The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, April 15, 1998, Page 11, Image 11
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Wednesday, April 15,1998
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college press EXCHANGE
The University of Texas has a
new basketball coach and never mind
that Rick Barnes was not the first, sectk
ond or third choice.
The hiring of Barnes Sunday night
ends an ugly month for Longhorns basketball.
New coaches and new eras can
erase even the most unseemly and embarrassing
events.
Now, it's up to Barnes to take Texas
above and beyond the expectations
established by Tom Penders. Barnes'
pedigree suggests he is up to the task,
but it says here that Texas athletic
director DeLoss Dodds went on a weeklong
fishing trip and failed to land The
~ Big One.
Texas interviewed, at various
lengths, at least four candidates ?
Washington's Bob Bender, Utah's Rick
Majerus, Oklahoma's Kelvin Sampson
and North Carolina assistant Phil Ford
? before talking with Barnes.
As of early last week, it appeared
n j i.u ? l i- i
Denaer was uie icauuig canuiuaie anu
the perfect choice. Depending on which
version, either some of UTs Big Cigars
a cooled on Bender because of his sub .500
^ record at Washington or Bender simply
decided he'd rather stay with a team
he has built into Top 25 status.
Dodds could have hit a home run
by hiring Majerus, but Majerus is beQB
exp
MANNING cont. from page nine
process. But it wasn't coach-to-prospect,
it was friend-to-friend. Mora coached
the Saints from 1986-96, and Archie
Manning, by then, was on the club's
broadcast team.
"Peyton started coming around our
place when he was a junior or senior in
high school," Mora said. "He'd occasionally
come over in the off-season and
work out, throw the ball around. We'd
^ let him jump in and throw a little bit
to our guys. "At that point, you could
see how mature he was."
And growing more mature by the
day. He became a prep All-America at
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4
mi's Bat
toU.ol
coming The Candidate Who Cries Wolf.
He talks with schools about their openi
ings, gets their hopes up, then declines.
' Majerus is a marvelous coach, but his
employability at other schools slides
with each teasing dalliance.
Which brings us to Barnes, who in
many ways mirrors Mack Brown, the
school's new football coach. Barnes is
personable and he embraced the fans
at Clemson. To drum up basketball support
at the football school, Barnes did
a pre-game radio show on the Tigers'
football games. He drove around the
parking lot in a golf cart, interviewing
tailgating fans.
In four years at Clemson, he rebuilt
a program that was in shambles. His
teams play intense defense. If you don't
i think Barnes' teams play with a football
mentality, just ask Dean Smith.
The coaching legend and Barnes once
went nose-to-nose during an Atlantic
Coast Conference tournament game debating
the finer points of Clemson's tactics.
It will be interesting to see how
Barnes' stop-'em-first philosophy will
play in Austin after a decade of Penders'
shoot-'em-first beliefs.
And there will be those who will
wonder why Barnes is leaving Clemson
for Texas. If s not for a huge financial
boost. So why would Barnes make a lateral
move, trading the Atlantic Coast
I to be first ch
New Orleans Newman and the object
oi a boutnern recruiting battle.
He chose Tennessee over LSU and
his father's alma mater, Mississippi,
then came off the bench in his very first
college game against UCLA.
"Archie told me to take charge in
the huddle," recalled Peyton, who tried
to give the offense a pep talk when he
arrived in the game. "One of the linemen
told me, "Shut up and call the play.'
"Thanks a lot, Arch."
But it was all uphill from there.
Manning had a three-touchdown day
later that season against South Carolina,
his first 300-yard day as a sophomore
against Georgia, his first 400-yard
game as a junior against Florida and
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The Gamec
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Conference for the Big 12 Conference?
Three words: North Carolina and
Duke. At Clemson, Barnes was condemned
to be third fiddle ? at best ?
in college basketball's best conference.
How big is the gap? Clemson has "never"
won at North Carolina. 0-44.
In the Big 12, Barnes can have
Texas nipping at the heels of the league's
lone power school ? Kansas. Coaches
want to go where they have the best
chance of reaching the Final Four and
winning a title. And coaches will tell
you the ingredients for a big winner exist
in Austin.
The news of Barnes' hiring came on
an Easter Sunday night about the time
that Charlton Heston was doing his annual
Part-The-Red-Sea act in "The Ten
Commandments." Barnes must not be
a miracle worker. All he needs to do is
win 20 games in perpetuity and make
some big-time NCAA Tournament noise.
Dodds, UTs under-fire athletic director,
doesn't need a miracle. Just some
history-repeating fortune. Critics are
pointing to losing records in football,
baseball and men's basketball, plus the
untidiness of the Penders Affair.
But if Barnes was not UT's top
choice, Dodds can recite this history lesson:
Penders wasn't his first choice, either.
oice in draft
his first 500-yard game as a senior
against Kentucky.
The NFL has no questions about
Manning, on or off the field, mentally
or physically. The only question about
Manning these days is how high does
he go in the draft?
"Where Peyton has played, all the
experience he's had in bowl games and
pressure games, plus the fact that his
father was a quarterback ? he's had
about all you can have to get ready for
this league," Giants coach Jim Fassel
said.
"He's grown up in football."
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High schoo
to the NBA
I inhn SMALLWOOD I
College Press Exchange
PHILADELPHIA ? It's starting
again, just as it always does at this
time of year.
Kentucky has barely had time to
spit-shine the national championship
trophy it won two weeks ago, and already
college basketball is seeing what
stars it has left seduced by the lure
of fame, fortune and the NBA
Not that I buy into the argument
that college basketball will somehow
be destroyed by the most talented players
spending just two, one or no years
before bolting to the pros.
As this Final Four again proved ?
with Kentucky, runner-up Utah, Stanford
and North Carolina ? college athletics
is more about the name on the
front of jerseys than the ones on the
back of them.
Still, as soon as we accepted the
fact that sophomores leaving college
was going to be the norm, the trend of
freshmen and high school seniors declaring
for the draft is upon us.
Thursday, Saint Louis University
freshman sensation Larry Hughes officially
decided to follow the leads of
Minnesota Timberwolves guard
Stephon Marbury and Sixers rookie
Tim Thomas and surrender his final
three seasons of collegiate eligibility.
The day before that, in Chatham,
Va., some kid named Korleone Young
determined he's like Kevin Garnett
and Kobe Bryant and needs no college
preparation to make it big in the NBA
They always say the same thing ii
i ii ) i .1.1. J
tnai tneyre just pursuing meir aream,
and as I've said plenty of times, considering
the money that could be offered
to them, I can't blame any of
them.
"In my heart, I think I can become
a good NBA basketball player," said
Young, a 6-foot-7-inch forward who
played at Hargrave Military Academy.
"(People) see a kid jumping from
high school to the NBA and the first
thing they say is, This kid is dumb.
Not dumb, just uninformed.
The thing I always chuckle at is
when these still soaking-wet-behindthe-ears
hot shots make the inevitable
declaration that they are ready for the
NBA.
They just don't get it, none of them
ever does.
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just don't u
Even in the unlikely event that
Young and Hughes can become impact
rookies like Garnett and Bryant instead
of bench jockeys like Columbia's
Jermaine O'Neal and Tracy McGrady,
neither has a clue what they are gettinginto.
Like the vast majority of teenagers,
they can only see what's directly in
front of them.
They look at the NBA and only see
i i-.i-U-ii lj.: :il: J ?U ?
uas&eiuaii, xiiuiunumuu-uuiiar tuutracts,
shoe commercials and "SportsCenter"
highlights.
Thafs only a small portion of whaf s
going on.
None of the people whispering "You
got game" ever tells them about the
price of admission to Showtime.
Nobody ever says that when they
become professional athletes, they stop
being people and become commodities.
Nobody tells them the downside of
fame, how every moment of their lives
is an open page for public scrutiny.
"People don't realize how much of
a fishbowl they are in until they get
here," said 76ers guard Allen Iverson,
who in two seasons has become one of
the most celebrated and scrutinized
players in the league. "When you get
here it's a shock to you.
"The lifestyle is difficult. It may
seem easy because you see people making
a lot of money, but what comes
with that is tough."
Ask Iverson. His wealth, his acclaim,
his fame has not come without
a cost.
Since he left Georgetown after his
sophomore season and became the No.
1 overall pick in the 1996 draft, everything
he's done, every mistake he's
made has been a magnet for public debate.
Why do you dress like that, Allen?
Why do you hang with those people,
Allen? Why did you do that, Allen?
The obvious answer to all those
questions is Iverson is still just 22, and
22-year-olds need time to find their
way.
But as Iverson, and every other
athlete has found out, growing up in
the public eye can be an overwhelming
proposition.
The NBA isn't basketball. It's a
multibillion-dollar industry.
Once you fill out the application,
the first right you surrender is the
right to keep being a kid.
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Page 11
stars going
nderstand
When somebody invests millions
of dollars in you, he doesn't want to
hear that your need to rebel sometimes
is just a stage in your development.
They place demands on you, some
that involve conformity.
When somebody is plunking down
$30, $40 and $50 a ticket to watch you
play or paying $100 for the sneakers
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she expects more than just 18 points
and 7.5 rebounds. ,
Actually being able to play is just
the tip of the mountain of responsibility,
expectation, scrutiny and temp- _
tation, Hughes and Young have decided
to take onto their teenage
shoulders.
The price of fame is notoriety. The
cost of fortune is a loss of privacy. The
fee for the glamorous life is the loss of
a personal one.
Players who can't deal with those
contrasts quickly fall by the wayside,
and nobody cares about picking
them up because there's always somebody
else waiting to take their place.
"The guys who come in early should
look at the careers that other guys
who've come in early have had," said
Iverson, "and not just the ones that
are doing real well.
"Look at the ones who aren't doing
as well, and when you compare your
talent to the talent they also thought
they had, it'll make you think a little
bit more."
That's because it's not just about
talent. What Hughes, Young-and all
the future kids who come out of college
early fail to realize is doing dumb
things is part of the process of growing
up for 18- and 19-year-olds.
As a professional athlete, those
mistakes and the consequences are
magnified a thousand times. It takes
a strong person to handle that. Most
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show they can play, everything else
will take care of itself.
The reality is that if they're not
able to handle the other things, it ultimately
won't matter if they can or
can't play.
Even six years of college couldn't
adequately prepare Hughes and Young
for dealing with that concept.
These guys think they're ready for
the NBA. They don't even know what
being ready means.
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