Ron Cortes/MCT

Press conferences are not the greatest of venues for any coach…not even when you win the Championship. When reflecting back on his first of two NCAA Championships, UCONN Head Coach Jim Calhoun recalled many people, friends and those in the media, saying some version of, “It’s great you finally made it.” As if all the success he achieved in advance of his first NCAA Championship was for naught. As if winning the Big East Championship and all the Sweet Sixteen appearances were meaningless.

Calhoun describes playing in the NCAA Tournament as like walking a tightrope; one false move and you’re at home icing your physical bruises and your bruised ego. But before that slip there are many ‘one-foot-in-front-of-the-other’ moments that are pure gold and when compiled lead you to a championship. Without them all you never get to hoist the trophy.

He comments on the sentiment many shared with him about his first NCAA Championship in his book, Dare To Dream:

“I was the same coach I always had been, the same guy. I had the same values, same ideas. The perception that I was better, that I somehow had changed, that I had done something differently this time was ridiculous. The package might have changed–different styles for the nineties than the seventies–but the contents were the same. I was the same guy who had watched Laettner’s shot go through the basket at the buzzer, making it Duke 79, UConn 78 in overtime. Maybe a little older, but probably not much wiser.”

So what is the style for the 2000’s? Think NASCAR. If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’, and someone at his request was trying a wee bit too hard to land Nate Miles, who ultimately never played basketball for the school and was expelled for violating a restraining order 16 minutes after it was granted to a female UCONN student due to assault allegations.

A read through of this time-line paints a picture of Nate as an undisciplined boy who lies and who is being heavily courted by powerful people because of his athletic abilities. Basically, he was a big fat dollar sign, and everyone who had a buck or a reputation to make off him was happy to do so, at the expense of his overall development as a person.

How sad that Nate didn’t have someone like the Jim Calhoun of 1957 (The opportunity to attend school was taken from him after the death of his Dad when Jim was 15 years old. He had no choice but to dig graves, etch granite, and collect scrap metal so that his five siblings and mother could afford a roof and some food.) to show him that hard work, not lies and deceit, will eventually lead to glory.

So why is Calhoun now abandoning his own advice? Granted, UCONN coaches had to work pretty hard to call Nate and his banker student-agent, Josh Nochimson, over 1500 times in a 3-year period (that’s a hair shy of stalking), but when it’s against the rules you don’t get a gold star for the effort. And there was Nate in all of this brouhaha learning just how to do it in the big world: bend the rules, hard, and if one breaks deny doing it.

Saying you might have made a mistake, as Coach Calhoun did, because the NCAA rules manual was too big is hard to take seriously. I could just imagine if one of the UCONN students tried to say that they didn’t know cheating was against school rules because, well, there were too many rules to know them all!

After so many experiences watching high-profile athletes, coaches and league officials deny inappropriate behavior only to hold the ‘I’m sort of sorry, but I was ____ (insert: young, dumb, duped, intoxicated, etc.)’ press conference, I am stunned that the denials keep coming. I ought to lower my expectations, but I have to much hope that college athletic departments will realize that they set an example with their behavior for the young adults they hope to recruit. It is their absolute responsibility to follow the letter of the law.

I don’t care how much cash Coach Calhoun makes. He worked at it every step of the way and has earned each dollar. I do care that he may throw away a solid reputation as a hard-working and value-oriented man because the greedy and corrupt system of college athletics has gotten to him. And I care even more that a young man was taken advantage of at a time when he needed help, not a basketball scholarship. While all eyes are on Nate Miles, let’s not forget Rudy Gay…there were some real questions about his decision to commit to UCONN when all bets were on University of Maryland. Let’s all agree that corruption wasn’t born yesterday.

Jim Calhoun can right the wrong here by taking a stand and dealing with the consequences of playing by the rules. It’s not all about winning, it’s not all about showing a profit, it’s not all about getting the most sought after player. It’s about leading by example and making sure that every person associated with you follows the rules because you wouldn’t have it any other way. And if someone breaks a rule they are banned from competitive athletics at all levels. People will think twice when faced with going to the dark side if they know they could lose their paycheck. Wouldn’t it be great if a coach like Calhoun was the one to get the NCAA to crack the stick instead of just sounding the horn and waiting for the storm to blow over, as it always seems to do?

Like many, I thought Calhoun’s reaction to the questioning of his salary in a time of economic crisis for Connecticut during a post-game press conference was over-the-top and full of anger. Perhaps now we know why; he’s had to compromise his values, those bestowed upon him by his Dad, in an effort to remain competitive. I bet that makes him pretty angry.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 30th, 2009 at 10:05 pm and is filed under Fantoo Blog Home. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.