Jack’s Blog

When the Final Four comes around, everyone is busy talking about who will cut down the nets and rooting for their favorite squad - because they might be an alum, might know or live by an alum, professor, administrator, coach or, if they’re fortunate enough, a player.  Or maybe they have a small (or not so small) wager or their bracket is still in the running for the top prize for their office pool.

However, during the first two rounds, while all of the above still applies, there’s another reason people get so geeked for the tournament: to see the major upset take place - and the bigger, the better.  Since no #16 seed has ever knocked off a #1 (even though that is what the world, except for the #1 who eventually goes down, longs for), a #15 over a #2 will do nicely in satisfying the public’s desire for a David vs. Goliath story.

In history, there have been four such upsets, the first one pulled off by my friend and fellow New Jersey native, Dick Tarrant.  Dick coached one of my college buddies at Passaic HS (see my 9/13/08 blog entitled Why High School Coaches Do It for a little more about the impact high school coaches had on my three best buds in college and the coaches we tried to one-up each other about when we got to college).  As a matter of fact, my college classmate, Paul Dolinoy (see 1/28/09 blog), played with a guy named Lou Goetz, at Passaic on a Dick Tarrant-coached team.

Louie went on to be an assistant coach, his final stop at Duke, before accepting the University of Richmond job.  When Lou was hired (and this says something to the character of both men), he felt he could use some veteran help on the bench, and turned to his old high schol coach, Dick Tarrant.  It had to have been 30 or more years since Dick was an assistant and he had no desire to ever coach in college (he’d been offered a few smaller college head coaching jobs due to his overwhelming success on the prep level, which he turned down because he liked living where he was and saw no reason to leave).  For all the success Dick Tarrant’s had in coaching, you’d be hard pressed to find a guy who has his ego in check more than Dick.

To help his former prep school player, he accepted and the Tarrants relocated to Richmond, VA.  Wouldn’t you know it, but after, I believe, just one year and a reasonable amount of success, considering what they inherited, Lou (possibly in a moment of “Is that all there is?), decided coaching wasn’t his real passion but he made the statement at such a time that the easiest route for Richmond athletics to take was to name Dick interim head coach.

All he did that year was lead the Spiders to the NIT.  Interim tag removed, Dick coached 12 seasons in all - with success beyond belief considering the (lack of) emphasis and money Richmond spent on men’s basketball, but it was in his tenth year when he pulled the biggest miracle up to that time when his Spider team, which received a #15 seed, took on the powerful Big Orange of Syracuse - and beat them!  It truly had “shocked the world” since it was a first and one that no one ever truly believed would happen.  

In the years following, (’93, ‘97 and ‘01, Santa Clara beat Arizona, Coppin State beat South Carolina and Hampton beat Syracuse) there have been three more 2 vs. 15 upsets and yesterday, there was nearly another as Cal State-Northridge led for a good portion of the game and had #2 seeded Memphis on their heels.  Finally, talent won out (and a little recuiting, giving the Tigers more depth than the Matadors) and Memphis advanced with an eleven point win.

Years from now, a much greater percentage of people will forget the outcome of this contest - because Northridge came up short.  But you can bet it will still be vividly imprinted in the memory of those who made the trip, because as Michelangelo said:

“It’s better to try and do something great and fail, than to try to do nothing and succeed.” Â

Today’s blog wasn’t started until after midnight because blogging is the last thing I do before I go to bed. 

The reason I haven’t begun until now (12:15 am) is because I gave tests in four of my classes and, when I correct a test, I don’t just mark it right or wrong, but actually do the problem, step-by-step, if the student got the wrong answer.  My feeling is that some kids feel awkward about asking a question in class, so if they can look at the correct answer, one step at a time, with no one looking at them, maybe they’ll better understand it.  The problem is that 1) if the test is a hard one, I may have 50 kids miss the same problem and if the answer takes, say, six steps, that means I have to write 300 steps (and that’s just for one problem)!  Hence, it may take quite some time for me to correct four, or sometimes, even five classes worth of tests.

With a 1), there will always be a 2) and while 1) is related to the difficulty of the test, 2) is about how effectively I taught the unit.  This usually isn’t that much of a problem because I’ve been teaching the same Algebra material for seven years now (not counting what I taught at my alma mater nearly 40 years ago - my first full-time job after graduating from college), plus all the tutoring of college basketball players I did at the nine NCAA Division I institutions over my 30 year assistant coaching career and think I have a good knack at getting the material across in a plain way that uses the explanations from the book, strategies I’ve picked up from students and other colleagues and, what everyone remembers best, anecdotal stories, in this case those that relate math to life.

For this unit, 2) was a disaster!  So many kids got so many wrong, it took me all weekend to grade them.  In reality, it was longer than the weekend because I have to finish grading the last two pages (of a seven-page test) tomorrow morning before school and during my second period prep class.  For such an abomination to occur, a number of factors had to be present.  The students weren’t paying attention, (many have a strike against them because they begin with a poor foundation in math, and, due to that, tend to dislike the subject matter), they didn’t do the homework, they missed class and, also a possibility, although the one teachers like the least - I didn’t do as good a job as was necessary in transferring what I knew to them so that they would have the ability to ace (or at least, pass) the test. 

I’ll find out how much of it was the latter when I ask the other Algebra teachers how their kids graded out.  If their grades were similar, maybe the test was too much for the students - or there was too much information to absorb in one unit.  If not, it comes down to my favorite subject - accountability. 

Local (Fresno, CA) entrepreneur (and philanthropist), Dan Gamel, had a number of highly successful RV dealerships throughout the Central San Joaquin Valley.  He also opened up a health club, I’m told more for kicks than any other reason, and this became one of the most popular clubs in Fresno.  I might be mistaken, but I believe he sold his dealerships and had planned on retiring when, for reasons unknown to me, he jumped back in the business and started all over again.  He sold at the right time, i.e. just before the gasoline hike in price (which may have been what made him return).  Successful people can’t stand to see their business(es) fail, even if they’re not the ones who are seen as failures.

A story in the Fresno Bee was done on Dan a year or so ago.  He’s a “to-the-point” kind of guy and when he was asked a question on the subject of accountability, his response was so profound, I put it up on my wall, alongside quotes from such immortals as Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Michelangelo and today’s thinkers - Zig Ziglar, John Wooden, Stephen Covey, John Maxwell and Warren Bennis.  Dan’s line that I thought enough of to put on the wall for everyone who enters my room to see is:

“People will always make excuses because they can’t blame themselves.”  ¼/p>

When the Boston Celtics toured Italy, one of the stops they made was the must-see phenomenon in Vatican City.  They stopped to marvel at the Sistine Chapel.  One of the people in their travel party mentioned to fun-loving rookie, Glen “Big Baby” Davis, that it took Michelangelo four years to complete the painting of it.

Big Baby pondered this accomplishment for a while and then made the now-famous remark, which made the “They Said It” selection in Sports Illustrated:  “There’s no way I would spend four years to paint a ceiling.  But you do what you gotta do and I want to commend Michelangelo.”

I wonder if someone asked Davis if he would mind if they passed along the compliment to the “painter,” what he’d say.  Being the affable guy that he is, I imagine the big fella’s response would be, “Absolutely, go right ahead.”  Who said jocks don’t have culture? 

Then again, if Michelangelo had the money Big Baby does, maybe he would have considered outsourcing the job, saving valuable time to work on other, more important pursuits.  My late mentor, the incomparable insurance salesman, speaker and author John Savage, once said:

“Before you open your mouth to speak, make sure what you have to say is an improvement on the silence.”    Â