Breaking Urban's rules: The coach and the quote

Yes, I know there's basketball going on -- Tennessee and Ohio State locked up in a good battle in the Sweet 16 as I'm writing.

But I've also been following a sports media controversy involving University of Florida football coach Urban Meyer and a reporter for the Orlando Sentinel this week. Here's a link to the blog of the reporter, Jeremy Fowler, where you can link to a video of the exchange between him and Meyer and read the quote from a story written by Fowler that sparked it all. (And on second thought, to call it an exchange is probably inaccurate -- unless you call a one-way tongue-lashing an exchange.)

The short version is that Meyer was angered by Fowler's article which quoted Gator wide receiver Deonte Thompson on the contrast betweeen the playing styles of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, who ended his college career in January, and the player who will probably succeed him at that position, John Brantley.

In the course of the interview, Thompson let the comment drop that unlike Tebow, Brantley plays the position like a "real quarterback." It's a comment which, in my opinion, was not intended as a criticism of Tebow, but simply referred to the fact that Tebow's exceptional running ability and odd throwing motion did make him an unusual quarterback.

But the story didn't contain that context and Meyer took it as disrespectful, and as you can see in the video, lets the reporter hear about it, calling him a "bad guy," and threatening to cut off the newspaper's access to the team.

Response to this has been interesting, and has been determined by how one feels about Meyer (Gator fans love him, fans of rival schools not so much) and the news media (and of course, everyone on the Internet hates the evil news media).

I see fault on both sides. Meyer is well-known for being intense and pretty tightly-wound. And no different from most coaches of big-time college football programs, he rivals the government of China in his desire to control access to information. Follow this link to a segment of the Dan Patrick Show in which Mike Bianchi, a respected print journalist who has covered Florida sports for years, talks about the problematic relationship between Meyer and the media.

So is the transition from one starting quarterback to another and what teammates think about that any of the reporter's business? It's a fair subject for a news story, so of course it is. Could the reporter have handled the particular comment with more sensitivity? Another yes.

I don't know how old Fowler is, but he appears to be fairly young -- compared to me, anyway. And I've come to believe over the years that sometimes reporters young and old don't think about the consquences of what they write or broadcast. And I'm not saying that you should avoid reporting stories that are going to make sources angry. In the process of reporting the news, that's sometime unavoidable.

But another thing I've learned with age is to treat sources -- like Meyer -- who know how to "play the game" with the media differently from the less experienced sources who may not realize how their comments are going to look in print. It's not a bad thing to save people from themselves sometimes.

If I were in Fowler's shoes I would have given the player the opportunity to clarify his comment. "What do you mean by a 'real quarterback'? Do you mean like a traditional quarterback?" And he might have even asked Meyer to his reaction to that comment or to the difference between the two quarterbacks.

Meyer probably still wouldn't have liked the story. But he would have had much less justification for sticking his finger in the face of another professional person and calling him a "bad guy."

Blundering through the bracket

A few thoughts while watching my NCAA tournament bracket take some heavy hits this afternoon -- right now Washington, which I had back home in Seattle by now, is beating New Mexico, and Northern Iowa is hanging on against my tournament winner, Kansas.

But like I would suspect of most basketball fans, unless there's a clear rooting interest in the game, I've found myself pulling against my bracket at several points during this first long weekend -- Wake Forest's Ish Smith buzzer-beater against Texas for one, and even Ohio's stunning rout of complacent Georgetown, which I had going deep. Oh, well, some things are worth losing $5 for.

Even with all that, I went 24-8 in the first round -- picked Murray State over Vanderbilt and Cornell over Temple and nearly got Montana over New Mexico. Tough luck, Grizzlies.

I missed the call on two of the three schools from which I have diplomas in the hunt. Florida took a tough 99-92 double overtime loss to Brigham Young in one of the best-contested games of that wonderful opening Thursday. But it was hard to feel bad about that one -- I was surprised that the Gators, seeded 10th, even got in the field and they weren't expected to win.

On the other hand, Clemson continued to test the pain threshold of even the most die-hard of Tiger hoops fans, losing to a lower-seeded opponent in the first round for a third straight season. Missouri outplayed Clemson at its own game Friday, winning 86-78 with a turnover-producing press and making senior forward Trevor Booker, the Tigers' best player, a non-factor until the game was nearly over.

I felt bad for Booker, who's probably the best Clemson player never to win an NCAA tournament game. Also for Tiger coach Oliver Purnell, who's now 0-6 all time in the NCAA tournament with three different schools. Difference is, Purnell will get another tournament shot sometime, somewhere, though next year's prospects without Booker are diminished.

My other school, Texas A&M, looked pretty good in disposing of Utah State. The bracket matches them up with Duke in the Sweet Sixteen if both win their second-round games Sunday. That's what I have, and despite being severely tempted to advance the Aggies over the Blue Devils, I didn't do it. We'll see if that becomes just another March Madness decision to regret.

One more thing -- I'm generally done with live coverage of basketball by this point each year, but I get a little overtime tomorrow. I have the Charlotte 49ers hosting North Carolina A&T in the second round of the Women's NIT at Halton Arena tomorrow afternoon. Looking forward to that last unexpected trip to the gym.

Shame on you, ACC no-shows

Still can't get used to the sight of empty seats at the ACC Tournament, especially in Greensboro. Victories by Duke and N.C. State yesterday probably insure that today's crowd will at least be respectable -- a Duke/Miami/FSU/Georgia Tech foursome probably would have meant a couple thousand people hanging around after the Duke game was done.

I've heard the TV guys saying that it always hurts the attendance in those rare years when North Carolina isn't any good, and it's hard to argue with that. Always suspected that the number of fans of Tar Heel basketball is probably considerably greater than the number of just plain basketball fans in that same group.

I've got a historical precedent for that supposition which, in fairness, isn't limited just to supporters of the University of North Carolina.

Back when it was a whole lot easier to get tickets to NCAA basketball tournament games, I went with a group of my friends each year to whatever first round or regional site was closest -- generally Charlotte, Greensboro or Raleigh. We'd order the tickets as soon as they went on sale and take our chances on what teams we would see -- usually we would get the Tar Heels, possibly Duke or N.C. State (this was the late Seventies to the mid-Eighties.)

In 1979, we settled on the Eastern Regional in Greensboro, whose bracket would match Duke and North Carolina in the regional final (it was a 40-team tournament at the time) if all went as expected.

But other teams had other ideas. On the first weekend of the tournament, the Blue Devils and the Tar Heels -- both of whom had first-round byes, became second-round upset victims in Raleigh. It became known as "Black Sunday" in news accounts of the time.

Ivy League champion Pennsylvania, which had beaten a Jim Valvano-coached Iona team in the first round, ousted North Carolina, 72-71, and St. John's upset Duke, 80-78. Fans expecting an epic fourth meeting of the season between the Blue Devils and Tar Heels (UNC had beaten Duke in the ACC tournament final), instead got Penn-Syracuse and St. John's-Rutgers.

Still a lot to like in a basketball sense, but the only "regional" appeal was way north of the Mason-Dixon line, quite a distance from Greensboro. We already had the time off work so we decided to use our tickets.

But a lot of folks didn't. The Greensboro Coliseum, which seated about 16,000 at the time, was about half full for both sessions. Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan, writing in the Basketball News, castigated local ACC fans for "abandoning" the Eastern Regional.

I wouldn't be a Southerner if I didn't resent someone from up North telling me what we ought to do down here. And once someone's paid for a ticket, it's theirs to use or not as they see fit. But he did have a point. The three games were competitive and well-played, all decided by eight points or fewer.

For the most part, that was true of the ACC tournament yesterday. Duke's 57-46 victory over Virginia was the most one-sided contest and that one wasn't decided until a big Duke run late in the second half. And today, the Duke-Miami game is close early in the second half.

Not sure why that's not worth seeing, whether you're a Tar Heel fan or a Clemson or Wake Forest fan or anything else. But then I'm just a basketball fan.

It's not a sprint, it's a marathon: Day 2, Southern Conference tournament

Before it all becomes a blur, here's how a man watches more basketball in one day than most people do in a month:

Prologue

I've been waiting for this day for a couple of weeks now, ever since I found a guy selling tickets to the first two days of the Southern Conference basketball tournament on Craigslist. I described the first day, a three-gamer, in the last blog post.

When I get home, I start getting ready for Day 2, which will include two women's quarterfinal games, starting at 9 a.m., followed by the four men's first-round games. It's a matter of laying in provisions for a long day at the Bojangles Coliseum, as I don't plan to eat the corporate namesake's chicken from the concession stand all day -- not that there's anything wrong with that, I just don't want to spend the money. I'll be able to leave the arena every couple of games to take a tailgating break.

So I pack my cooler -- some sandwiches, a box of "movie candy" for a sweet treat, some macaroni salad, a few sodas. I feel like Strom Thurmond prepping for a filibuster, only I'll get to go to the bathroom. I put the cooler in my car.

Friday morning

I actually get a late start to uptown Charlotte and the coliseum, arriving at 9:30 a.m., a few minutes before halftime of the first game between the Elon and Samford women. Elon, which dispatched Wofford easily in Thursday's first round looks like they're not a "morning" team -- after hanging with the Bulldogs for a half, they only score 13 in the second half and lose, 57-38.

The other game is about the same, as No. 1 Chattanooga defeats UNC-Greensboro, 82-64. I'm impressed with the Mocs' Shanara Hollinquest, a 6-foot senior forward who was the conference's women's player of the year. She drops 24 points on the Spartans, equally comfortable with the pull-up jumper and some smooth moves to the basket.




During the break, I buy what's easily the coolest hat at the souvenir stand. It's the Wofford Terriers. Logo's kind of retro-looking, don't you think? So for the rest of the day, I'm a Wofford guy --- although later on some drunk man in the rest room sees the black-and-gold headgear and mistakes me for a Saints fan, making some joke about Jake Delhomme being my new backup quarterback.

Friday afternoon

The afternoon session brings what there hasn't been much of so far -- close games and a big crowd with some energy.

The latter is evident because the "hometown" Davidson Wildcats are playing. It's their first time playing in the first round since 2001 -- looks like they put this appointment in their planner, and so did a good number of their red-and-black-clad fans, who are waiting to get in the door when the first session ends.

But this is not your Davidson Wildcats team of the past couple of seasons, with shooting star Stephen Curry scoring from everywhere and the 'Cats giving Division I's powerhouses all they can handle. (He is in town to play for his current team, the NBA's Golden State Warriors against the Charlotte Bobcats on Saturday, and may well have been here but I didn't see him.)

Without him, this year's Davidson team is just another middling (16-14) mid-major. They're playing Elon in a rematch of a game from the previous Saturday. In that one, senior Steve Rossiter stole an inbounds pass and hit a three-pointer in the last seconds to give the Wildcats a 99-96 double overtime victory over the Phoenix at Elon.

This game is close, but nothing like that one. Davidson is its own worst enemy, turning the ball over at inopportune times. Elon hits enough three-pointers to hang on to the lead and pulls away for a 66-59 win. Anyone who wants tickets for the rest of the tournament can get them easily from the dejected Davidson fans, who are selling off after the game. My friend and former student Justin Parker, who has joined me for the afternoon session, gets tickets for the night's last two games that way.

(And the Southern Conference's financial types are probably looking for an uptown skyscraper to jump off, as the prospect for any kind of crowd for the rest of the tournament has gone downhill fast.)

The second game of the afternoon doubleheader is also close, but ragged and not very engaging until its puzzling conclusion.

Furman, which really hasn't done much in the conference since it dominated it through most of the Seventies, plays UNC-Greensboro in this one. UNCG misses a chance to put the game away in the final seconds when the Spartans' Mikko Koivisto hits only one of two free throws. The Paladins look like they have a shot, down 66-63 but with the ball in the hands of their best player, junior forward Amu Saaka. Everyone in the building expects him to pull-up to try for a game-tying three-pointer.

But inexplicably, he drives to the hoop for a thundering dunk, leaving UNCG still up 66-65 and they run out the remaining fraction of a second on the clock to escape with the victory. It's the subject of much conversation as the building empties in preparation for the two night games.

Friday night

The Citadel is enjoying some modest success these days under the coaching of Ed Conroy -- his cousin is the author, Pat Conroy, who as far as we can tell doesn't show up. They play Samford in the evening's first game. As you might expect from South Carolina's military college, the Bulldogs play a disciplined game with emphasis on teammwork and ball movement. They pretty routinely dispose of the other Bulldogs, 55-43. Nice game from Cameron Wells, the Citadel's top player, an athletic 6-foot-1 guard, with 17 points.

But the biggest impression this game leaves on me is how the Citadel pep band and cheeerleaders stand at ramrod-straight attention during the playing of the national anthem before the game. Even The Citadel's real bulldog mascot displays that military discipline -- he makes no effort to get into a box of treats his handler leaves on a chair beside him during the game, and sits quietly for most of it. Good dog.

The last game of the evening between Georgia Southern and Chattanooga is enough to clear out the building, but the diehards like me and the two schools' fans are there when the game ends around 11 p.m. Chattanooga, last year's surprise conference tournament winner, ends up an 82-62 winner after leading by as much as 30 in this game that has at least been fast-paced.

After spending most of the last 13-1/2 hours inside, I am free to go home. I feel like somebody should be giving me $10 and a suit of civilian clothes.

Instead, here's the financial accounting of what I spent for the two days:

Tickets $30
Parking $12
Game program $5
Concessions $12 (three Bojangles giant legendary sweet teas)
Cool Wofford hat $15

Not bad for two days of fun. And I'd sure do it again. Just not tomorrow.

Underdogs rule: Day 1, Southern Conference Tournament

It's a good bet that just about anybody reading out there couldn't name one player on the Furman University women's basketball team. Before today, I couldn't.

But now I am a fan of theirs, because they played a game that reminded me of why I love post-season tournament basketball.

I don't attend too many sporting events as a paying customer, but I found a guy on Craigslist willing to sell me tickets to the first two days of the Southern Conference tournament here in Charlotte at a bargain price. And I'm on spring break and had no coverage assignments for the those days. So I watched three first round women's games today and will go for six -- two women's quarterfinals and four men's first round -- tomorrow starting at the ungodly hour of 9 a.m. I don't think I've ever attended a sports event with an earlier starting time, except for a dove hunt. (One reason I no longer do outdoor sports.)

But back to Furman. They played Davidson in the last of the day's three games. The Paladins (it's a name for a knight) entered the game as the No. 11 and last-seeded team in the tournament. They sported a 6-23 record and had lost their last 10 games. That's a team with every excuse to go through the motions and call it a season.

Instead, they did what a conference tournament allows you to do -- take advantage of one last opportunity to make a statement, no matter how lousy your season has been.

Furman came from 15 points behind with 15 minutes left in the game to take a 73-67 win over a No. 6-seed Davidson team which was essentially playing a home game and had beaten them twice in the regular season. The Paladins were led by 5-foot-8 point guard Lee Stephens, who scored 14 of her eventual 23 points before the game was 10 minutes old and stepped up again in the stretch.

It completed a sweep by the lower-seeded teams, as No. 10 Elon easily beat No. 7 Wofford 67-53 and No. 9 UNC-Greensboro edged No. 8 Western Carolina 57-55.

The Elon-Wofford game didn't look much like an upset, as the Terriers (whose hat I may have to give in and buy from the souvenir vendor -- great logo!) couldn't survive a first half from hell. They shot 18.7 percent (7-for-37) from the field. And even when they did something good, it turned to dust. Wofford's game was summed up by a first-half sequence in which a Terrier guard made a nifty steal and headed for an uncontested layup at the other end of the court --- only to dribble the ball off her foot at the Elon free throw line.

I enjoyed watching Elon's point guard, a flashy freshman named Ali Ford from nearby Morganton, who hit five three-pointers on the way to a 21-point night. She also had eight turnovers, but that comes with the territory when a first-year player runs the offense.

Western Carolina and UNC-Greensboro actually tied for the No. 8 spot in the standings and the game was that kind of close in the second half after UNCG had taken a 10-point halftime lead. Lakiah Hyson's two free throws with 18 seconds to play won it for the Spartans.

It was fun to be back in the Bojangles Coliseum, the latest name for the original Charlotte Coliseum, built in the 1950s. I told someone that I think Michael Jordan was playing for the North Carolina Tar Heels in the last college basketball game I saw played there. (The first time, I saw Pat Conroy, who I understand has written some books since he ended a basketball career as a point guard for The Citadel in the mid-1960s.)

I'm looking forward to tomorrow, when we'll see how much hoops a man can stand. I think I'm up to it.

You CAN go home again, Part 2

Carson-Newman women's basketball coach Dean Walsh had a quick answer when asked why he hired one of the best players in recent years from a rival school to be on his coaching staff.

He looked over at Wingate alumnus Emily Paffrath and said, "When you can't beat them, join them."

(DISCLAIMER: OK, after writing it, this seemed too perfect a beginning to me so, being both a responsible journalist and a math guy, I had to see if the numbers supported it. A look through Wingate's record during the 2003-2007 seasons, when Paffrath was a reliable inside scorer and shot-blocker for the Bulldogs, revealed that Carson-Newman was one of the few teams that Wingate had a losing record against in that span, going 5-6. But I'm sure he also noticed that Emily's teams were 85-29 against everybody else, so the larger point is still pretty valid. Now back to our story.)


Walsh had an opening for a graduate assistant. Emily, one year out of Wingate and wanting to pursue a Master's degree in teaching, saw a chance to get a paid-for advanced degree.

"I knew Emily from her having played against us and was impressed with her knowledge of the game," Walsh said. "I figured she could be very effective working with our post players and after talking with Johnny (now-retired coach Johnny Jacumin, who coached Emily at Wingate), I offered her the position. I'm glad she's on our side now."

And that's worked pretty well for Paffrath for the last two years, as the Eagles have posted a 4-1 record against Wingate, where the Bakersville, N.C., native scored 1,100 career points, collected more than 700 rebounds and still holds the South Atlantic Conference women's record for career blocked shots (327). She was recently named to the Bulldogs' All-Decade women's basketball team for the 2000s.

I visited with Emily briefly after Carson-Newman's 76-65 victory over the Bulldogs in the regular-season finale for both teams. The two teams will play one more time tonight in a quarterfinal SAC tournament game in Jefferson City, Tenn. She had just spent a few minutes visiting with a couple of former teammates and members of the Wingate athletic staff, with hugs all around.

"Coming here was really hard last year, not so much this time because I don't know as many of the players," Paffrath said. "The seniors this year were freshmen the last year that I played. And it's less awkward when we come in here and win."

Emily said she has enjoyed coaching and, as an aspiring teacher, finds that the skills come naturally.

"I just try to pass along what I know about the game," she said.

It's possible that her coaching career may be brief. It's definitely ending its run at Carson-Newman, where she will earn her Master's degree in educational curriculum and instruction in May. After that, she hopes to find a teaching job back home in Mitchell County in western North Carolina. But the door is open.

"If they want me to coach basketball there, I'd definitely have to think about it," she said, smiling.

You CAN go home again, Part 1

(NOTE: Today's and tomorrow's blog posts are built around a familiar theme with a twist that's unique to the sports world. Akeem Miskdeen, who played basketball at Queens, and Emily Paffrath, an outstanding player for the women's team at Wingate, both came home -- or at least back to their alma maters -- last week as assistant coaches for the opposing team. I've never quite believed the premise of the title of Thomas Wolfe's book "You Can't Go Home Again," and I wanted to see if it was true in their cases.)

Basketball has taken Akeem Miskdeen from his hometown of Chicago to Wyoming to Charlotte to the Tidewater region of Virginia and now back to North Carolina.

"You've heard the old saying about paying your dues?" said Miskdeen, a first-year assistant coach at Mount Olive College, talking with me before the Trojans' game at Queens last Wednesday. "Well, I've paid a lot of dues already."

It's hard to argue with that. And Akeem's story is actually a great lesson to any young person interested in any career -- network like crazy, be persistent and be willing to start under conditions that might be less than ideal.

That description fit Miskdeen's previous position, a graduate assistant men's basketball coach at Hampton University, where he lived in a rented room and worked part-time in a sandwich shop located on a shipyard to help make ends meet.

"I don't like Philly cheesesteaks anymore," he said.

But it's all part of getting experience and he says he enjoyed the season working with Hampton head coach Kevin Nickleberry, a former Clemson assistant. (He made the connection after Queens graduation in 2008 with the help of Wes Long, then an assistant coach on the Royals staff and now their head coach. Long was a player and manager at Clemson in the early 2000s.)
When Nickelberry was fired at the end of last season, the rest of the staff was once again in the job market, too. Mount Olive coach Joey Higginbotham, who knew Misdeen from his playing days, was looking for an assistant and Higginbotham talked with former Queens coach Brian Good, now at Wingate, before making a job offer.

"It was nice to be able to land on my feet," Miskdeen said. "It's worked out pretty well." (The Trojans won the regular season Conference Carolinas championship and have a 22-5 record going into tonight's quarterfinal confererence tournament game with Coker.

But then Miskdeen, a tenacious competitor at point guard for two seasons for the Royals, has always moved quickly and been able to take advantage of openings.

He grew up in Chicago, where he says he "always wanted to play in the NBA, or if I couldn't do that, I wanted to coach." Miskdeen played in high school at St. Joseph of Westchester, Ill., made famous by the Academy Award-nominated 1994 documentary film "Hoop Dreams." In more recent years it has produced numerous Division I players.

In another fortunate connection, the former coach of a rival school had moved on to a job at Laramie Community College in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and offered him a scholarship. And after two years of playing experience -- and just a bit of culture shock -- on to Queens.

So what was it like to come back to Queens as a member of the "other side"? (The interview was conducted before the game, an impressive 90-68 victory over the Royals.)

"It's been great, because this was a home for me for a couple of years," he said. "But it's been strange, too, especially to see some of the guys I played with, like Dre (senior guard Andre Lockhart). I want them to succeed, just not today."

It's tournament time: 2010 edition

As regular readers of the blog may have figured out, I like basketball.

I grew up with a hoop and a wooden backboard on an old telephone pole in the backyard of our house out in the country in Clinton, S.C., put up by my dad so his sons could fling one of those old American Basketball Association red, white and blue basketballs around.

I played hard but poorly in church league and on what was probably one of the worst intramural teams in Clemson University history. (One of our best outings was a 69-13 loss to a fraternity team which included a future tight end for the Pittsburgh Steelers. We dug down deep that day and did ourselves proud.)

I don't play anymore, even though there is probably a geezer league for guys my age in Charlotte. I've always thought that when former LSU and NBA star Pete Maravich died of a heart attack at age 40 in 1988 after playing in a pickup game, that was the beginning of the end of my playing days.

Jayne was determined not to become a young widow herself -- if it could happen to a superbly-conditioned elite athlete like "Pistol Pete" what kind of risk was it for an out-of-shape weekend warrior with no nickname? Besides, full-court games were beginning to be too fast for me anyway.

So I content myself these days to be a spectator and to write about others playing. That's what I'll do this week in the blog. If you're not particularly a fan of basketball, I'd like for you to continue reading anyway. When you write about sports, you're writing about people, and I'm going to start the week with a couple of good "people" stories about an outstanding young man and woman moving from one stage of a basketball life to another.

Later on I'll blog from a couple of basketball tournaments in the region. I've always felt that the Internet -- especially blogs -- is a good place to find what people's obsessions are. And you'll get to see mine. From early Thursday afternoon to late Sunday afternoon I'll watch at least 10 games -- and I'm going for six on Friday alone at the Southern Conference tournament in Charlotte.

Wish me luck.