Sports: It's a family affair on UF's sideline

Tampa subregional

It's a family affair on UF's sideline

Florida coach Billy Donovan's family is heavy on support, light on advice, unless footwear's the topic.

By BRUCE LOWITT, Times Staff Writer

It's gotta be the shoes.

"This year, maybe halfway through the season, I think it was their game against Mississippi State, Billy forgot his shoes," Bill Donovan said. He was talking about his son, Billy, coach of the Florida Gators, No.2 seed in the NCAA South Region.

"So one of the team managers gives him a pair of shoes he's got. They're gigantic. I mean, they're size 13s but they look like combat boots on him, almost clown shoes. So Donnie Jones, one of the assistants, tells Billy, 'I don't think you can ever go out with those shoes, not the way they are with the suit."'

Bill accompanies his son on all road games, sitting at the Gators bench.

"So Billy calls me into the locker room and says, 'Give me your shoes; I'm going to give you this guy's shoes,' and he gives me the combat boots."

Billy wears an 11-111/2 shoe. His father is a size 10.

"So Billy puts on my shoes. They haven't been the same since, stretched out beyond belief. They told me he took the shoes off in the locker room at halftime, his feet were hurting him so much."

Florida won 74-66 on Jan.7 in Starkville, Miss., to open the Southeastern Conference season.

"I told him after the game, 'At least you looked pretty good and you won the game,"' Bill said. "And he told me, 'Yeah, I think I'm going to keep the shoes. I think they're a good-luck charm."'

That probably is the most input, so to speak, Bill had in any Gators game this season. On rare occasions, when all but the final score is decided, Billy "might turn to me and say, 'Well, I guess it's over,' or something like, 'You think maybe I should've called a timeout?' That's about it."

Sometimes it's tough, particularly when the referee makes a call the Donovans, um, dislike. Usually, though, Bill said he's pretty cool on the bench.

The father's philosophy, one he decided on long before Billy arrived in Gainesville in 1996: Don't ask, don't tell. "That's one thing I vowed; I never question him, never say what I think. It's his career."

Bill, a starting guard at Boston College from 1960 to 1962, owns a textile brokerage business. He worked for a similar company, then started his own about 10 years ago so he could set his hours and go to Billy's games.

Billy's mother, Joan, sits in the stands with his younger sisters, Susan and Karen. "They love to go to the games; I get too fidgety, too nervous," Joan said. "I'm usually pretty quiet. We talk a little bit sometimes, but it's pretty intense."

She doesn't go to many road games. "Bill loves to," she said. "He goes to the shootarounds, everything. I went to Kentucky two years ago and Tennessee. Usually I go to home games, the (SEC) tournaments, the NCAAs, and when Billy played in Madison Square Garden (for Providence and one season with the New York Knicks) of course I was there, too."

Joan Donovan has heard her share of vehemence directed at her son by overzealous fans. "It's hurtful, a little disheartening," she said. "I don't respond; I let it go. It's in the heat of the moment."

Billy was born and raised in Rockville Centre, just outside Queens. There's no mistaking his New York accent. His grandfather, 90, still lives there. The family bought him a satellite dish; he, too, watches all the Gators games.

Billy's grandfather is Bill Sr. He calls Billy Chip or Chipper. He read the name in a newspaper years ago and liked it. He's the only one who calls him that. Billy calls his grandfather Papadoo.

Billy's father is Bill Jr. Sometimes Billy calls him Disco. "One time when he was a sophomore in high school, Joan and I got in late. He asked where we'd been. I told him we were out disco dancing, just giving him the needle." The needle stuck.

Billy is just Billy. He has a different middle name than his father and grandfather.

Billy's son, the oldest of his and Christine's four children, also is just Billy.

Joan and Bill Donovan recently sold their Rockville Centre home and moved 60 miles east to Aquebogue, near the tip of Long Island.

"We had a tag sale," Joan said. "One of the girls came in to see what we were selling and throwing away. In the furnace room there was a bag of old basketballs.

"She said, 'Oh, Mom, you can't throw those away. Believe me, people will buy them.' I said, 'Who wants basketballs all ripped up and no air?"'

She sold all of them. She has some mementos of Billy's childhood and school stuff, the net when Providence beat Georgetown to get to the Final Four in 1987, his senior year -- and shoeboxes of his baseball cards.

Here's the way Joan Donovan thinks of Billy's job, famous coach of a successful, high-profile basketball team: 'It's a little overwhelming and I'm excited and I love it, but I don't look at it the way other people do, at the impact it has. Not that I take it for granted, by any means. It's a wonderful achievement.

"But he's still my son. He has accomplished so much, done a lot for the University of Florida. But I'm an insider looking out."

She sees him, she said, the way Barbara Bush sees George W. Bush. "She knows he's President of the United States, but he's still her boy."