FanHouse

All Is Well in Homesick Delle Donne's Delaware Debut

David Steele — 2009-11-18T10:28:00 00:00

LORETTO, Pa. -- Delaware women's basketball coach Tina Martin let the phrase "triple-double'' creep into her comments following her team's season opener Tuesday night, and once it was out, she couldn't reel it back in. But anybody who had watched the highly anticipated, unusually delayed college debut of Elena Delle Donne wouldn't have needed prodding to envision such feats in the future.

"If Coach says it, then yes, I can, definitely. Whatever I can do to contribute to the team the best I can to my ability, I'll try it,'' said Delle Donne, the redshirt freshman who, on her way back to her favorite sport, had once been the best high school player in the country, then one of its best-known victims of intense homesickness.

"We'll see what the future holds,'' she added.

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Glaring Hall Omissions: Jim Phelan, His Bowtie and His 830 Wins

David Steele — 2009-11-17T11:55:00 00:00

by David Steele

Filed under: Coaches

Jim Phelan will remind you in a heartbeat that he's already in the Hall of Fame, a bunch of them. It's not that he wonders why he keeps getting asked about the one in Springfield, Mass., the one that won't let him in. It's that it doesn't bother him as much as it bothers so many others.

"I really don't care,'' Phelan said Monday morning, after knocking golf balls around the lawn of his home in Emmitsburg, Md., less than a mile from the college he put on the basketball map half a century ago. "When I was active, it was a nice trivia question --- who has the most wins and is not in the Hall of Fame?''

The answer is Phelan, who won 830 games in 49 seasons at Mount St. Mary's, the tiny historic Catholic university in the mountains near the Pennsylvania border. Exactly three men have won more games coaching at Division I colleges: Bobby Knight, Dean Smith and Adolph Rupp. Two, Smith and Rupp, have won more games at a single school. None, at any level, has ever coached more games at one school than the 1,354 Phelan coached at "The Mount'' from 1954-2003.

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UK Hopes Calipari's Debut Not So Blue

David Steele — 2009-11-13T12:01:00 00:00

by David Steele

Filed under: Kentucky

Kentucky is used to the madness surrounding the official debut of a new basketball coach, even a new big-name, highly touted, expectation-driving coach. It's just not used to the madness taking place twice in three years.

The fact that the implosion of the coach he's replacing is so fresh in the Kentucky faithful's memory, seems not to be bothering John Calipari -- but signs are that he isn't blissfully ignorant of it, either. He takes the court at Rupp Arena Friday evening for the first time as Wildcats coach in a game that counts, against Morehead State, and the anticipation is as high for this night as it was two years ago when Billy Gillispie, the savior from Texas A&M, did the same thing.

Gillispie's downward spiral began not long afterward, of course, with the now- (and then-) infamous loss at home to Gardner-Webb in the second game of the 2007-08 season.

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Brian Stokes: A Life of Battlefield and Football Fields

David Steele — 2009-11-11T12:00:00 00:00

by David Steele

Filed under: College Sports

Football forever altered the course of Brian Stokes' life, but not until after he had served two tours in Iraq as a Marine.

His military experience also forever altered the course of his life, but not until long after football had already kicked Stokes to the curb.

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Boeheim's 800th Deserves a 'Wow'

David Steele — 2009-11-10T19:15:00 00:00

by David Steele

Filed under: Syracuse

In his 34 years as Syracuse's head coach -- even during the years when his face was one of those synonymous with Big East basketball, not even when he won a long-awaited national championship -- never was Jim Boeheim the type to dwell for long on his own accomplishments. On Monday night, when he earned his 800th career victory over Albany at the Carrier Dome, he was quoted in the Syracuse Post Standard this way: "I guess there's a 'wow' factor, winning 800. But then, it's not like playing golf with Tiger Woods. I mean, that's a real 'wow' factor.''

Boeheim playing down his feat was as expected as was his reference to his other favorite sport. But is it really possible to look at 800 victories, all at one school, with that school being his alma mater, and not greet it with at least a 'wow'?

If the fact that only seven other coaches with at least 10 years in Division I have done it doesn't elicit that reaction, then consider some of the legends who either have not gotten there yet, or never got there at all.

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At UNC, Heavy Player Losses Won't Lead to Many Losses

David Steele — 2009-11-09T15:30:00 00:00

by David Steele

Filed under: ACC

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- The preseason media poll that predicted North Carolina would share the Atlantic Coast Conference championship with Duke was still hours from being released. The national polls that picked the Tar Heels sixth (by the media) and fourth (by the coaches) were more than a week away.

But Roy Williams didn't feel a need to wait to issue a disclaimer about the early exuberance over his defending national champions.

"The expectations of our young kids, and the way they were evaluated or ranked as a recruiting class, puts a lot of expectations on kids who have never done it,'' Williams said last month at the ACC's media day, on the day his team -- missing the top four players and 74 percent of the points from the group that had waxed Michigan State in the national title game -- split the voting for the conference title.

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Kentucky Leads SEC's Return From Woe

David Steele — 2009-11-07T21:00:00 00:00

by David Steele

Filed under: SEC

When John Calipari told an interviewer at the SEC's basketball media day last month, "These fans -- I'm saying this lovingly -- are nuts,'' he was being very narrow-minded. In the SEC, this season and the last few, why single out the fans?

The idea has been thrown around that the arrival of Calipari (and his history) at Kentucky (and its history) is going to suck all the attention toward them and away from the rest of the conference. Truth be told, this might not be a bad thing. The SEC might not lead Division I conferences in dysfunction, but it's near the top. Only three seasons ago, it was celebrating one of its programs, Florida, completing the rare feat of repeating as national champion. But literally from the moment the Gators made that official by winning the 2007 title in Atlanta -- remember, coach Billy Donovan spent much of the postgame interviews fending off speculation that he was going to take over at, yes, Kentucky -- the SEC has been the home of constant chaos.

Half of the league's 12 schools have changed coaches since then, three this season; two newcomers, at Alabama and Georgia, follow coaches who departed in midseason, making Kentucky, which fired Billy Gillispie and hired Calipari, an isle of calm by comparison.

More Previews: ACC Big 10 | Big East | Big 12 | Pac-10

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Ivy league's Pioneering Coaching Pair Spotlight Progress, Problems

David Steele — 2009-11-01T16:00:00 00:00

by David Steele
NEW YORK -- Neither Norries Wilson nor Tom Williams had circled the date when, respectively, the Columbia and Yale football schedules had come out. But Dr. Keith Harrison had. So when two African-American coaches met in an Ivy League game for the first time ever on Saturday, Harrison -- the associate director of the Institute for Diversity in Sport at the University of Central Florida -- made sure not only that he was at Columbia's Wien Stadium, he was on the field before the game to greet both men.

"I wanted to take a picture,'' Harrison said, as what was eventually a stunning, come-from-behind 23-22 Yale victory unfolded. "It's history.''

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ACC Players, Coaches Wag Finger at New Taunting Rule

David Steele — 2009-10-25T22:30:00 00:00

by David Steele

Filed under: Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Georgia Tech, Maryland, NC State, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest, ACC, University of Miami, North Carolina

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- The talk of the Atlantic Coast Conference's basketball media day Sunday was the trouble a player could get into if he talked too much.

Or said the wrong thing, or gestured the wrong way, or celebrated excessively, or did anything else that might be considered "unsporting behavior,'' according to a new zero-tolerance policy approved for this season by the NCAA.

Many of the players and coaches gathered at Greensboro's Grandover Resort bluntly said they either did not like the change, didn't understand why it was necessary, or both. The biggest issue: there is too much room left for the wrong interpretation.

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Binghamton Investigators: We'll Cover Everybody, Everything

David Steele — 2009-10-21T14:02:00 00:00

by David SteeleThe independent investigation into Binghamton's troubled men's basketball program will take extra steps to make sure that anybody with information about it has access to the lead investigator, the chairman of the State University of New York (SUNY) system board of trustees told an executive committee meeting Tuesday.

That should come as welcome news to one of the key figures in the ever-growing scandal. Sally Dear, an adjunct professor of human development at Binghamton, said in an e-mail Monday night that at that point, she had not been contacted by nor spoken to anybody involved in any of the investigations connected to the basketball program.

Since last spring, when she was quoted in a New York Times article critical of the Binghamton program, Dear had accused athletic department officials of trying to get her to alter her grading system in favor of the basketball players in her classes. She was fired under questionable circumstances Sept. 29, then had the firing rescinded three days later as the latest investigation was announced.

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Full-Court Press Awaits Pitino at MSG

David Steele — 2009-10-20T18:45:00 00:00

by David Steele

Filed under: Louisville

Rick Pitino's appearance at New York's Madison Square Garden Wednesday will surely be less pleasant than his previous one, when his Louisville team won the Big East tournament championship last March.

In the arena, at the conference's preseason basketball media day, Pitino will almost certainly face another volley of questions about his troubled offseason, this time specifically about his decision not to suspend two starters who tussled with off-duty police at an off-campus party two weekends ago.

In an interview with ESPN.com published four days after the Oct. 11 arrest of Terrence Jennings and Jerry Smith in Jeffersonville, Ind., Pitino said that the two players would be punished internally, "but no, they will not miss any game time.'' His action, or lack thereof, raised questions about whether he still could wield the authority to discipline players, after he was not disciplined at all by the university after his August acknowledgment of a past extramarital affair and its role in a sordid extortion investigation of the ex-wife of one of his staffers.

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Gary Williams Feels Vindicated as Maryland Tips Off

David Steele — 2009-10-17T12:21:00 00:00

by David Steele

Filed under: Maryland, ACC

COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- When he addressed the packed house at Comcast Center at Maryland's Midnight Madness festivities Friday night, Gary Williams said he didn't prepare his comments and spoke off the cuff. It wasn't hard to figure out where his inspiration came from.

"I'd like to thank all the fans who are here tonight, all across the country, who stayed with us last year,'' he said. "Last year was one of the great experiences I've ever had as a coach.''

Staying with the Terrapins in 2008-09 was a challenge, especially after a contentious midseason stretch that featured a surprise home loss to Morgan State, a 41-point humiliation at Duke, Williams' public feud with athletic department officials, and an impromptu appearance at a subsequent Williams press conference by athletic director Debbie Yow so she could give him a vote of confidence.

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At Louisville, None Major in Accountability

David Steele — 2009-10-15T19:50:00 00:00

by David Steele

Filed under: Louisville

Raise your hand if you didn't see this coming a mile away.

Back in August, during the toxic dump of details of Rick Pitino's role in an extortion case that dragged the reputations of the coach, the University of Louisville and the basketball program through the mud, one obvious question that arose was whether Pitino's authority as head coach was undermined forever. After all, how can any coach who exercises that little self-discipline ever expect, much less demand, discipline from his players?

He can't. And this week, the red-and-black chickens have come home to roost.

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All at Once, Vlad, Halos Exorcise Demons

David Steele — 2009-10-11T19:31:00 00:00

by David Steele

Filed under: Angels, Red Sox, MLB Playoffs, American League Division Series

BOSTON -- Even in the afterglow of the finest postseason moment of his career, Vladimir Guerrero wasn't thinking only about himself.

If that wasn't obvious by his words, one could tell as soon as he stepped to the interview podium in Fenway Park Sunday afternoon wearing a Nick Adenhart T-shirt.

So when he was asked, specifically, how great it must have felt for him to not only interrupt his personal history of playoff disappearances but also the Los Angeles Angels' dismal record against Boston with his game- and American League Division Series-winning hit, Guerrero talked not about himself, but about the teammate killed in a car crash six months ago.

Game 3: Angels 7, Red Sox 6 | Box Score | Series Home

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Caron Butler: '(The Wizards) Can Compete for a Title'

David Steele — 2009-10-07T13:22:00 00:00

by David Steele

Filed under: Wizards, FanHouse Exclusive

Caron Butler's last four seasons have mirrored those of his team, the Washington Wizards -- on the cusp of excellence, but never quite getting there and held back by an aggravating string of injuries.

The 6-foot-7 forward has made the All-Star team the last two years and averaged more than 20 points, six rebounds and four assists in those seasons, a feat matched only by LeBron James. And while colorful, explosive-scoring teammate Gilbert Arenas has been the face of the Wizards, Butler (nicknamed "Tough Juice'') has been the heart. But the Wizards got knocked out in the first round in each of his first three seasons by James' Cleveland Cavaliers every time. Last year, wracked by injuries, the Wizards changed coaches, bottomed out at 19-63 and changed coaches again.

Now, the 29-year-old Butler feels inspired enough to claim, as have Flip Saunders and many of his teammates, that the Wizards will make the leap to serious Finals contender. Part of this inspiration -- as he points out in this FanHouse Q&A after his team's 101-92 win over Memphis in its preseason opener in Richmond, Va. -- comes from the real face of the franchise dating back to its Baltimore days, Hall of Famer Wes Unseld.

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No Iverson, Lots of Thabeet for Grizzlies

David Steele — 2009-10-07T00:15:00 00:00

by David Steele

Filed under: Grizzlies, Wizards

RICHMOND, Va. -- Half of the announced crowd of 7,500 at Virginia Commonwealth's on-campus arena Tuesday night showed up to see Allen Iverson's debut with the Memphis Grizzlies. The other half was curious to see what Gilbert Arenas looked like after nearly two full seasons out with knee injuries.

So it was easy for Hasheem Thabeet to slip under the radar, easy even for someone 7-foot-3, 265 pounds and the second overall pick in last June's NBA Draft. As it turned out, in the preseason opener for the Grizzlies and the Washington Wizards, Thabeet stood out more than Iverson, who did not dress because of a strained left hamstring, and Arenas, who proved that while he is back, he is far from all the way back.

Wizards 101, Grizzlies 92: Box Score
Grizzlies Team Preview | Watch: Marc Gasol

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Curt Flood: An Extraordinary Man of Principle and Conviction

David Steele — 2009-10-06T11:54:00 00:00

by David SteeleOne of the signature chapters in the Curt Flood story -- the story of his historic fight against baseball's reserve clause, and the story of his life overall -- played out in Puerto Rico in December 1969, some two months after the trade from St. Louis to Philadelphia that had, seemingly innocently, started the wheels of change in motion. There, he confronted one of the most significant questions about why he was about to create such a storm for himself, his sport, the industry overall and all of American society.

Puerto Rico was the site of a meeting of fellow major-league ballplayers who Flood would try to convince of the motives, sincerity and long-term benefits of his decision to sue baseball. And it was at that meeting that Tom Haller, then a three-time All-Star catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers and later a big-league coach and general manager, asked him (according to Flood in his 1971 autobiography, The Way It Is), whether he was doing this "simply because you're black and you feel that baseball has been discriminatory?"

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Hammerin' Hank Greenberg Could Relate to Curt Flood

David Steele — 2009-10-06T11:51:00 00:00

by David SteeleWhat would make a major-league baseball team executive testify in court on behalf of a player threatening to dismantle the system that tilted completely in the teams' favor?

A long memory, of possibly the most blatant example of how the utterly capricious whim of an owner can uproot a player regardless of how spectacular, productive and loyal he had been.

Hank Greenberg, following his Hall of Fame playing career in the 1930s and '40s, moved into management, as general manager and part-owner of both the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox, along with longtime friend Bill Veeck. But, his son Steve said, "He was a player at heart.''

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O.J. Brigance Inspires Baltimore's 'Mighty Men' Through Battle With ALS

David Steele — 2009-09-30T14:30:00 00:00

by David Steele

Filed under: Ravens, FanHouse Exclusive

BALTIMORE -- A linebacker who won a Super Bowl ring with the Baltimore Ravens has been called ''the strongest man in the building ... it's not even close'' by head coach John Harbaugh. He isn't talking about Ray Lewis.

O.J. Brigance hasn't worn a Ravens uniform in nine years, or been an active player in seven. The strength Harbaugh refers to has been on display for the last two years as Brigance has battled Lou Gehrig's disease, and as he has done so, he has united and inspired the Ravens in ways nobody else ever has.

Said Spencer Folau, one of Brigance's teammates on the 2000 Ravens team that won Super Bowl XXXV, ''What Ray does on the field, (O.J.) does off the field.''

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Gilbert Arenas Pledges to Be Serious

David Steele — 2009-09-28T17:00:00 00:00

by David Steele

Filed under: Wizards

WASHINGTON -- Agent Zero and the Hibachi announced their retirements from the NBA Monday, making way for a newcomer named Gilbert Arenas.

At the Washington Wizards' media day at Verizon Center, Arenas, who has missed all but 15 games the last two seasons thanks to three operations on his left knee, claimed that he planned on being a serious player this year, not the one who was "goofing around'' in his previous eight seasons, when he assigned himself nicknames, blogged religiously, put on practice exhibitions whose videos went viral, showed off his "phenomenal swag,'' and generally turned himself into a colorful and popular character.

"When I was entertaining and playing, all you guys focused on were my words. Now I'd rather that you guys just focused on my basketball,'' Arenas said during a nearly half-hour interview session that, contrary to his usual mode, he began at precisely the scheduled time.

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