By GARY SHELTON
© St. Petersburg Times, published March 25, 2001
ATLANTA -- It is a coach's game. At times, that seems to be the very best thing you can say about college basketball.
Tom Izzo's voice carries across an empty coliseum, pushing and prodding, pulling and pleading. This is the sound of Michigan State as it zeros in on another national championship. From a distance, it sounds like fury.
Not far away, John Chaney sits at a podium and rags on his players. He tells one how he's going to get chewed up, another how he's going to be beaten down. Then he laughs. This is the way Temple basketball looks, a hollow-eyed grump grinning at his joke.
For most of us, Izzo is Michigan State, and Chaney is Temple. Not only that, but Mike Krzyzewski is Duke and Rick Majerus is Utah and Lute Olsen is Arizona. More and more, it becomes difficult to separate the person from the program. What is Kansas like? Well, it cries a lot, because Roy Williams does. They glower in Cincinnati, like Bob Huggins.
More than any other sport, college basketball molds itself to the personality, the style, of the coach in charge. It is a game of Tubby and Lefty and Tark, a game of Lute and Keady and Billy the Kid. And most times, when the competition reaches the final few, this seems to be a fine thing indeed.
It is a coach's game. Frankly, it has had better weeks.
All of the sudden, it is not enough to be a success as a head coach. All of the sudden, a coach has to be an icon, too. If there is a lesson from the madness of this march, it is that.
Brad Soderberg, out.
Rick Pitino, in.
Jerry Green, out.
Bob Knight, in.
Steve Lappas, out.
And on the sport goes, devouring its own regardless of record or reputation. Soderberg was canned at Wisconsin despite taking the team to the NCAA Tournament after Dick Bennett resigned. Green was asked for his resignation despite four 20-win seasons and four visits to the NCAAs at Tennessee. Lappas jumped before he was pushed at Villanova.
It makes no sense. And it shows the complete lack of reality involved in many college athletic departments. Let's face it: No one thought Tennessee overachieved this season. But where, exactly, did Tennessee expect to finish? In the Final Four? Lappas' big crime? He talked to the people at UMass about the job opening there.
"You've got to be selfish," Chaney said. "You can't trust presidents and athletic directors. You can't say "loyalty' like you say "shazaam.' A coach has to be loyal to himself. You see people with great years and years fired. Used to, you could depend on having a job.
"Now, I hear Steve Lappas was (forced out). I know he had 20 wins (18 this season). I know he graduated kids. I don't know what the right formula is. Who knows? Maybe when I get back next week, I'll get fired."
It is one thing to hear Chaney talk of getting fired, because everyone knows that isn't going to happen. It is another to hear him talk of disloyalty, because it is the attribute that has defined his stay in the profession.
"You're hired to be fired," Izzo said. "It's getting like pro sports. And let's face it, we've caused some of our own problems. The more money we make, the more pressure there is to get fired. You have to accept it. I don't like it, but it's the law of the land."
So what's the solution?
Easy. You become an icon.
That's the lesson of the week, isn't it? Look at Pitino. Look at Knight. It doesn't matter that both left their last jobs with their reputation aflame. Both of them are the big deal again. For institutions in charge of teaching, the lessons are awful. This isn't about instilling character; this is about being one.
Start with Pitino. It's easy enough to lay off his NBA failures. Heck, who ever thought good coaches were in a demand in the NBA anyway. It's Pitino's sense of direction that is amazing.
Can you imagine it? Can you imagine Steve Spurrier going to FSU, or Bobby Bowden to Florida, or Dean Smith to N.C. State, or Woody Hayes to Michigan or Bear Bryant to Auburn or John Wooden to Southern Cal? That was the amazing part of Pitino's move. How many boxes at the Kentucky Derby does one guy want?
But if Rick's slickness was surprising, it was Knight's move that overshadowed the tournament this week. Knight, as defiant as ever, showed up to stay in Lubbock. And wasn't it sweet to see? It was almost as if the Knight critics and Knight supporters got together and compromised. He gets to come back, but he has to live in Lubbock, which is English for "Siberia."
As Knight talked, taking the last laugh, getting in the last digs, playing to a crowd he had yet to offend, you got the feeling this was the best it would be for him in Lubbock. Frankly, Knight hasn't been a special coach for a very long time. Even at a name-brand basketball school such as Indiana, he couldn't recruit. How is he going to get players to Lubbock? How many tall Buddy Holly fans are there?
For a day, however, Texas Tech achieved its goal. It had people talking about it. It was on the map again. Contributions were going to pour in. The TV trucks were coming.
It is a coach's game. Used to be, that was about winning.
Ha. Shows what they knew back then.