A Season Inside

by John Feinstein

  He was a good small-college guard at the University of Vermont and has coached ever since he graduated, first in high school, then in college. He was an assistant at Pennsylvania when the job that would make him a star came open at Villanova.

  November 5 was the annual Big East Media Day at the Grand Hyatt. All nine league coaches attend along with two of their players. The setup is simple. First, the coaches go into the room where all the TV crews set up and answer TV questions while the players sit in the next room with the print media and answer their questions. Then, after an hour, everyone switches.

  The only exception to this is Georgetown Coach John Thompson. When Thompson is with the print media, so are his players. When he goes to do TV, they go with him. No one from the Big East has ever asked Thompson to follow the same system everyone else uses. They are just thankful that he shows up at all.

  Once upon a time, when Villanova was the defending national champion—that was all of two years ago—trying to get near Massimino or his players on Media Day was a little bit like trying to get Springsteen tickets. But in 1987, Massimino, Mark Plansky, and Doug West would have had a tough time finding a fourth for bridge if they had been together during the interviewing period.

  As the press moved around the room, studiously avoiding Villanova, Plansky nudged West. “The ’Neers are out in force today,” he said. “We’ll bring them back, though.”

  ’Neers is a Villanova expression, short for “Wagoneers.” Wagoneers as in Bandwagon, as in people who jump from bandwagon to bandwagon. The Villanova bandwagon was empty in November and everyone at the school was aware of it.

  In May, Massimino had called his players together after the networks had finalized their television schedules for the following winter and told them that Villanova hadn’t been selected for one network TV game for the first time in years.

  “That’s where we are,” he told them. They were a little angry and very embarrassed. That was what Massimino wanted.

  All summer he suspected he had a team that would surprise people. Because of the recruiting disasters and because of the previous season, the Wildcats would be picked to do very little in 1988. That was fine with Massimino.

  But he knew he had a rebuilding project to do and he knew it had to start at the top. The McLain drug debacle had left him drained the previous season. He had internalized his anger so much that friends had worried he was driving himself to a heart attack. He had to get Rollie back to being Rollie.

  So, he started to eat again. His weight had dropped to 210 during 1987, not exactly thin for someone who is barely 5–8, but thinner than in the past. “I coach better,” he said, “when I’m fat.” He ate his way back up to 225.

  He abandoned the pretense of being an elder statesman. He couldn’t be Dean Smith on the bench. He had to be Rollie. That meant controlled hysteria. Even in expensive clothes, Rollie had always looked disheveled during games. That was where the Danny DeVito image came from. It worked for him too. Rollie was Everyman, screaming at injustice until his hair stood on end.

  There was more. He and his coaches had to work harder than they had in the past. “If we had a letter in 1987 it was ‘S,’ “he said. “S as in soft and sucks. We were soft and we sucked. That started with all of us coaches.”

  It would be the same for the players. Tom Greis, who had been unable to run up and down the floor as a freshman, was ordered to lose thirty pounds. “Lose it or don’t bother showing up on October fifteenth,” was the word from Rollie, Greis lost it. Kenny Wilson, the tiny jet of a point guard, had to be more disciplined. West had to be more consistent. Plansky, the only senior starter, had to be more confident. Taylor had to be healthy after playing only five games as a freshman.

  “We had good players,” Massimino said. “What we didn’t have was confidence. That had always been our trademark. On the road, in close games, we always found a way. Somewhere the year before we had lost that. We were losing the close ones. I told them whatever we did this season we were going to do it aggressively. If we lost, we lost, but we were going to go down swinging.”

  When the team came together on October 15, Massimino gave them not one, but two mottoes. One was “Find a way.” The other was “The Wildcats are back.” The latter was a throwback to 1973, Massimino’s first year on the job. It made sense because this team was starting all over again.

  The perception, though, was that Villanova was in trouble. That was why the ’Neers stayed away in New York. Villanova was a nonstory. They were picked sixth or seventh in the league, depending on which poll you looked at. Some people thought they might finish ninth.

  The season would begin in Hawaii, in a tough tournament that included teams like Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Baylor, Stanford, and Nebraska. The opener was against a decent Nebraska team and, if that game produced a victory, the next opponent would probably be Illinois. The third game in three days would in all likelihood be against Kansas or Iowa.

  Massimino would know quickly whether his team was as good as he thought or as bad as the world thought. For now, though, he sat in the solitude of the crowded room, puffing on a cigar, looking every minute of his fifty-three years, watching the ’Neers do their work.

  Across the room from Massimino sat Paul Evans. He was as much in demand as Massimino was not. Along with Syracuse, which had been picked No. 1 nationally in many polls, Evans’s Pittsburgh team was seen as a dominant factor in the Big East.

  This was a new role for Evans—playing the favorite. He had always coached underdog teams in the past, first at St. Lawrence, then at Navy. But one of the reasons he had left Navy for Pittsburgh was that he wanted to be at a school where the Final Four—and the national championship—were not unreasonable goals.

  For this Pitt team, even with the loss of point guard Goodson, those did not seem to be unreasonable goals. Lane, the leading rebounder in the country, was back, along with silky-smooth center Charles Smith, standout sophomore Rod Brookin and three-year starter Demetrius Gore. What’s more, Evans had recruited four excellent freshmen to go with the veterans returning from a team that had won twenty-four games the preceding season.

  One of those freshmen was 6–10 Bobby Martin. It was Martin’s decision to go to Pitt, after initially committing verbally to Villanova, that had put Evans and Massimino at odds.

  But the story wasn’t that simple. Evans and Massimino were bound to be at odds because of their personalities. Both were competitive men and good coaches. The similarities ended there. Massimino never made a move without his wife. Where he went, she went. They had been married for thirty years. Their five children were as much a part of the Villanova team as the Villanova team was part of the family.

  Evans was completely different. It wasn’t so much that he had been married and divorced three times, because he was as devoted in his own way to his two children (one by each of his first two marriages) as Massimino was devoted to his children. It was more of an approach problem. Evans was a maverick, an ask-no-quarter, give-no-quarter guy. He had come into a league with a very definite pecking order—Commissioner Dave (Mr. Television) Gavitt was at the top along with Massimino, Thompson, and St. John’s Coach Lou Carnesecca—and said screw the pecking order. He had spoken his mind in a league where speaking your mind was frowned upon.

  The older coaches didn’t think he had paid his dues. Evans thought dues-paying was for unions. And so, when Massimino accused Pittsburgh of cheating to get Bobby Martin, Evans told the press what Massimino had said. When Gavitt told Evans to be quiet, Evans told the press that Gavitt had told him to be quiet.

  His bluntness was not going to win him any popularity contests. But Evans didn’t really care. The only contests he cared about were the ones on the basketball court.

  Evans had always wanted to be a coach. He was born in Pennsylvania but had grown up in upstate New York with his parents, who adopted him after his natural parents died while he was an infant.

  He was a good athlete, a three-sport star in football
, basketball, and track. By the time he was a junior in high school, Evans knew he wanted to coach. “I had one of those career meetings with the guidance counselor at the end of my junior year and I said, ‘I want to be a coach.’ She looked at me and said, ‘But what do you want to do for a living?’ ”

  He went to Ithaca College and became a dean’s list student when an ankle injury forced him to give up all sports but track. After graduation, he married his high school sweetheart and became a successful high school coach. During his second year as a coach, late in the season, he was called up to active duty by the National Guard.

  His team was undefeated. Only six games were left to play. Evans didn’t mind being called up but not now. There was only one solution—or so he thought. He and a friend went into the weight room and, while Evans closed his eyes, his friend brought the full force of one of the weights down on Evans’s arm. They raced to the hospital for X rays. The nurse came out with a smile on her face. “Good news, Mr. Evans,” she said. “There’s no sign of a break. You should be all right in a few days.”

  Evans didn’t bother trying to break the arm again. The unbroken one hurt too much.

  He moved into college coaching as a freshman coach at Geneseo before getting the job at St. Lawrence, as much because he had coached some football and taught some math as anything. He was a big winner at St. Lawrence on the Division 2 level but wondered when he would get a shot at a Division 1 job. In 1979, he interviewed for the Dartmouth job but lost out to Tim Cohane. That annoyed him since he had beaten Cohane in the Division 2 playoffs two years in a row.

  The following year, the Cornell job became available. The athletic director was Dick Schultz, now the executive director of the NCAA. Schultz interviewed Evans at length and told him he would be in touch. Evans finished a 22–5 season that Saturday with an easy victory over his alma mater, Ithaca, but was disappointed that Schultz wasn’t at the game.

  The next day Schultz called. He was sorry but because of public relations he had decided to hire a Bob Knight assistant, Tom Miller. Evans was crushed. “I was thirty-four and I had decided a few years earlier that if I didn’t have a Division One job by the time I was thirty-five I was going to get out,” he said. “I just didn’t want to spend the rest of my life driving a bus.”

  Four days after telling him he couldn’t hire him at Cornell, Schultz called Evans back. Would he be interested in the Navy job? Navy Athletic Director J. O. (Bo) Coppedge had called Schultz looking for names. Schultz had mentioned Evans.

  Evans was thrilled. He never stopped to think about Navy’s complete lack of basketball tradition; about the height restrictions; about the five-year service commitment required of all graduates. “I was too stupid to know I couldn’t do it there,” he said, smiling. “I figured Knight had gotten it done at Army, why couldn’t I do it at Navy?”

  It wasn’t easy. Evans’s first two teams were 9–17 and 12–14. He was criticized for trying to play an up-tempo game at a school clearly not fit to play up-tempo basketball. But Evans was putting the pieces together. His third team set an Academy record for victories by going 18–8. Evans was shocked when the NIT never noticed his team and no other schools noticed his victory total.

  The next year the record was 24–8 with a freshman named Robinson averaging six points a game. Still no NIT bid and no job offers. The next year, when Robinson blossomed, the Midshipmen were 26–6. They reached the NCAA Tournament, stunned LSU in the first round, and had Maryland down 11 before losing in the second round. Now people noticed Navy—and Evans. California called. So did Old Dominion. And Rutgers. He was even interviewed for the prestigious Kentucky job.

  None of those jobs felt right, though, so Evans stayed where he was. The next year the record was 30–5. Robinson was a superstar. The Midshipmen beat Tulsa, Syracuse (at Syracuse), and Cleveland State in the NCAA Tournament before losing to Duke in the regional final. Evans couldn’t keep track of the job offers: Southern California, Houston, Northwestern, Pittsburgh.

  He knew his time was up at Navy even though Robinson had one more year. He wanted his top assistant, Pete Herrmann, to succeed him, but he didn’t want to leave Herrmann with a bad team. And, he didn’t want to leave at the same time as Robinson and be perceived as riding Robinson’s coattails. Pittsburgh was the best job. There were good, though undisciplined players there and it was in the Big East.

  There were also rumors that Pitt was about to get nailed by the NCAA. That was alleged to be part of the reason why Roy Chipman had resigned early in the season. But Pitt’s people told Evans they were clean. Evans took them at their word, and it turned out to be the right decision—the NCAA posse never did come to town.

  Evans made it clear from day one to the experienced Pitt players that their lives would be simple: my way or the highway. When Lane talked back to him, he got tossed from practice. When someone messed up, everyone ran. The players responded to what Evans was telling them.

  “It really wasn’t that hard to get their attention,” he said. “The year before they had done it their way and they stunk. They had to be willing to give my way a chance.”

  Not that all was bliss. Evans’s hard-nosed manner angered the players at times. They thought he was unfair. He thought they were too wild. He told them to avoid parties, they went to parties. He responded by lengthening practice. In all, though, the marriage worked—to the tune of twenty-four victories. And yet, Evans finished the season less than happy with his team.

  “Once we won twenty games and clinched a share of the Big East title we didn’t have another good practice the whole season,” Evans said. “That’s the problem with the older guys on this team. They’re satisfied too easily. We have to get away from that this year if we’re going to be any good.”

  Evans had told his team in no uncertain terms it was too easily satisfied. Bluntness is a policy with him. It was that bluntness that had gotten him into a shouting match with Massimino at the Big East meetings that spring.

  The league had wanted to pass an unwritten rule that it believed would prevent repeats of the Bobby Martin incident. The rule would hold that if one league school had a verbal commitment from a player the other league schools would stop recruiting him. Massimino balked.

  “I’ve been the nice guy too many years,” he said in the meeting. “I’m tired of being pushed around by people because I try to do things the right way and they don’t.”

  Evans, knowing Massimino was referring to him, shot back, “Rollie, don’t blame me because you screwed up your recruiting.”

  After that, it got unpleasant. Now, the season was about to start. Evans had a team with high expectations and Massimino had a team with low expectations. Before the year was over, they would meet—and clash—again.

  Six days after the Big East Media Day, most of the top high school seniors in America began signing national letters of intent. Villanova signed two good players that day and received a verbal commitment from a third. Pittsburgh, in the running for three top players, struck out: zero for three. Ohio State signed four—the four it wanted.

  Chris Jent opted for the Buckeyes over Pittsburgh. Bill Robinson signed as did Mark Baker and Jeff Hall. Eric Riley, with seven days left during the signing period, was still undecided. Williams was ecstatic. He had gotten three Ohio players and a top player from out of state. He had also gotten a center, two mid-size players, and a point guard. Riley would be a bonus since he could play power forward, but he would have to compete with his high school teammate Treg Lee at that spot.

  The last crucial period for Williams during the fall had been Halloween weekend, when Jent, Baker, and Riley made their visits to Columbus. Williams had already gotten the good news that Robinson was going to sign, although he didn’t want to announce it until the signing date.

  Having three recruits visit the campus on the same weekend would make things hectic. Before they arrived, a careful itinerary had been prepared for each one, including meetings with teachers and counselors and one-t
o-one sessions for each player with Williams. Jent, who was interested in communications, would be introduced to some local TV people. Riley and Baker, who were black, would meet with two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin to talk about what life on campus was like for blacks at Ohio State. All three would be introduced to Gov. Dick Celeste before the kickoff of the football game on Saturday.

  Driving to the airport Friday morning to pick up Jent, Williams was tight, as tight as he might be on the day of a big game. Fraschilla was with him. Ayers had driven to Dayton to pick up Baker. Riley was driving from Cleveland with his father. Beulah Riley wasn’t coming—a fact that made Williams nervous.

  As he drove, Williams sipped his third cup of coffee. “I never drank it until three years ago,” he said. “I started so I would cut down on Coca-Cola. Now, I’m hooked on this stuff.”

  Since the home visits, Williams and his staff had kept up a steady stream of mail and phone calls to the recruits. This weekend was the key though and they knew it. The weather had turned up sunny. Williams was thankful. “Sometimes, if it rains, that sets a whole mood and there’s nothing you can do to overcome it. This is a good start, anyway.”

  With each assistant assigned to a player—Fraschilla/Jent, Ayers/ Baker, and part-timer Paul Brazeau/Riley—Williams would have to run practice alone that afternoon. He had been uptight earlier that week in practice and didn’t want to be that way today. It wasn’t so much being on best behavior as being careful not to be on worst behavior. “I can’t get on a profanity roll today. Even if the guys mess up.”

  The afternoon will be full of routine meetings for the recruits. The evening will be more important.

  Dinner is very carefully planned. Two current players will join the recruits and the coaches. One is Jerry Francis, a junior, who was Jent’s counselor at a summer camp. The two became friends there and Williams wants someone Jent feels comfortable with to come along. What’s more, Francis is exactly the kind of person Williams wants representing Ohio State: articulate, funny, and not caught up in the notion of being a basketball player.