood there watching (with a huge smile on his face because it WAS pretty funny). I still tease Keith about that to this day,
Actually I lied when I said my only breach of decorum was the Navy-Duke football game. In 1978, Duke played Kentucky in the national championship game. It was my first Final Four. I was a year out of college and knew the players and coaches well. Needless to say I was pulling for Duke. Early in the second half Jim Bain, one of the referees, missed a traveling call. Bill Foster, the Duke coach, got off the bench and, from across the court, made the traveling signal and then held his hands out, palm up, as if to say, "where was the call."
Bain gave him a technical foul on the spot. Al McGuire and Billy Packer, working their first Final Four together for NBC, were stunned by both calls. "That's taking one mistake and turning it into two," McGuire said at the time. I might be wrong, but I don't remember another coach getting teed up in a championship game since then. Good refs give coaches a lot of rope under that kind of pressure and--most of the time--the refs working the final are good ones.
Many Kentucky fans think I blame Bain for Duke losing the game. I don't. Kentucky was the better team and was almost certainly going to win that night whether Bain got the travel right or didn't lose his temper. But those two calls certainly didn't help Duke's cause.
Two years later, I was covering a Virginia-Ohio State game in Columbus. It was Ralph Sampson's freshman year. Jim Bain had the game. During a time out, I found him standing right in front of me. "Hey Jim" I called out. He turned around and said, "what?”
"Remember the Duke-Kentucky championship game two years ago?" He nodded. "That technical on Foster, WORST call I've ever seen."
Bain just stared at me for a second and then said something profane. I was about to respond when the late Barney Cooke, who was then Virginia's SID, grabbed my shoulder and said, "don't say another word." Barney was right of course. I shouldn't have said anything in the first place. But it DID make me feel better. And no one can say that I was cheering in the press box--or on press row--that day.
-------------------------------------------
Just for the record, last night was one of those that's special to me. Three or four times a year I have dinner with three men I got to know well covering Maryland politics: one is Harry Hughes, who as the governor when I covered the state house, one of the best men I've ever had the chance to know. (And it isn't just because he's a Democrat. He's simply a wonderful man, liked and respected by Democrats and Republicans alike). The others in the group are Steve Sachs, the former state attorney general and Tim Maloney, who served five terms in The House of Delegates (he was 22 when he was elected) who left to become a wealthy lawyer.
We usually go down to Easton, on the Maryland eastern shore, because that's where Governor Hughes lives and have a great time talking about today's politics and reliving old stories.
A couple of years ago, I walked into the restaurant where we were meeting to see if Governor Hughes had arrived yet. Traffic had been surprisingly light on The Bay Bridge so we were a few minutes early. I was looking around the bar area when I heard a voice say, "what the hell are you doing down here?"
I turned around and there was Bob Pascal, who had been Governor Hughes' Republican opponent in 1982. I covered that election, which Hughes won in a runaway. Throughout the summer, Pascal kept saying to me, "When I get on the tube (TV advertising) Harry's going to hear my footsteps. He got on the tube and ended up with 37 percent of the vote. I told Pascal why I was there--we were celebrating Gov. Hughes birthday that night--and he laughed and said, "I always knew you were a Democrat." (True, he did, because I told him up front but also told him that some of my best sources in the legislature were Republicans, which was also true).
"Tell you what," Pascal said. "Because I'm a good guy, I'm going to buy Harry a bottle of wine for his birthday."
Sure enough, the governor showed up a few minutes later and we all sat down. I was telling him the story when Pascal walked up behind him. Hearing the footsteps, he turned around.
I couldn't resist. "Bob," I said. "It finally happened! Harry heard your footsteps! It only took 25 years but he DID hear your footsteps!."
Some things, I swear, you just can't make up.
Overall, I would say there are few breaches of decorum--certainly not many at all like the one that made the rounds on YouTube a couple weeks ago showing former Saints quarterback Bobby Hebert going nuts after his former team recovered a fumble in the end zone--are pretty rare. But they do happen.
My most embarrassing breach of course was in 2005 when Navy played at Duke and I reacted to a string of terrible calls against Navy by saying "f----- referees!" The weird thing about it was when I said it I actually looked around the radio booth to see who had said it. When I saw everyone staring at me I realized I was in trouble. There's no excuse for that kind of thing and I was lucky the Navy people stuck by me.
Of course an enclosed radio booth is different than the press box itself. No one at Duke that day was aware of what had happened until I came out of the booth to tell Eric Ruden, who is in charge of the radio network, what I'd done. I'll always be grateful to him and to Chet Gladchuk, the Navy AD for the way they dealt with the incident. When I asked Eric to let Chet know what had happened because I was willing to resign on-air if he wanted me to, Eric came back and said, "Chet said to tell you he said the same thing on the play."
To which I replied, "Yeah, but he didn't say it on the air." The next week when Chet and Eric got phone calls from the media wanting to know if I would be punished in some way their answer was the same: "John made a mistake, he apologized for it instantly and he feels bad about it. It's over as far as we're concerned."
To this day people still ask me, "did you get through the broadcast Saturday without an f-bomb?" Hey, I made the mistake, I have to live with it and the stale jokes that come with it. Eric once pointed out to me that about 10 times more people knew I'd been doing the games for nine seasons (now 13) after the incident than before the incident.
Inside the press box or on press row at basketball games you rarely see breaches to etiquette. We all have biases and some are more obvious about them than others. There are also times when guys just get caught up in the emotions of a game. Bob Ryan, the great Boston Globe columnist tells a story about the famous Duke-Kentucky game in 1992 when Christian Laettner made the shot at the buzzer in overtime and he was so stunned and amazed that he leaped to his feet. "I thought, "Oh My God, what am I doing I look like a fan," he said later. "Then I looked around and saw that everyone else was standing too. We were just overwhelmed by the whole game and what we'd seen."
I wasn't in Philadelphia that night. I was in Tampa, Florida watching the game in a hotel room with Tim Kurkijian, then of Sports Illustrated, now of ESPN. In spite of that fact, I got a call on Monday from a Charlotte radio station wanting to know if I would come on the air to discuss the fact that I had been seen leaping the press table to run on the court and hug Laettner. I suggested they call Tim to verify where I was at that moment and told them I did not have the ability to beam myself from Tampa to Philadelphia. I later found out that the rumor had been started by a guy I'd known early in my journalism career who blew up his own career and was very bitter about anyone who'd had more success than he had.
There are also times when people assume biases. When Mike Kryzewski was still trying to build his program at Duke, the one local journalist who stuck with him during the first three seasons was Keith Drum, who was sports editor of The Durham Morning Herald. Because Keith--who is now a scout for the Sacramento Kings---was supportive of Krzyzewski many North Carolina people, including Dean Smith, began to label him, "a Duke guy." As it happens, Keither went to North Carolina, but that didn't matter. In 1984, Duke beat Carolina in the ACC Tournament semifinals, one of Krzyzewski's first really important wins since that Carolina team included Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty and Kenny Smith--among others.
Keith and I have been friends since I was in college. We walked down the steps that led to the locker room area and there was Dean, smoking a postgame cigarette. (He gave up smoking a few years later). As soon as he saw us, he made a beeline for Keith, hand out and said, "congratulations, YOUR team played very well."
Keith and I thought that was pretty funny, congratulating the guy who went to Carolina on a Duke victory while the Duke graduate stood there watching (with a huge smile on his face because it WAS pretty funny). I still tease Keith about that to this day,
Actually I lied when I said my only breach of decorum was the Navy-Duke football game. In 1978, Duke played Kentucky in the national championship game. It was my first Final Four. I was a year out of college and knew the players and coaches well. Needless to say I was pulling for Duke. Early in the second half Jim Bain, one of the referees, missed a traveling call. Bill Foster, the Duke coach, got off the bench and, from across the court, made the traveling signal and then held his hands out, palm up, as if to say, "where was the call."
Bain gave him a technical foul on the spot. Al McGuire and Billy Packer, working their first Final Four together for NBC, were stunned by both calls. "That's taking one mistake and turning it into two," McGuire said at the time. I might be wrong, but I don't remember another coach getting teed up in a championship game since then. Good refs give coaches a lot of rope under that kind of pressure and--most of the time--the refs working the final are good ones.
Many Kentucky fans think I blame Bain for Duke losing the game. I don't. Kentucky was the better team and was almost certainly going to win that night whether Bain got the travel right or didn't lose his temper. But those two calls certainly didn't help Duke's cause.
Two years later, I was covering a Virginia-Ohio State game in Columbus. It was Ralph Sampson's freshman year. Jim Bain had the game. During a time out, I found him standing right in front of me. "Hey Jim" I called out. He turned around and said, "what?”
"Remember the Duke-Kentucky championship game two years ago?" He nodded. "That technical on Foster, WORST call I've ever seen."
Bain just stared at me for a second and then said something profane. I was about to respond when the late Barney Cooke, who was then Virginia's SID, grabbed my shoulder and said, "don't say another word." Barney was right of course. I shouldn't have said anything in the first place. But it DID make me feel better. And no one can say that I was cheering in the press box--or on press row--that day.
-------------------------------------------
Just for the record, last night was one of those that's special to me. Three or four times a year I have dinner with three men I got to know well covering Maryland politics: one is Harry Hughes, who as the governor when I covered the state house, one of the best men I've ever had the chance to know. (And it isn't just because he's a Democrat. He's simply a wonderful man, liked and respected by Democrats and Republicans alike). The others in the group are Steve Sachs, the former state attorney general and Tim Maloney, who served five terms in The House of Delegates (he was 22 when he was elected) who left to become a wealthy lawyer.
We usually go down to Easton, on the Maryland eastern shore, because that's where Governor Hughes lives and have a great time talking about today's politics and reliving old stories.
A couple of years ago, I walked into the restaurant where we were meeting to see if Governor Hughes had arrived yet. Traffic had been surprisingly light on The Bay Bridge so we were a few minutes early. I was looking around the bar area when I heard a voice say, "what the hell are you doing down here?"
I turned around and there was Bob Pascal, who had been Governor Hughes' Republican opponent in 1982. I covered that election, which Hughes won in a runaway. Throughout the summer, Pascal kept saying to me, "When I get on the tube (TV advertising) Harry's going to hear my footsteps. He got on the tube and ended up with 37 percent of the vote. I told Pascal why I was there--we were celebrating Gov. Hughes birthday that night--and he laughed and said, "I always knew you were a Democrat." (True, he did, because I told him up front but also told him that some of my best sources in the legislature were Republicans, which was also true).
"Tell you what," Pascal said. "Because I'm a good guy, I'm going to buy Harry a bottle of wine for his birthday."
Sure enough, the governor showed up a few minutes later and we all sat down. I was telling him the story when Pascal walked up behind him. Hearing the footsteps, he turned around.
I couldn't resist. "Bob," I said. "It finally happened! Harry heard your footsteps! It only took 25 years but he DID hear your footsteps!."
Some things, I swear, you just can't make up.
Friday, September 11, 2009
8 Years Ago Seems Like Yesterday; Army Hall of Fame Induction Dinner Tonight
There is a story on the front page of this morning's Washington Post about kids who are now fifth, sixth and seventh graders who are learning about the events of 9-11 from history books. When I saw the headline I was briefly stunned, because like most people, I'm sure, I remember the events of that day as if they took place yesterday. But eight years is a long time in the life of a child. My daughter Brigid, who is 11, claims to remember 9-11, but I think she remembers more of what she's read than what she saw or heard. Danny, my 15-year-old, does remember it. In fact, one of my most chilling moments--among many--was going to school to pick him up and hearing him say, "dad, are they going to try to fly a plane into our house?"
One thing that came out of 9-11 was a toning down, at least for a while, of political vitriol. Most of us can still remember the sight of members of Congress--Democrat and Republican--standing on the steps of the capitol that night singing, 'God Bless America.' For once, the country banded together because never had evil been more clearly defined for us. It wasn't a liberal; it wasn't a conservative, it was crazed zealots who steered airplanes into buildings and those who danced in the streets to celebrate.
Now, that's all gone. (Those of you who don't like reading me on the subject of politics should skip the next couple of paragraphs). The scene the other night in The House of Representatives when Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted, "you lie," at President Obama during his health care speech--and, even worse some of the reaction to it--shows just how far we have slid backwards in eight years. Let's not even debate here (because this really ISN'T a political blog) about whether illegal aliens would be included in the bill even though people on both sides of the aisle reading the bill on Thursday said they clearly would not.
The point is this: under no circumstances do you heckle The President of the United States. The guy who threw the shoes at President Bush went to jail--which is fine with me because he tried to assault him. Wilson shouldn't go to jail, but he should resign. Imagine, for a moment, if, say Barney Frank, had screamed at Bush during a speech to Congress what the reaction on the right would have been. Instead, there were still Republicans trying to claim that Wilson's facts were right--as if that would be a defense--and then the insane right wing pundits were saying he should not have apologized.
Sorry folks. You can completely disagree with any president on any issue. But there is such a thing as respect for the office and decorum. Several years ago, at the height of the Iraq war I was invited to a breakfast at The White House as part of the National Literary Festival. I sent regrets for this reason: I could not, at that moment, bring myself to shake hands with President Bush because I believed he was needlessly putting thousands of young Americans in harm's way and I was very angry about it. I had friends in Iraq and had known several people who had died or been wounded there. But I would NEVER accept the invitation and then be rude to The President in The White House. If I went, I would shake his hand and say, "Mr. President, thank you for the invitation. It is always an honor to be inside The White House."
If Wilson was so emotional on this issue, he should have stayed away from the speech. What's more, his apology was a non-apology. Even after making it he was still insisting he was right about the bill.
(Okay ditto-heads et al it is now safe to return to the blog).
As luck would have it, I will be at West Point tonight, certainly a place that is appropriate on this anniversary. Army is having its annual Hall of Fame induction dinner tonight and I was asked to MC, largely because the best-known of the eight inductees is Mike Krzyzewski. I'm old enough that I saw Krzyzewski PLAY at Army, on Bob Knight-coached NIT teams. In 1969, Army played South Carolina in the NIT quarterfinals. South Carolina had been ranked in the top ten most of the year but had lost the ACC Tournament and since only the tournament champion made the NCAA Tournament back then, the Gamecocks came to New York. Krzyzewski shut down John Roche and Army won the game. Years later, Bobby Cremins told me a story about that night.
"We were down and had to come out of our zone and go man-to-man," he said. "As we came out of the huddle Frank (McGuire) said, 'Bobby, who've you got?' I said, 'I got the kid with the big nose whose name I can't pronounce.'"
I first met Krzyzewski my senior year in college when Duke played Connecticut (not a power back then) in Madison Square Garden. I flew to New York a day early with Coach Bill Foster and Duke's star guard, Tate Armstrong. We attended what was then the weekly New York coaches luncheon at Mama Leone's where Foster--who had coached at Rutgers--spoke to a lot of old friends. By then, Krzyzewski was coaching at Army and Jim Valvano--who had played for Foster at Rutgers--was at Iona. After lunch, Foster introduced me to both of them.
"John does a great Dean Smith impression," Foster said. (Actually to quote Dean's long-time SID Rick Brewer, EVERYONE did a Dean impression in those days). It didn't take a lot of coaxing before I did it, referring often to the importance of seniors.
Krzyzewski and Valvano both laughed, little knowing how important Smith would become in their lives a few years later. Of course I had no idea how important Krzyzewski and Valvano would become in my life.
The funny thing is there seems to be a rule that, because I went to Duke, I'm not supposed to say or write anything good about Krzyzewski because I'm doing it just because I'm a "Dukie." Anyone who knows me at all knows I'm hardly considered a loyal son by Duke people and most people know just how much respect and affection I have for Dean Smith. But just as people in politics like to put simplistic labels on people, those in sports do the same. Heck, if you pick up a Duke media guide on the distinguished graduates page under "journalism," they list some woman who was on 'Survivor." I don't make the cut. Maybe calling the last two presidents a liar (Nan Keohane) and a weakling (Richard Brodhead) has something to do with it.
I don't need to defend Krzyzewski's coaching record on any level so I will leave you with one story about Krzyzewski the person and if telling it makes me a "Dukie," so be it. Three years ago, my father died two nights before Duke played North Carolina in Chapel Hill. The funeral was on the day of that game. Duke won in the final minute. Needless to say I didn't get to watch.
The next morning my phone rang and I heard Krzyzewski's familiar nasal voice. Almost always he will open a conversation with some kind of joke or putdown. He once returned a call I'd made to him on New Year's Day and said, "how does it feel knowing the highlight of your year (his calling) has come and gone and the year isn't even 24 hours old yet?"
This time he just said, "how are you holding up?" I told him I was okay, my dad had been almost 85 and he'd lived an amazing life.
"I want to tell you something," Krzyzewski said. "Last night, during our last time out, I stepped away from the huddle for a second and looked up and just said, 'Martin, this one's for you.'"
The last college basketball team my dad ever cared about was CCNY--where he graduated in 1941. Even so, I got pretty choked up at the thought and the sentiment.
That's why, Dukie or not, I'm honored to be part of the ceremony tonight. And I know that all of us in the room, Democrats and Republicans, will take a long moment to honor those who were killed eight years ago today. I can only hope that most of us will remember how that day felt when this day is over.
One thing that came out of 9-11 was a toning down, at least for a while, of political vitriol. Most of us can still remember the sight of members of Congress--Democrat and Republican--standing on the steps of the capitol that night singing, 'God Bless America.' For once, the country banded together because never had evil been more clearly defined for us. It wasn't a liberal; it wasn't a conservative, it was crazed zealots who steered airplanes into buildings and those who danced in the streets to celebrate.
Now, that's all gone. (Those of you who don't like reading me on the subject of politics should skip the next couple of paragraphs). The scene the other night in The House of Representatives when Joe Wilson of South Carolina shouted, "you lie," at President Obama during his health care speech--and, even worse some of the reaction to it--shows just how far we have slid backwards in eight years. Let's not even debate here (because this really ISN'T a political blog) about whether illegal aliens would be included in the bill even though people on both sides of the aisle reading the bill on Thursday said they clearly would not.
The point is this: under no circumstances do you heckle The President of the United States. The guy who threw the shoes at President Bush went to jail--which is fine with me because he tried to assault him. Wilson shouldn't go to jail, but he should resign. Imagine, for a moment, if, say Barney Frank, had screamed at Bush during a speech to Congress what the reaction on the right would have been. Instead, there were still Republicans trying to claim that Wilson's facts were right--as if that would be a defense--and then the insane right wing pundits were saying he should not have apologized.
Sorry folks. You can completely disagree with any president on any issue. But there is such a thing as respect for the office and decorum. Several years ago, at the height of the Iraq war I was invited to a breakfast at The White House as part of the National Literary Festival. I sent regrets for this reason: I could not, at that moment, bring myself to shake hands with President Bush because I believed he was needlessly putting thousands of young Americans in harm's way and I was very angry about it. I had friends in Iraq and had known several people who had died or been wounded there. But I would NEVER accept the invitation and then be rude to The President in The White House. If I went, I would shake his hand and say, "Mr. President, thank you for the invitation. It is always an honor to be inside The White House."
If Wilson was so emotional on this issue, he should have stayed away from the speech. What's more, his apology was a non-apology. Even after making it he was still insisting he was right about the bill.
(Okay ditto-heads et al it is now safe to return to the blog).
As luck would have it, I will be at West Point tonight, certainly a place that is appropriate on this anniversary. Army is having its annual Hall of Fame induction dinner tonight and I was asked to MC, largely because the best-known of the eight inductees is Mike Krzyzewski. I'm old enough that I saw Krzyzewski PLAY at Army, on Bob Knight-coached NIT teams. In 1969, Army played South Carolina in the NIT quarterfinals. South Carolina had been ranked in the top ten most of the year but had lost the ACC Tournament and since only the tournament champion made the NCAA Tournament back then, the Gamecocks came to New York. Krzyzewski shut down John Roche and Army won the game. Years later, Bobby Cremins told me a story about that night.
"We were down and had to come out of our zone and go man-to-man," he said. "As we came out of the huddle Frank (McGuire) said, 'Bobby, who've you got?' I said, 'I got the kid with the big nose whose name I can't pronounce.'"
I first met Krzyzewski my senior year in college when Duke played Connecticut (not a power back then) in Madison Square Garden. I flew to New York a day early with Coach Bill Foster and Duke's star guard, Tate Armstrong. We attended what was then the weekly New York coaches luncheon at Mama Leone's where Foster--who had coached at Rutgers--spoke to a lot of old friends. By then, Krzyzewski was coaching at Army and Jim Valvano--who had played for Foster at Rutgers--was at Iona. After lunch, Foster introduced me to both of them.
"John does a great Dean Smith impression," Foster said. (Actually to quote Dean's long-time SID Rick Brewer, EVERYONE did a Dean impression in those days). It didn't take a lot of coaxing before I did it, referring often to the importance of seniors.
Krzyzewski and Valvano both laughed, little knowing how important Smith would become in their lives a few years later. Of course I had no idea how important Krzyzewski and Valvano would become in my life.
The funny thing is there seems to be a rule that, because I went to Duke, I'm not supposed to say or write anything good about Krzyzewski because I'm doing it just because I'm a "Dukie." Anyone who knows me at all knows I'm hardly considered a loyal son by Duke people and most people know just how much respect and affection I have for Dean Smith. But just as people in politics like to put simplistic labels on people, those in sports do the same. Heck, if you pick up a Duke media guide on the distinguished graduates page under "journalism," they list some woman who was on 'Survivor." I don't make the cut. Maybe calling the last two presidents a liar (Nan Keohane) and a weakling (Richard Brodhead) has something to do with it.
I don't need to defend Krzyzewski's coaching record on any level so I will leave you with one story about Krzyzewski the person and if telling it makes me a "Dukie," so be it. Three years ago, my father died two nights before Duke played North Carolina in Chapel Hill. The funeral was on the day of that game. Duke won in the final minute. Needless to say I didn't get to watch.
The next morning my phone rang and I heard Krzyzewski's familiar nasal voice. Almost always he will open a conversation with some kind of joke or putdown. He once returned a call I'd made to him on New Year's Day and said, "how does it feel knowing the highlight of your year (his calling) has come and gone and the year isn't even 24 hours old yet?"
This time he just said, "how are you holding up?" I told him I was okay, my dad had been almost 85 and he'd lived an amazing life.
"I want to tell you something," Krzyzewski said. "Last night, during our last time out, I stepped away from the huddle for a second and looked up and just said, 'Martin, this one's for you.'"
The last college basketball team my dad ever cared about was CCNY--where he graduated in 1941. Even so, I got pretty choked up at the thought and the sentiment.
That's why, Dukie or not, I'm honored to be part of the ceremony tonight. And I know that all of us in the room, Democrats and Republicans, will take a long moment to honor those who were killed eight years ago today. I can only hope that most of us will remember how that day felt when this day is over.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Announcing My 28th Book, a Long Sought-After and Respected Subject --- Dean Smith
Some time today, Little-Brown and Company, my non-fiction publisher (Random house publishes my kids mysteries) will put out a press release announcing my next book. It will be my 28th book and I can honestly say that I’m as fired up about this project as I’ve been since my first book—which did not merit a press release back in 1985.
That book, as most people know, was responsible for a lot of things in my life, including the name of this blog. But Bob Knight wasn’t the first coach about whom I wanted to write a book.
Dean Smith was.
Yes, I went to Duke and if you believe all the silly hype built up in recent years around that rivalry, people from Duke and people from North Carolina have to be physically restrained whenever they’re in the same room. I’ve never seen it that way. In fact, when I was a junior in college and Bill Foster was trying to rebuild the Duke program, I wrote a column in The Chronicle, the Duke student newspaper, saying if he was looking for a model, he need look no farther than 10 miles (it is TEN miles not eight as legend has it) down the road to Chapel Hill.
Soon after that, Duke played at Carolina. The Tar Heels won—they were 10-1 against Duke in my undergraduate days—and after the game I approached The Great Man (I remember the day vividly, it was his 45th birthday and everyone in Carmichael Auditorium sang ‘Happy Birthday,’ while he cowered in embarrassment) to ask him a question about Tate Armstrong’s chances to make The Olympic team he would coach that summer.
When I introduced myself, without batting an eye, he said, “I know you. I read your column the other day. I thought you were very fair to us—especially for a Duke student.”
I was, needless to say, stunned. Dean Smith had read something that I wrote? Later I learned that the Carolina basketball office had subscriptions to every ACC student newspaper, every paper that covered the ACC and every major newspaper in the country. One of the assistants was assigned to go through them and clip anything that he thought Smith should read or know about. Roy Williams had the job for several years. My column had made it into Smith’s briefcase at some point.
“I usually do the reading on airplanes,” he told me years later. “It kills the time and I might pick up something interesting."
By then I knew there was no attention to detail too small for him. When I went to The Washington Post after graduation we developed a good relationship although the running joke was that I was, “fair for a Duke graduate.” I would argue that I was fair—period.
Dean constantly chided me about my casual dress. “Why blue jeans all the time,” he said once. “You represent one of the great papers in the country. If you can’t afford a jacket and tie, I’ll buy you one. I can do it for you since you aren’t a player.”
I told him I could afford a jacket and tie, but appreciated the offer. I just liked to look non-threatening when interviewing athletes who were about my age. “Well,” he said, “I suppose I should be grateful, given where you went to college, that you don’t show up in sandals.”
THAT, he didn’t have to worry about.
In 1981, I wrote a lengthy two-part series in The Post about Smith. It took me several sessions just to get him to agree to be interviewed. “Write about the players,” he kept saying. No, I kept answering, I want to write about YOU. He finally gave in, agreeing to let me drive with him from Chapel Hill to Charlotte en route to the old North-South doubleheader. There were only two problems: he still smoked in those days and, in a closed car in February I almost choked to death. Then there was the trip back: I had to cover a Duke-Maryland game in Durham the next day so I was going to drive his car back to Chapel Hill and pick up my car there.
When we got to the hotel in Charlotte, Dean told me where the registration was in case I got stopped. “Dean, if I get stopped in this state driving your car, I’m going to jail,” I said.
He laughed. “Yeah, and with your luck it’ll be a State fan.”
I never went one mile over the speed limit on the way back. The interview went surprisingly well—when he was engaged and willing, no one was a better interview. It was while researching that piece that I became convinced that I HAD to do a book on Dean. He set me up to interview his pastor, Dr. Robert Seymour, at The Binkley Baptist Church. Dr. Seymour told me the story about Dean, still an assistant coach, walking into a segregated Chapel Hill restaurant in 1958 with a black member of the church and, for all intents and purposes, daring management not to serve them. They did. De-segregation began to take hold soon after that.
When I went back to Dean to ask him his memories of that night he shook his head. “I wish he hadn’t told you that story,” he said.
“Why?” I asked, very surprised. “You should be very proud of what you did.”
He looked me right in the eye and said: “You should never be proud of doing the right thing. You should just do it.”
I still remember the shiver that ran through me when he said it. A year later, Carolina finally won Dean’s first national title. I called him. “You’ve done it all now,” I said. “I’d really like to do that book we’ve talked about. (I had brought it up to him after The Post piece). He said he’d think about it, talk to his wife, Linnea. A week later he called back.
“I can’t do it,” he said. “I’m still an active coach and I’m just not ready to be as frank about some things as I know you’ll want me to be.”
I was disappointed, but thought that was a fair answer. I thanked him for thinking about it. “I feel badly,” he said. “Can I do anything—maybe get you some tickets?”
I didn’t need tickets.
For years, the idea that I should write the book stayed with me, even after I began writing books. Rick Brewer, who has worked with Dean since the mid-60s, and I would periodically talk about it. This year at The Final Four, Rick said to me, “You should take one more shot at it.”
So, in May I drove to Chapel Hill to see Dean. He’s 78 now and gets frustrated because his memory, once encyclopedic to put it mildly, isn’t what it used to be. “Sometimes it just makes me angry,” he said. But he still remembers a LOT. “I’m glad to see you still talk with your hands,” he said about five minutes after I sat down.
I brought up the book, reminding him we had first talked about it twenty-seven years ago. Again, he wanted to think about it. Almost as soon as I left the office I was tracking Roy Williams down on vacation, trying to enlist his support. When Roy called back he said, “this is a book that needs to be done. People just don’t know all this man did. I’ll talk to him.”
Fortunately, I didn’t need Roy to have that talk. Dean agreed to the book a couple days after I’d been in Chapel Hill. We had our first lengthy session last week. There’s a lot of work to do to get it out by March of 2011, but I’m truly excited.
While I was in Dean’s office last week, Lefty Driesell, Dean’s old rival and now friend, called. “You gonna let a Duke guy write a book on you?” Lefty (a Duke guy) said to Dean.
“I don’t think of him as a Duke guy,” Dean said to Lefty. “I just think of him as a pretty good guy.”
That may be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me.
That book, as most people know, was responsible for a lot of things in my life, including the name of this blog. But Bob Knight wasn’t the first coach about whom I wanted to write a book.
Dean Smith was.
Yes, I went to Duke and if you believe all the silly hype built up in recent years around that rivalry, people from Duke and people from North Carolina have to be physically restrained whenever they’re in the same room. I’ve never seen it that way. In fact, when I was a junior in college and Bill Foster was trying to rebuild the Duke program, I wrote a column in The Chronicle, the Duke student newspaper, saying if he was looking for a model, he need look no farther than 10 miles (it is TEN miles not eight as legend has it) down the road to Chapel Hill.
Soon after that, Duke played at Carolina. The Tar Heels won—they were 10-1 against Duke in my undergraduate days—and after the game I approached The Great Man (I remember the day vividly, it was his 45th birthday and everyone in Carmichael Auditorium sang ‘Happy Birthday,’ while he cowered in embarrassment) to ask him a question about Tate Armstrong’s chances to make The Olympic team he would coach that summer.
When I introduced myself, without batting an eye, he said, “I know you. I read your column the other day. I thought you were very fair to us—especially for a Duke student.”
I was, needless to say, stunned. Dean Smith had read something that I wrote? Later I learned that the Carolina basketball office had subscriptions to every ACC student newspaper, every paper that covered the ACC and every major newspaper in the country. One of the assistants was assigned to go through them and clip anything that he thought Smith should read or know about. Roy Williams had the job for several years. My column had made it into Smith’s briefcase at some point.
“I usually do the reading on airplanes,” he told me years later. “It kills the time and I might pick up something interesting."
By then I knew there was no attention to detail too small for him. When I went to The Washington Post after graduation we developed a good relationship although the running joke was that I was, “fair for a Duke graduate.” I would argue that I was fair—period.
Dean constantly chided me about my casual dress. “Why blue jeans all the time,” he said once. “You represent one of the great papers in the country. If you can’t afford a jacket and tie, I’ll buy you one. I can do it for you since you aren’t a player.”
I told him I could afford a jacket and tie, but appreciated the offer. I just liked to look non-threatening when interviewing athletes who were about my age. “Well,” he said, “I suppose I should be grateful, given where you went to college, that you don’t show up in sandals.”
THAT, he didn’t have to worry about.
In 1981, I wrote a lengthy two-part series in The Post about Smith. It took me several sessions just to get him to agree to be interviewed. “Write about the players,” he kept saying. No, I kept answering, I want to write about YOU. He finally gave in, agreeing to let me drive with him from Chapel Hill to Charlotte en route to the old North-South doubleheader. There were only two problems: he still smoked in those days and, in a closed car in February I almost choked to death. Then there was the trip back: I had to cover a Duke-Maryland game in Durham the next day so I was going to drive his car back to Chapel Hill and pick up my car there.
When we got to the hotel in Charlotte, Dean told me where the registration was in case I got stopped. “Dean, if I get stopped in this state driving your car, I’m going to jail,” I said.
He laughed. “Yeah, and with your luck it’ll be a State fan.”
I never went one mile over the speed limit on the way back. The interview went surprisingly well—when he was engaged and willing, no one was a better interview. It was while researching that piece that I became convinced that I HAD to do a book on Dean. He set me up to interview his pastor, Dr. Robert Seymour, at The Binkley Baptist Church. Dr. Seymour told me the story about Dean, still an assistant coach, walking into a segregated Chapel Hill restaurant in 1958 with a black member of the church and, for all intents and purposes, daring management not to serve them. They did. De-segregation began to take hold soon after that.
When I went back to Dean to ask him his memories of that night he shook his head. “I wish he hadn’t told you that story,” he said.
“Why?” I asked, very surprised. “You should be very proud of what you did.”
He looked me right in the eye and said: “You should never be proud of doing the right thing. You should just do it.”
I still remember the shiver that ran through me when he said it. A year later, Carolina finally won Dean’s first national title. I called him. “You’ve done it all now,” I said. “I’d really like to do that book we’ve talked about. (I had brought it up to him after The Post piece). He said he’d think about it, talk to his wife, Linnea. A week later he called back.
“I can’t do it,” he said. “I’m still an active coach and I’m just not ready to be as frank about some things as I know you’ll want me to be.”
I was disappointed, but thought that was a fair answer. I thanked him for thinking about it. “I feel badly,” he said. “Can I do anything—maybe get you some tickets?”
I didn’t need tickets.
For years, the idea that I should write the book stayed with me, even after I began writing books. Rick Brewer, who has worked with Dean since the mid-60s, and I would periodically talk about it. This year at The Final Four, Rick said to me, “You should take one more shot at it.”
So, in May I drove to Chapel Hill to see Dean. He’s 78 now and gets frustrated because his memory, once encyclopedic to put it mildly, isn’t what it used to be. “Sometimes it just makes me angry,” he said. But he still remembers a LOT. “I’m glad to see you still talk with your hands,” he said about five minutes after I sat down.
I brought up the book, reminding him we had first talked about it twenty-seven years ago. Again, he wanted to think about it. Almost as soon as I left the office I was tracking Roy Williams down on vacation, trying to enlist his support. When Roy called back he said, “this is a book that needs to be done. People just don’t know all this man did. I’ll talk to him.”
Fortunately, I didn’t need Roy to have that talk. Dean agreed to the book a couple days after I’d been in Chapel Hill. We had our first lengthy session last week. There’s a lot of work to do to get it out by March of 2011, but I’m truly excited.
While I was in Dean’s office last week, Lefty Driesell, Dean’s old rival and now friend, called. “You gonna let a Duke guy write a book on you?” Lefty (a Duke guy) said to Dean.
“I don’t think of him as a Duke guy,” Dean said to Lefty. “I just think of him as a pretty good guy.”
That may be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said about me.
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