Jack’s Blog

Something jogged my memory the other day, and I was reminded of a story from thirty years ago that I’m sure you’ll really enjoy.  It’s from my book, Life’s A Joke, which can be purchased on this website for a mere ten dollars (I’ll pick up the postage charge).  Maybe you can relate.

At Western Carolina, back in the late ’70s, we were a school with a really small budget, not only in athletics but the entire university.  As a matter of fact, the bowling alley had four lanes and did not have electric pin spotters!  Half the class would bowl while the other half would be resetting pins.

Bobby Pate, one of the assistant football coaches and an absolutely great guy, was one of the bowling instructors.  The basketball offices were in the same building as the bowling alleys, so occasionally Bobby would come in before or after his class.

One day at the end of the semester, Bobby came in and I could tell something was bothering him.  I said, “Bobby, what’s the matter?”

He replied, “Jack, do you remember that girl I told you about in the class who was an absolutely horrible bowler?”

“Oh yeah,” I said.  “That’s the girl you said knocked down about two pins the whole semester.”

He said, “Yeah, she was terrible at bowling, but on all the written tests, she aced ‘em.”

“So, what’s the problem with that?”  I saw he was still upset so I added, “some people are more gifted academically than athletically.”

He looked up and said, “Well, there’s really no problem, but when I recorded her grade, I felt like I did her a favor because while she was perfect on every test, every ball but one she threw went into the gutter.  So … I gave her a B.”

I stared at him like he was crazy.  “Bobby, what’s wrong with that?  You were more than fair.”

“Yeah, but I feel awful,” he said, turning kinda melancholy on me.  I was starting to wonder if he was manic depressive - until he finished the story.  “She didn’t tell me this, but I found out from another kid in the class that this girl’s a senior and is graduating next week.  That’s the only B she’s had here at Western in four years.  My bowling class kept her from a perfect 4.0 GPA.  Years from now, when she’s highly successful, somebody’s going to ask her what her grade point average was in college and she’s going to say, ‘I missed a perfect 4.0 by one grade.  I got a B in bowling,’ and the person’s going to ask, ‘What idiot gave you that grade?’” 

I tried to make him feel better by saying, “Aw, Bobby, don’t worry about it.  She’ll get over it.”

He turned and left the office, saying, “I ain’t worried about her.  I’m worried about me!”

Had I known of the famous Johann von Goethe’s line back then, I would have told it to Bobby:

“Knowing is not enough, we must apply.  Willing is not enough, we must do.”

Another college basketball season is almost upon us and with it will come many arguments.  One which will surface immediately is whether or not Tyler Hansbrough, last year’s National Collegiate Basketball Player of the Year, should have returned to school for his senior year.

Oh, he’ll surely be applauded (loudly, as is his style) by Dick Vitale.  Others will say what a wonderful gesture it is that he wanted to earn his degree and come back to complete what he considers unfinished business - winning a National Championship for him and his Tarheel teammates and coaches.  Yet, there will be others who will say, while all that sounds nice, he may have cost himself a boatload of money. 

I was on a few staffs where our players faced the same decision (although none were that level of player that “Pyscho T” is).  Some stayed, some left.  Some (maybe one) who stayed might have been better served had they left, while more who left, regretted that decision shortly thereafter.  How do you know?  Truthfully, you don’t, but as coaches, we try to do due diligence, leaning on NBA contacts to predict where the player in question would be drafted, e.g. guaranteed first rounder, lottery pick, higher - or would it be a real crap shoot if he were to leave now?  Based on his history with former players, you can bet Roy Williams did a thorough search, even though I imagine he wasn’t too disappointed with his player’s ultimate decision. 

One player I distinctly remember talking to (after he decided to return despite being the conference’s leading scorer and having posted some really big numbers in a couple games - 49 and 51 to be exact).  I told him that all the talk about what he could do when he was a sophomore and a junior was going to change to what he couldn’t do when he became a senior - and that he’d better work on those aspects of his game to negate that type of negative pub.  Also, I said, don’t take any of it personally.  Many people talk you down because they want to see if they can negatively influence others to feel that way - that they really like you and are trying the reverse pysch route.

Hansbrough already has heard that while he’s 6′9″ (somehow, the NBA will claim, after measuring him that he’s only 6′7″ - they do it every year), his arms are short, i.e. he doesn’t have a proportionate wingspan - you know, as opposed to some guy who’s listed at 6′5″ but has the wingspan of a pterodactyl.  The other rap is that, get this, his hustle and all those plays he makes won’t work in the NBA because other guys will have rebounded the miss before he has that second or third chance at it like he does at college level.  I know it wouldn’t be because the NBA guys would outhustle him - certainly not in the first 70 or so games of the season.

So, did Psycho T make the right call?  That can only be known to Tyler Hansbrough himself (and anyone he cares to divulge it to).  Believe it or not, some guys aren’t as swayed by money as much as others.  UNC might truly be his “Blue Heaven” and there are a heck of a lot more people trying to stay in heaven than trying to get out (or so I’m told).  And if he had left, that National Championship question would dog him forever.

One thing the NBA or any other business can deny Hansbrough is his character, especially if you base it on James Michener’s definition of character:

“Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.” Â

Today’s college football coaches are being paid like CEO’s and it’s because, for all intents and purposes, they are.  A great one can not only win games, but account for a substantial contribution to the university’s bottom line - in not only money, but also enrollment.  Ask any admissions officer if there’s a correlation between a winning football program and the number of applications a school receives.  If any of them say it’s not true, you’ve found yourself an admissions director of a school without a football team.   

The job description of today’s football coach includes responsibility for the overall program, meaning: naturally, the won-loss record, but also overseeing recruiting; the academic performance of the student-athletes; their strength, conditioning and nutrition activities; their off-the-field behavior - both positive e.g. community service (appearances at elementary, junior high high schools and youth athletic programs, etc.) and negative (legal problems, negative publicity, etc.); speaking engagements, and fund raising functions.

Yet, regardless of how well the coach performs in all the other areas combined, e.g. the players graduate, they’re in top physical condition (through the use of all natural methods and supplements), they’re pillars of the community with nothing illegal or immoral ever occurring, and the coach is always available to speak to whatever group requests him - and can be counted on to make, not only an appearance, but a difference, in a fund raising event, won’t he still be dismissed if the team’s record is, year after (not too many) year(s), a losing one?  Realistically, at the Division IA level (or whatever the football gods are calling it now), the answer is yes - since what really matters to the overwhelming majority of the school’s supporters is - no surprise - winning.  Independent of what any Polyanna-ish fan proclaims, the number one factor in winning is talent.  It, then, would stand to reason that the best recruiter would be the best coach.  But this is not always the case.

Coaching skills (strategy, play calling, motivation, substitution patterns) still are a major factor in which team wins.  It’s very seldom anyone will hear a coach sincerely say he was out-coached.  Sure, every so often, a coach - usually one who has a glossy record and a great deal of job security (if there is such an animal) - will say he was outcoached, but, usually that comes after a disappointing loss and is preceded by the words: “We were outplayed and outhustled.”  So as not to lose his team by looking like he threw them under the bus (and because the loss was so humbling), he’ll add the “outcoached” part.  Then, it shows a type of team unity (or, at least, plays on the misery loves company theme).

So, can a coach make a difference in any area besides talent?  I still believe he can.  The greatest compliment there ever was, regarding “coaching skill” - and I defy anybody to come up with a better one - was when Bum Phillips, coach of the old Houston Oilers, said of his contemporary, Don Shula, then coach of the Miami Dolphins:

“He can take his’n and beat your’n and take your’n and beat his’n.”

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Each year, those who get paid to inform us about which teams will select which players in the upcoming NBA Draft, always point out that there seems to be a trend of some sort.  One year, it was the drafting of high school kids (now made irrelevant by the rule stating a high schooler needs to go to college - or post-high school - for at least one year); another year, it was a fondness for foreign players; some years, it’s playmakers, i.e. guys who can run a ball club and get it into some semblence of an effective offense (much more difficult to accomplish than it sounds); while still other years, it’s guys who can “score the ball.” 

Before I go any further, I realize to be a real basketball insider, you have to be down with the freshest “basketball-speak,” but have you ever heard a statement any more ludicrous than “score the ball?”  What else can you score?  “Gee, Jim, he’s really having trouble scoring the ball tonight, but he’s absolutely deadly scoring his socks … and did you see him score that Gatorade bottle he polished off at the last time out?  Wow, talk about being en fuego!” (Another basketball insider term, or at least, it used to be).  If you can’t “score the ball” in a game of hoops, but still want to be on the squad, you’ve pretty much pigeonholeded yourself as someone who’d better average 15-20 assists/game or be a “shut-down defender.”

As far as this year’s trend, it looks like, of the top 14 selections, i.e. “lottery picks,” 7 or 8 of them will be college freshmen (the “one and done” guys).  There’s some debate that college players ought to spend at least three years on college campuses (mainly supported by people who’ve gone to more than three years of college), but if memory serves me correctly, this type of idea was, or a version of it was, determined to be unconstitutional. 

When asked if this is a good rule, the anwers I’ve heard have all been in the affirmative, but the reasons have varied: 1) the NBA’s evaluation process is now so much more advanced, as each of the teams have gotten to see the kids (they’ll be spending zillions on) in a highly competitive environment, answering questions they’d never have known if they’d have entered the league straight out of high school, 2) the fans get to see these kids in action so they can relate to them better (how much more acquainted with Derrick Rose and Michael Beasley is the average fan today than if each had turned pro right after whatever type of schooling they were receiving last year?), 3) another year for the NBA to “market” these guys and the remarkable skills they possess and 4) it gives these kids another year to mature as players and young men (like coming from poverty - in many cases - then being on a college campus for one year, followed by a season full of adulation from people you didn’t grow up with, climaxing in getting more money than you’d ever seen in your life will help in making good, sound financial decisions). 

None of these address the question, “What, if anything, are any (or the majority) of these guys doing in college?”  Do they even understand that they’re in college - or do they look at this time as an audition for the job of their dreams?  Is anything going on in terms of an academics or is the “one and done” rule a sham?  What’s their attendance like in class?  And, what kind of courses are they taking?  If the NBA is sending kids they (and the rest of us) know are only going to be there for a single academic year, why not set up a curriculum in: how to choose financial advisors, lawyers and other trustworthy people to help maximize the windfall that will be coming your way (or what to do if that bubble bursts and the dream isn’t realized); explain saving vs spending vs investing; proper nutrition and the effects of putting the wrong foods (as well as illegal substances) in your body, i.e. courses that will mean something to them after their year-long sabbatical and courses that they, if not want to go to, will illustrate why there ought to be exceptions to the rule. 

I’m not trying to be some kind of academic prude.  I’m just saying, “OK, if they’re not allowed to go directly into the league after their scholastic careers are finished, have a contingency plan.”  Let them play, in the developmental league!  Isn’t that what a developmental league is for?  I am realistic enough to know that numbers 2 and 3 above are rendered meaningless should the “D” League become the solution and a whole lot of people would be upset if 2 and 3 weren’t part of the college basketball landscape.  This bit of (unsolicited) advice solves everyone’s dilemmas (I can think of).

When the smoke clears, however, there is only one trend: which young men do the NBA decision-makers think give their clubs the best chance of winning … right now!  And it does nothing to do with “trends.”  The NBA owners, GM’s, coaches, etc. don’t care what the thinking is behind the pick, just that:

“To whom much is given, much is expected.”

Now is the time of the year for graduation parties.  Last year, we threw one for our older son who is now a freshman at the University of California-Irvine.  This past weekend, my wife and I attended parties for a couple of other graduates, but these two, a boy and a girl, had just graduated from college. 

The difference is enormous.  Although making the transition from high school to college means the parents’ influence has diminished, the kids are still dependent on the old folks, even if it seems like the need might only be for money and figuring out “what to do with all this dirty laundry” (my wife was never happier than when our “Anteater” surprised her with a trip home for Mother’s Day and her present - a ton of clothes that needed to be washed, dried and folded - in the next 48 hours).

But the college degree?  That’s so much more final!  All of a sudden, it’s time to start making a difference in the world (unless it’s postphoned with more schooling, parties, tuition expenses and, of course, dirty laundry - no matter how smart they are, that’s the last problem college students, especially boys, solve).  Now it’s on to a career, receiving a check with someone’s name on it who actually isn’t related to you and, in most cases, living on your own.

The two parties were very different in many ways but both of them shared that common theme.  The boy, who’s now a good-looking young man, has the job he wants (or thinks he does) and is looking forward to becoming the success kids always hear they can be when they’re growing up - as long as they’ll put the effort into it.  The girl, whom I met as a teenager with a bubbly personality has grown into a young woman whose beauty can be best summed up with the word “innocence.”  When I looked at her, then at her dad, I just shook my head and he instantly knew where my thoughts were.  Reflecting on 22-year-old (and up) males and what their, for lack of a better word, intentions, are, he returned the gesture.  All I’ll say is I’m I glad I’m not in his shoes.  There are enough other problems in life to think about.

Another scary, or uplifting, thought (I guess, depending on your level of optimism and view of reality), is that following the college graduation, the son or daughter is (supposed to be) a responsible adult.  In a child psychology course I took, I remember the professor saying that there were three theories on how to raise children but, unfortunately, none of them worked.  What I (and I imagine all other parents) have found is that communication with the kids (from birth) is mandatory, instilling the proper values in them (more by the parents’ actions than their words) is invaluable, monitoring (with as little interference as possible) the peers they hang around with is a necessary evil, giving them positive reinforcement a must and finally, loving them (without smothering - which usually ends up being resented, or enabling - which is nothing but “false love,” i.e. making them “happy” instead of responsible) the ultimate trait.  Allow them to make decisions … and, as they grow older, the decisions can be on issues of greater importance.  Then, hope for the best. 

It’s not unheard of that some highly successful, wonderful, well-liked and respected people have been parents of misguided, problem children who grew up to be, unfortunately and apparently without a logical reason, the complete opposite of the fine people who raised them.  So, at the risk of minimizing the impact parents have on their child, there appears to be a great deal of truth in the quote attributed to Lynn Hall:

“We did not change as we grew older, we just became more clearly ourselves.”  ¼/p>