Jack’s Blog

Every other sport has its hype, but March Madness is the best “event” because it appeals to so many people.  A couple days ago, I watched conference tournament games on ESPN and ESPN 2, switching back and forth.  I can’t even remember which conferences, although I do recall that one was a so-called mid-major, while the other was a step below.  It was apparent, seeing the level of play on one channel and changing over to check out the other, that there were better players, playing a better brand of basketball on one.

For example, there were drives to the basket that wound up with difficult shots - ones that went in on one station and went awry on the other.  And these weren’t the power conferences.  The point here is that, deep down, the “little” guys, for all the talk of “on any given day,” know this is their day.  Getting into the Dance is their championship.  Sure, they’ll exchange tapes (or CD’s, DVD’s or whatever type of video they can get their hands on) and they’ll work just as hard (oftentimes, harder) than the big boys, but nothing short of a miracle will allow them to advance.  Not win it all, just advance.

There’s nothing like it in any other sport.  All of the teams are playing in the same tournament - the one where they play “One Shining Moment” for the winner.  The difference is in the jubilation shown by the team that wins its conference tourney.  For the major conference teams, the ones that produce the ultimate champion, the craziness that accompanies the champions of the smaller leagues when they win their conference championships doesn’t occur until the Final Four.  The real power brokers are the guys who are reserved even then.  They know they’re on a greater mission.

Because the tears of joy - and sorrow - flow for a longer period of time during March Madness make the overall viewing experience better by leaps and bounds.  When assessing the happiness of the teams and their fans, it comes down to a line from Leo Tolstoy:

“Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.” Â

Three word answer: I don’t know.  It’s not like they’ve drafted better than the rest of the women’s teams.  Sure, they may outrecruit their competition, but they don’t get all the talent.  And it’s not like they haven’t played any good teams.  Heck, they’ve played all the good teams - and just pasted every one of them. 

When the UCLA Bruins had their 88-game winning streak, it was back in the time of unlimited scholarships.  One year, when I was a grad assistant at Washington State, there was a 6-5 guard in Los Angeles who we thought was so good that we were going to put him on the cover of our press guide. 

UCLA heard we were recruiting him and John Wooden - or someone who sounded like Coach Wooden - called the kid.  Shortly thereafter, UCLA offered the kid a scholarship.  Sure enough, he signed with the Bruins - and never played!  That’s how it was in those days.  UCLA and Kentucky got pretty much the guys they wanted.  The joke was the Final Four ought to be UCLA, Kentucky and the guys on their respective campuses they cut.

It’s not that way now.  Women’s teams are limited to, I believe, 15 scholarships.  No doubt, UConn is loaded but, do they have the fifteen best players in the country?  On the men’s side, many knowledgeable people feel Kentucky has the #1 & #2 players in the upcoming NBA draft - and they’ve lost twice.  And aren’t even #1 in the nation!

What UConn is doing on the distaff side is absolutely incredible.  They have yet to play a close game.  As the pressure magnifies, they could be ripe for a defeat before the end of the season.  Always keep in mind the quote by Wernher von Braun:

“I have learned to use the word ‘impossible’ with the greatest caution.”    Â

The answer is simple.  College basketball is down this year.  In overall talent, in the number of good teams.  Never did I think I’d see a year without a Pac-10 team in the Top 25, never mind a North Carolina team fall on such hard times.

The Pac-10 owns the players from the West.  Sure, high school basketball in Oregon and Washington doesn’t produce mega numbers of high school All-Americans, but Portland and Seattle have had their fair share of not only good players, but superstars - and all of them want to play at Pac-10 schools.  Gonzaga has made some inroads into the talent and, every once in a blue moon, someone might escape, but if there’s a great player in the pacific Northwest, bet on him going Pac-10.

While those two can’t produce enough talent for a ten team conference, California sure can - and does.  I’ve recruited all over the country (and in some parts of the world) and if I was forced to pick only one place in which to recruit basketball players, it would Southern California, more specifically, between Orange County and the San Fernando Valley.  Trying to pick a top ten from that area is virtually impossible - and I’m not talking all-time, but on a yearly basis.

Yet, with such fertile recruiting ground, the Pac-10 is the worst it’s ever been.  Granted, many of the stars left school early, but that’s the case every year.  As far as Carolina’s concerned, Jerry Tarkanian and I seemingly discuss every week on his show how unbelievable it is - with the talent at UNC (although this year, it has been overrated), the unquestioned coaching ability of Roy Williams and all that Blue Heaven stands for, that they’ve fallen on hard times.

My conclusion is that next year, both the Pac-10 and the Tar Heels will be back in force - possibly even more dominant than they’ve been in past seasons.  Why?  It’s as simple as:

“You can’t keep a good man down.”

Our younger son, Alex, is a sophomore for the Buchanan HS basketball team.  While Buchanan has had nearly unparalleled success in its other athletics programs, basketball is the one sport that has yet to make its mark - in the conference, region or state.

This year, however, the boys’ team scaled heights never before accomplished.  Going into the final week of the regular season, they were in third place of their (six team) league, a league that is without question the toughest in the Valley.  The final two contests were against the two teams tied for first place, both of whom had beaten the Bears in the first go-around in league play.  The first was a home game against Clovis East.

Prior to the game, the boys learned their starting center was suspended due to disciplinary reasons.  The guys rallied, as Alex had a strong first half, picking up the slack of leading scorer, Jackson Carbajal, a senior who signed a National Letter-of-Intent to attend Division I Sacramento State yet had managed only two points.  Carbajal sustained a blow sometime during the first half but was cleared to play.  Whatever happened during halftime must have fired him up as he went on a tear (in his final regular season home game), scoring 24 second half points, leading the Bears to the upset win.

Alex mentioned to me at home later that night that his buddy, Jax, told him after the game, he thought he might have a concussion (he’d had several in his short football and basketball careers).  Judging from his play, it was hard to believe that anything could be wrong with him, but following a post game trip to the hospital, sure enough, he was diagnosed with a concussion.  A minimum week’s rest was prescribed.

That meant the last regular season game (vs. now league-leading Central) - at Central - was to be played without their leading center (still out for disciplinary reasons) and their leading scorer.  Somehow, the guys prevailed, making them tri-champions of the league and securing the number one overall seed in the upcoming Valley tournament.  This meant home games all the way to the finals (which were played at 10,200 seat Selland Arena, former home of the Fresno State Bulldogs) if they could continue their winning ways.

That they did, beating a couple of teams from Bakersfield - Stockdale (still without the two big guns) and Centennial (with the seniors back in the lineup).  So it came down to #1 vs. #2 (Clovis East) on the biggest stage (for high school basketball) in town.  Maybe because it was a little too big a jump in one year, maybe because of stage fright, or maybe because Clovis East was just better, but Buchanan played their worst game since the turn of the new year.  The guys started out kicking the ball all over the arena, ending the first period with what seemed like more turnovers than points.

Still and all, they were only down ten (34-24) at halftime (mainly due to some sloppy play by Clovis East as well as poor free throw shooting by the Timberwolves).  The Bears came out hot in the third quarter and at the end of the stanza, were down only three.  Clovis East turned up the pressure and Buchanan gave up way too many second shots, allowing the Timberwolves to win going away.

There will be another game for each school, with Buchanan going on the road to play a powerhouse from talent laden Southern California (announced tomorrow).  To witness up close, the devastating effect the loss had on a sixteen year old, as he drove home with us, silent in the back seat, is crushing on the parents.  We all know there will be other games, but that message is lost on the participant - so it went left unsaid.

The one line I kept thinking about - and will share with Alex at an appropriate time, e.g. a mandatory 24 hour cooling off period, is one I heard so many times throughout my career in athletics.  The caveat at the end is what makes it so powerful:

“In order to truly appreciate winning, you have to lose a tough one here and there.  Just don’t make it a habit.”

Basketball fans in Fresno seem to be divided between the state of the team from the decade starting in 1995 and what’s gone on during the past five years.  Proponents of the former talk of the excitement and post season play, while people who favor the current program speak of the embarrassment the “winners” brought and how it’s handicapped the current staff - which hasn’t achieved the success on the court the paying customers expect.

I completely understand each side.  Naturally, I’m prejudiced toward the Tarkanian administration (since I was part of it - as Director of Basketball Operations).  What intrigues me is that there has to be a comparison at all.

Tark’s teams won - at the time, not as much as many fans had hoped (although that level of success would be welcome now), but there was certainly negative publicity that followed his teams.  No one, including Jerry, wanted the bad stuff that accompanied the team.  The anti-Tark faction screams that, because of his track record, what happened was inevitable.  While they mean the problems, it would only be fair to mention that the winning was just as much a part of his MO.  After all, if an argument is going to be made by these visionaries that trouble follows programs that Tark leads, success on the floor (and at the turnstiles) is just as predictable.

The Ray Lopes’ era followed and I was no longer involved with the program, but there was a WAC Championship (yea) - and more problems (boo), many much more serious in nature than those of his predecessor.

A local boy, Steve Cleveland, returned to Fresno State, after a successful stint at BYU, and people were excited.  Cleve had grown up in Fresno, and had coached winners at Clovis West High School and Fresno City College.  The program he took over was eventually put on NCAA probation and winning seasons have gone the way of the buffalo.

It seems that there are no Fresno State fans, only Tark fans or Cleveland fans.  Because I know both of the coaches very well, what I find comical is that the two of them are close friends, each respectful of the other.  There’s no doubt that Tark couldn’t build a program the way Steve has gone about it, nor would Cleve feel comfortable following Jerry’s formula.  The most absurd part in this argument is that no one seems to be able to see each guy’s program as an entity in and of itself.

The Tarkanian backers answer their critics by saying the teams played great basketball, in front of packed houses and always went to the post season, which can’t be said of the current teams.  Cleveland’s boosters say he was hamstrung from the get-go and nobody could expect a coach to produce a winner, inheriting the situation he did.

When Jerry took over the program, it had fallen on hard times, with fan apathy at peak levels.  I doubt he told the administration they should expect winning teams who would create negative publicity.  Similarly, when Cleve was interviewed, there’s no way that he would say he would clean up the program, but not to expect winning for the first five years.

When the fans of each bring up the other’s “record,” it does nothing to make the program stronger - only to make themselves feel better.  Tarkanian’s people aren’t proud of the negative publicity that surrounded the program (although I can vouch, firsthand, that the scrutiny was a heckuva lot more intense than it was for any other program at Fresno State - before or since - in any sport).  The meaning here is that no one at the university is lacking for skeletons.  Just as those who are behind Cleveland aren’t thrilled with his squads’ overall performances on the court. 

Why not take the attitude that my friend, the departing coach (and incredibly perceptive) John Baxter said of the fans of Bulldog football:

“In this community, it’s got to be about the team.  You got to show up because you love the ‘Dogs . . . We need to celebrate all of our wins and quit ripping at each other.”

 Â

Every Wednesday night during the college basketball season, I host The Jerry Tarkanian Show, live at the Red Zone Sports Grill on the local ESPN radio station in Fresno (1430AM).  The hour show (6:00-7:00pm) is comprised of four segments, the first of which is me asking Jerry about the happenings of the past week.  The final two segments talk about his past week’s picks and how (& why) he did (third segment) and the big games to be played the following week and his selections (final segment). 

The second segment is a pre-recorded interview that he tapes at the studio.  I defy anyone to show me a Rolodex as comprehensive as Tark’s.  So far this year, here’s a partial list of the coaches we’ve had: John Calipari, Bill Self, Rick Barnes, Bob Huggins, Rick Majerus and Lorenzo Romar.  There have also been interviews with members of the media: Bob Knight (who ever thought he’d be in that category), Billy Packer and Greg Anthony (a particular favorite of Coach Tark’s because Greg was the point guard on his 1990 National Championship team) as well as others “in the game,” such as Gavin Maloof (one of the owners of the Sacramento Kings) and Mark Warkentien (GM of the Denver Nuggets - and a former assistant to Jerry at UNLV).  This is the fifth or sixth year I’ve been the host and I can’t think of anyone whom he wanted on the show he hasn’t gotten.

Wednesday night’s guest was Mike Krzyzewski, coach of the Duke Blue Devils and the Gold Medal winning coach of our Olympic team.  The exchange between the two mentors was fascinating.  Coaches open up to Jerry, mainly because they realize he has no agenda and, as he’s been called on innumerable occasions, he is a coach’s coach.  He’s not into criticizing coaches as much as studying and learning from them.  What are they doing - and why - who else in their league/the country do they have the most trouble coaching against - the exact questions the basketball fan would ask if given the chance.

In the interview, Mike divulged that his current team is made up of an eight-man rotation, with six of the eight being “bigs.”  This fact means he’s coaching differently than he has in over a decade, e.g. no press - or even half court pick up.  The rest of the conversation was just as interesting, not the normal “coachspeak” that most interviews tend to be.

Following the discussion between Mike and Jerry, I mentioned that there have been a number of upsets recently (last week, the numbers 1, 2 and 3 teams were all beaten).  My observation was that the winners seemed to play harder in those games than they had all year.  Plus, most upsets seem to be by the home team.  My point was that the truly great teams play hard every night, not just on a special occasion, i.e. they are consistent.

The question I posed to Tark was, since his teams’ trademark was they played hard all the time, was, What’s the key to maintaining that constant effort?  We had discussed earlier how, at the end of the season, most coaches cut the time of their practices down dramatically - from three hours + at the beginning of the year to, maybe, an hour and fifteen minutes, or no longer than an hour and a half.  Many people think the reason is to save the legs of the players - which is true, to a point.  Jerry added a vital component to his practice philosophy and why he thought his guys always played hard.

“No matter how long - or short - our practices were, we always went 100%.  We may have shortened the practice time, but NEVER the intensity.”Â

During two cross country flights, followed by a round trip drive to Stanford, several “stories from the past” popped into my head.  One involved a trip during the late ’80s from Toledo to Detroit.

In 1987 I went to the University of Toledo as associate head basketball coach.  No matter which of the nine collegiate staffs I was part of, I got to meet some extremely successful businesspeople.  It seems that sports attracts successful individuals, possibly because they were former players who want to remain “in the game” and possibly because they were never good enough to be directly involved with a high profile sport and this is their way of being more than just an average fan.

One of the guys I met very early in my four-year stay was a stock broker.  A huge sports fan, he had, or could get access to, tickets to anything close to Toledo.  My wife, who was pregnant at the time, and I were his guests at the University of Miami-University of Michigan football game in Ann Arbor.  On another occasion, I accompanied him to Cleveland where we watched the Indians play - from someone’s sky box.

In the spring of 1989 (dead time for college coaches), he invited me to join him and two of his friends at the old Tiger Stadium.  Our seats, naturally, were in the first row, between the dugout and the screen behind home plate.  As we settled, I noticed the home plate umpire was Dale Ford - who also happened to be a Southeastern Conference referee.  I had left Tennessee to take the job at TU.  I’ve always been a guy who would chat it up with officials and not because of what most people think - to get an “edge,” maybe a crucial late game call.  The reason I talk to officials is because I talk to most anybody.

I’ve found the refs to be decent people, many of whom are the type of guys you’d like to hang out with, if your career paths didn’t cross.  At the end of the first half of the first inning, I yelled out, “Dale Ford!”  Now, you have to realize that the old Tiger Stadium was like a big-time American Legion Field, so quaint (meaning rickety) you felt like hopping over the short fence and taking infield practice.  Plus, this was a weekday afternoon game and the park was nearly empty.

As most umps would do, he ignored “some nut calling his name.”  So I yelled out, “It’s Jack Fertig!”  He looked over, recognized me, twisted his cap sideways and made a face.  I guess that was his way of acknowledging he recognized me.  At the end of the Tigers’ half of the first, he sauntered over, shook hands and I introduced him to my three cronies.  We make some small talk, then, just before he went back to resume his job behind home plate, he reached into the pouch where he kept spare balls and handed me one.

Here I am, in the company of three successful businessmen, and these guys are looking at me like they had just discovered I had special powers.  One of them asked me if he could touch the ball.  Each guy then “had his turn.”  On the way home, my stock broker friend was in the back seat with me.  We had our first baby in January of that year and I had planned on putting the ball in his room.  After all, it was a major league baseball!

After thinking about it, I realized that ball had no meaning to a five-month-old, nor would it for years to come.  And, it wasn’t like I actually caught it.  So, I gave it to my buddy.  At first, he refused, not even thinking of taking something so precious.  I insisted - which was all he needed - and the remainder of the trip home, this powerful, wealthy businessman just kept staring at the ball.  It made me think of how I had taken the “perks” of the job for granted.

Every time I saw him following that, he always introduced me as “the great guy who gave me his major league baseball.“  It was during these times I understood Henry Clay’s line:

“Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the gratefully and appreciating heart.”

In what was Buchanan High’s first home playoff game in recent memory, the #1 seeded Bears hung tough against Stockdale High School out of Bakersfield and its star, senior Jordan Burris (who’s bound for Nevada).  Younger son Alex had a boatload of points (estimates ranged from 28-31) but it was his senior teammate, Sam Milhous, who tipped in Alex’s miss just prior to the buzzer sounding, enabling the Bears to “survive and advance” to the next round.

After the hectic game, it’s off to New Jersey to visit my ailing mother - assuming I can get into New Jersey.  Whatever the case, the blog will be taking a leave of absence until I return in the middle of next week.  As always, I recommend catching up on the archived posts, which go back as far as 2007 when this space was begun.

You’re bound to learn a little something.  As Mark Twain said:

“I never met a man I couldn’t learn from.”

Be back with you shortly.

Yesterday, I blogged as to whether the University of North Carolina, (if they end the season with at least a .500 record), should accept a bid to the NIT.  Last night, on his radio show, I posed the same question to Jerry Tarkanian.

I’ve known Jerry since 1974 and thought I knew what his answer would be.  While his answer was exactly what I thought it would be (”If I were Roy, there would be no way I’d want to play, unless there was political pressure from the administration”), one of his reasons was something I hadn’t considered.  Maybe this is what a head coach (which he was for his entire career) thinks about that an assistant (which I was for my entire career) doesn’t.

“Carolina shouldn’t accept an NIT bid because their players don’t deserve it.  Post season play should be a reward for a good season,” the coach said.  He also mentioned that nothing good could come out of playing in the NIT for the Heels.  Then he enlightened the listening audience with a story about his first team at UNLV, a team he has publicly said he didn’t like - putting it rather mildly.

“We needed to win our last three games to get an NIT bid,” began the coaching legend.  “Near the end of each game, our fans would begin the chant, ‘NIT, NIT.’  After we won our last game, the crowd was cheering louder and louder.  I really didn’t like the team.  As I was thinking of what I was going to say to the guys in the locker room, my assistant leaned over to me and said:

‘Tark, do you realize that if we go to the NIT, we’re stuck with these guys for another two weeks?’ “   

Invitation declined, thank you.

If invited (they only would need a break-even or better record), would the University of North Carolina men’s basketball team consider playing in the NIT?  With the state of hoops what it is in Tar Heel Land, it looks like their NCAA Tourney run is over.  Not the deep run, but the “getting in the Dance” run.

The NIT would so love to have UNC in the field that, not only would they give them all home games to the semis, but they might even think about playing the Final Four in The Smith Center.  Sure Chapel Hill’s not New York, but The Dean Dome has a greater capacity than the Garden and they’d be guaranteed sellouts.  Even if all Carolina Blue faithful boycotted the games, the fans of the other ACC schools would buy tickets just to cheer the Heels to defeat.  A ground breaking for a Tavern on the Green-South might be imminent.   

Bob Knight, who, safe to say, hated losing as much as any other guy, still would never refuse to play in the NIT.  That hearkened back to his coaching days at West Point - when the ultimate goal was for the Cadets to get an invite to play in the Garden (back then, all games were played in MSG).  Also, Knight had tremendous respect for those on the NIT Committee as well as legendary former East Coast coaches as Clair Bee, Joe Lapchick and Al Lobalbo.

Now, Roy’s not like Bob Knight in many ways, but one trait they share is a deep respect for the tradition of college basketball - and the NIT is more than just tradition.  Now a joke among fans and talk show hosts, it’s still considered an honor to compete in the postseason and an incredible experience if a team should ever make it to The Big Apple.  Most of the critics don’t have an appreciation for what getting into post season play means  - especially for some schools, who have to overcome injuries, defections or snubs by larger schools to play home & home, or in many cases, to play at all.  I wonder how many of these people would be selected for a similar type of “postseason award” in their business, i.e. in the top 19% of people in their line of work (what a team has to do to be invited to the NCAA Tournament) or in the top 28% (NCAA or NIT) ?

It would be a real dilemma for Roy and the administration if they were invited to the NIT. Talk about a “lose-lose” situation!  Even “cutting down the nets” would be demeaning to some of their fans.  I remember, after a fairly long streak of NCAA appearances, we (at the University of Tennessee) got invited to the NIT.  I remember having a conversation with Jud Heathcote shortly after the selection and mentioning our disappointment.  He told me he felt the same way - until one year, Michigan State had a losing season and didn’t get invited anywhere.  He advised me to be grateful for any postseason.

Which is the situation staring UNC squarely in the face.  As for what fans of Carolina ought to be doing, consider John Randolph’s quote when evaluating the current season: 

“Stick with a friend a little in the wrong.”