Success And Failure

This week, fans of college basketball will be focused on conference tournaments looking to see which teams will get automatic entry into the upcoming tournament.  Here in the DC area, one of the teams that will assuredly NOT be in the tournament is Georgetown; the Hoyas have been a disaster this year.  Consider:

• Overall Record is 6-24
• Big East Conference record is 0-19
• Current losing streak is 20 games

Georgetown’s coach is Patrick Ewing; this is the end of his 5^th year in that job and my first thought was to use Thomas Wolfe’s novel, You Can’t Go Home Again, as a metaphor for his situation.  Indeed, Ewing’s coaching record at Georgetown bears no resemblance to Ewing’s playing record at Georgetown back in the 1980s.  As a coach, his cumulative record over 5 seasons stands today at 68-83.  However, I think there might be a larger context in which to think about Ewing’s status.

• NBA players do not necessarily become good college basketball coaches.

Yes, Bobby Hurley has been a success at Buffalo and at Arizona State compiling a 160-119 record and three NCAA Tournament appearances over 9 seasons.  And yes, Penny Hardaway has been 82-41 over for seasons at Memphis and his team won the NIT last year.  Another success story would be Johnny Dawkins who has been the head coach at Stanford (8 years) and UCF (6 years) amassing a record of 267-186 and winning the NIT two times.  Avery Johnson was a combined 75-62 at Alabama over 4 seasons.  It is too soon to tell, but I’ll put Hubert Davis in this category provisionally given his first UNC team has a 23-8 record as of this morning.

However, check out some of these other records for NBA players turned college head coaches; some of these are not pretty at all:

• Danny Manning is 126-152 over 8.5 seasons.  (Took over mid-season this year)
• Donyell Marshall is 40-104 over 5 seasons.
• Aaron McKie is 36-39 over 3 seasons.  (He too is back at his alma mater.)
• Chris Mullen was 59-73 over 4 seasons.  (He too went back to his alma mater.)
• Terry Porter was 43-104 over 5 seasons.
• Mark Price was 30-42 over 3 seasons.
• Jerry Stackhouse is 35-52 over 3 seasons.
• Reggie Theus is 103-149 over 7 seasons.

Let me interject a disclaimer here.  The “research” that went into compiling this data represents about an hour’s worth of work.  These are the former NBA players that came to mind as college coaches and truth be told, I was not sure where some of them had tried their hand at coaching college kids.  And I did not even try to go back to the early days of the NBA so that meant that I left Al McGuire off this list.  I accept without question that McGuire was a great college coach, but his NBA career on the floor was a bit less than some of the other coaches here.  In fact, as a player, he was not the best one in his immediate family; his brother Dick McGuire would carry that label.

So, maybe in this context, it is not all that surprising that Patrick Ewing is struggling on the bench at Georgetown.

Shifting gears…  Another top-shelf basketball player – – Brittney Griner – – finds herself in serious circumstances today.  Last month, she was arrested in Russia on charges that she was smuggling drugs into the country.  Griner plays for a women’s pro team in Russia and evidently a drug-sniffing dog alerted authorities to vape cartridges in her bag that supposedly contained “Hash Oil”.  Based on news reporting, “Hash Oil” is an illegal substance in Russia.

Let me just say that Russia and the United States do not see eye-to-eye on things these days.  Being arrested in Russia and being subject to their system of jurisprudence would be a bad thing under the best of circumstances; being in that status today cannot be anything close to calm and serene.

Moving on …  Several months ago, Robert Griffin III announced that he would be writing a “tell-all book” about his time with the Washington Commanders – – under one of their previous names.  He said his working title for the book that would indicate the content was Surviving Washington.  Given the various allegations and complaints made by women who worked for the team in the days when Griffin was with the team, one might concoct in one’s mind some sort of web of sordid tales.  Griffin alluded to issues of sexual harassment and “medical mismanagement” when he announced the upcoming book release.  Here is how Goodreads.com characterized the book prior to its publication:

“A one-of-a-kind, explosive tell-all from former franchise savior, Robert Griffin III, detailing the shocking mismanagement and toxic culture within the most dysfunctional professional football team in America.”

Late last week, however, RG3 announced that his book will not be released.  It is not clear why that decision was made but reports have it that Griffin’s co-author has “moved on to other projects”.  Here is what RG3 had to say about the situation, and it is anything but conclusive:

“Through the process of thinking about writing a book, I’ve learned that this an issue bigger than one person.  I want to give space to and elevate those who have already come forward, while encouraging those who have not yet to feel empowered to speak. This is a matter that very qualified people are continuing to manage with sensitivity and seriousness, and ultimately, I learned that this book was not the proper forum for this. In time and through a more meaningful method, I hope to address my first-hand experience.”

I have no idea what all that means; you are on your own to decipher that argle-bargle.

Finally, let me close today with an entry from The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm:

“James Joyce:  Famous Irishman who was noted for creating rambling stream-of-consciousness and often incomprehensible stories even without the aid of a pub.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………