A Season Inside (67 page)

The weather has not been cooperating so far; the parking lots at Kemper Arena are mud-caked as cars begin piling into them at around noon. The four one-hour practices begin at 1
P.M.
and, with admission free and on a first-come-first-serve basis, the building will be jammed. None of the teams is going to do anything very sophisticated during the public workout, but this is a chance for those not privileged enough to buy tickets to see the players up close and sort of personal.

If there was any doubt about who the favorite son is in this tournament, it was erased when Duke walked out onto the floor to begin the first workout. As soon as the Blue Devils emerged from the tunnel, the boos started. Duke was not only Kansas’s opponent the next day, it was the team that had beaten the Jayhawks the last time the two had reached the Final Four in 1986.

“Has to be the first time in history a team got booed for walking on the floor to practice,” Danny Ferry quipped.

Practice is not exactly what Mike Krzyzewski had in mind. Robert Brickey has had an allergic reaction to penicillin and is too sick to practice. He should be fine by Saturday but it is not a good sign.

There’s more: When Mickie Krzyzewski tries to get on the floor to give her husband a message, she is stopped by a policeman. Showing identification as a coach’s wife does her no good. The cop isn’t budging. She has to go off in search of help. Later in the day, Bobbi Olson will be unable to get into the building for a while during Arizona’s practice because the doors have been shut by the fire marshals.

The Blue Devils are getting very superstitious. King is now wearing a good luck tie that he started wearing during the ACC Tournament and, since the ruling junta watched a movie the night before the semifinals in East Rutherford, it will watch a movie tonight.

“We’re going to watch
The Terminator
,” Quin Snyder says. “That should get us ready.”

If there is one thing the NCAA can do efficiently, it is run a
basketball tournament. Everything is planned and organized down to the minute. When Duke leaves the floor at 2
P.M.
, Krzyzewski and three of his players are quickly whisked into the interview room. Kansas takes the floor at 2—to a standing ovation—and will be there until 3 when Arizona (which will arrive at 2:30 for interviews) will take its turn on the floor.

Dave Cawood, one of the NCAA’s assistant executive directors, is in charge of this operation. Each year he brings in eight sports information directors from around the country to help him run the tournament. Each of the eight is equipped with a walkie-talkie and a code name. Cawood is Big Daddy. Roger Valdiserri, the longtime Notre Dame SID, is Double Dome—the references being to the golden dome and Valdiserri’s Rick Brewer of North Carolina is, predictably, Tar Heel. David Housel of Auburn is War Eagle. And so on.

If you listen you will hear things like, “Tar Heel, this is War Eagle, I’ve got the Jayhawks en route to the interview room.” Tar Heel, who is the interview moderator, will then announce that Larry Brown and his players are on their way to the interview room so the press can begin scrambling for seats.

The PA announcer at the Final Four for the last thirteen years has been Frank Fallon, a professor of radio and TV journalism at Southern Methodist. Cawood knows Fallon from his days at SMU and brought him in to do the PA in 1976 when the tournament was in the Philadelphia Spectrum. The NCAA was concerned that the legendary Dave Zinkoff, one of the most colorful PA men ever, might be a little wild for its oh-so-proper tournament. So Cawood brought Fallon in.

It is a move that can hardly be criticized. Fallon has the perfect PA voice. When he says on Monday night, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the game that will decide the national championship,” it sends chills down your spine.

Rick Brewer, the North Carolina SID, has become another staple of the Final Four. He more or less fell into the job of interview-room moderator six years ago, and has retained it because most media members would riot in protest if he were replaced. Part of this is Brewer’s ability to keep the interviews moving when writers are fighting deadlines. Another part is his succinct way of repeating the questions. Because the Final Four interview room is so large, questions must be repeated for everyone to hear.

Beyond that, though, is Brewer’s sense of humor. It isn’t really a
Final Four until Brewer gets off a one-liner. In 1986, when someone asked Krzyzewski what the best thing about coaching at Duke was, Brewer interjected, “Well, it is only eight miles from Chapel Hill.”

Today, when Billy Tubbs comments that Brewer sounds like Ed McMahon, Brewer answers, “That’s why I have this job. That and the fact that I never have anything better to do at this time of year.”

It has been six years since Carolina reached the Final Four. No one is more aware of that than the listening media. When Brewer finishes the last interview, someone hands him a phone and says, “It’s Dean [Smith] and he sounds angry.”

“Tell him I’m busy,” Brewer answers, tongue still firmly in cheek.

For the press, this is a good Final Four. Duke and Arizona are full of “good talkers”: Kansas has the father-son angle of the Mannings; Oklahoma has the renegade coach in Billy Tubbs, and, of course, there is Kerr. At an event like the Final Four, many of the credentialed reporters are columnists who have seen about three basketball games all year. Each is convinced that his column on Kerr or Tubbs will be the first one written on the subject.

Tubbs is certainly cooperating with those doing columns on him for Saturday. When someone asks him about the uncanny resemblance between his voice and Jack Nicholson’s, Tubbs shrugs. “I just go along with that stuff because it makes Jack feel good. If he can get a little pub out of it, that’s just great.”

Tubbs does most of the talking for his players. The Sooners—with the notable exception of Stacey King—are not a team full of great interviews. Their attitude toward the media was perhaps best summed up when Harvey Grant was asked to appear as a guest on an Oklahoma City TV show during the regionals. When Grant arrived, in a limousine sent for him, to do the interview, the show’s producer gave him a shirt with the show’s logo on it.

Grant looked at the shirt and said to the producer, “Yo man, you got a cap?” Grant is happy today. He is wearing a CBS cap. CBS always has caps.

The loosest of the four teams appears to be Arizona. The Wildcats spend a lot of their locker room time staging their own version of Wrestlemania; when someone asks them in the interview room about Final Four nerves, Kerr grabs the microphone and pretends his hand is shaking so much he can’t hold it still.

Olson isn’t quite so loose. He is still upset about a flap in the Seattle papers the previous week that came about when Kerr, clearly joking, said, “We haven’t got any respect for North Carolina.” Sometimes, Kerr’s sense of humor goes over people’s heads. “Sometimes,” Olson says, “I wonder about the ethics of journalists.”

Sitting in the curtained-off runway area next to the interview podium, waiting to go on, Danny Manning hisses, “Tell ’em, coach!” His mood is jocular too. Starting up the steps to the podium, he pretends to trip. “No headlines,” he says, “I’m okay.”

There are never any headlines on Friday. If the NCAA was paid one dollar for each time a player or coach said, “We’re just glad to be here,” it wouldn’t need the money it gets from CBS. That is always Friday’s theme.

One group that is truly glad to be here are the officials. This year, thirty-six officials worked the four regionals—nine at each site. From those thirty-six, nine and one alternate were selected for the Final Four. Who they are is a closely guarded secret, largely because the NCAA worries that bettors will be given some kind of edge if they know who is officiating a game.

That may be so. But since the officials are not given their assignments until 10
A.M.
Saturday morning, knowing which nine are in town won’t do a bettor much good. Joe Forte is one of the final nine for the fifth time in seven years. But he will not know until Saturday if he will work his second straight final.

Friday evening is another night for parties. The NCAA throws one in the Memorial Auditorium and it draws a crowd. If there is one thing coaches and the media have in common, it is an inability to turn down a freebie.

Lefty Driesell has arrived in town and everyone has one question for him: Are you going to James Madison? “No comment,” Lefty says to everyone. Lefty has given out so many “no comments” that his son, Chuck, who will be his No. 1 assistant if he takes the job, sidles over to a reporter and says, “What’s the word, is the Lefthander taking the job?”

Tonight’s rumor du jour has Gene Keady leaving Purdue to take the job at Texas. Keady has always said that the only thing he doesn’t like at Purdue is the weather, and the weather in Austin is certainly warmer
than in West Lafayette. “Some of my friends say it’s a pretty good job,” Keady says. Clearly, he is intrigued.

The Valvanos are in Los Angeles and everyone is waiting to see what the outcome of that meeting will be. “You watch,” Larry Brown tells friends, “one way or the other, no one has that job locked up yet.” Brown is still very interested in UCLA. Now, word leaks out that UCLA is very interested in Mike Krzyzewski.

But Krzyzewski is not that interested in UCLA. When the school called him earlier in the season, he said he wouldn’t talk to them until after his season was over. Fine, said UCLA, we’ll call you then, what’s your home number?

“You can reach me,” Krzyzewski answered, “at my office.”

The argument in the press lobby tonight is about the three-point shot Ed Steitz, the secretary of the rules committee, who has been the most vocal defender of the ridiculously close shot, is being hounded by several people who think the shot stinks. “People love it,” Steitz keeps insisting.

The Division I coaches don’t love it. Earlier in the day, they voted almost unanimously in favor of moving the line back. But the Division 2 and Division 3 coaches were almost as unanimous in saying it should stay where it is. “Are you people saying,” asked Iowa State’s Johnny Orr, “that you think the damn line should be in the same place where high school kids and girls are shooting it from?”

That is what they are saying. At 2
A.M.
Steitz is still saying it. It must be almost time to play basketball, mustn’t it?

The new TV contract between CBS and the NCAA calls for the Saturday doubleheader to begin at 5:30
P.M.
eastern time. That is 4:30—or to be precise as to actual game time, 4:42, in Kansas City. That makes for a lot of waiting for everyone on Saturday.

The first formal meeting of the day takes place at the Kansas City Club, which is where the officials are being housed for the weekend. At 10
A.M.
they meet with Hank Nichols to learn their game assignments. Nichols has been the NCAA’s supervisor of officials for two years. A professor at Villanova, he is one of the most highly respected officials in the history of the game and the creation of this job for him has been applauded by everyone.

Technically, the basketball committee selects the officials and makes the assignments. But only Nichols saw all four regionals last week. His recommendations are, in all likelihood, going to be followed.

Politics plays a role in these selections. As has been the case in recent years with teams, there is a preponderance of good officials in the East. The fact that seven of the nine officials here are from east of the Mississippi—five from the ACC/Big East-is evidence of that. But the West Coast must be represented, especially with a Pac–10 team in the Final Four for the first time in eight years. That is why Booker Turner, a nice man who is well past his peak as a referee, is among the nine men in the room.

It also has something to do with Forte not making the final. In fact, of the three men who worked the ’87 final, Forte is the only one back in the Final Four. Nichols announces the assignments, in order. “Game one: Booker Turner, Larry Lembo, Jim Burr.” The three nod, each of them disappointed. Everyone wants the final.

“Game two,” Nichols continues: “Paul Housman, Joe Forte, Luis Grillo.”

Forte’s heart sinks. “The first thing you think is, ‘Aah shit,’ ” he admitted later. “It’s a competitive thing. The first thing you feel is as if you lost a game. We would all like to work the final.”

The three officials chosen to work the final are Tim (Barney Rubble) Higgins, Ed Hightower, and John Clougherty. Forte is delighted for Higgins and for Clougherty, both good friends. But he also knows that Clougherty’s selection for the final may influence ABA–USA’s decision on which referee will represent the U.S. at the Olympics. Unofficially, the two finalists for the assignment are Forte and Clougherty.

Later that morning, the NCAA does something nice. At a brunch thrown for the media as part of the fiftieth anniversary celebration, NCAA executive director Dick Schultz presents a plaque of appreciation to Marvin (Skeeter) Francis. Skeeter Francis is the assistant commissioner of the ACC. Each year he runs the ACC Tournament and each Final Four he helps run the press operation. He is one of those rare people who is liked and respected by everyone he comes in contact with. Francis never sees himself as being important, yet he is invaluable.

Even as the brunch is ending, word is starting to make the rounds that Valvano has pulled out of the UCLA job. This is a surprise because most people expected him to wait until after the Final Four to make
a move one way or the other. But in Los Angeles, Valvano is telling people he will stay at State. Speculation immediately swings to Larry Brown, who would be delighted to give UCLA his home phone number.

Kansas is a grim group when it arrives at Kemper Arena. Many teams come to the Final Four wanting to win but—as they all like to say—so happy to be involved that they show up on Saturday almost giddy just to be taking part. This is not true of the Jayhawks. They feel they owe Duke one (at least) and, playing so close to home, they feel this is now their tournament to win.