A Season Inside (16 page)

“I finally feel as if people have completely accepted me as a person, not just as a victim,” he said. “This is a great feeling to be on a team with this kind of potential. I hope we can keep it going all year.”

They were certainly started in the right direction.

One of the last teams in the country to open the season was the University of Tennessee. There was something correct about this delay, because the arena that the Volunteers were scheduled to open their season in was already two years late.

When the Thompson–Boling Arena had first been conceived in the early 1980s, Tennessee was battling Kentucky for supremacy in the Southeast Conference. Building an arena that would have more seats than Kentucky’s 23,000-seat Rupp Arena seemed a logical step.

But almost since the day that B. Ray Thompson anonymously put up the first $5 million of the $37 million it would take to build the arena, Tennessee basketball had seemed jinxed. Not only had the construction of the building been a disaster—one death, two construction firms, and two pending lawsuits—but the basketball program had slipped steadily.

The story that may best sum up what had happened to Tennessee basketball was Doug Roth. In high school, Roth was coveted by everyone. He was 6–11, a good athlete, a good student, and his statistics were superb. He could shoot with both hands and, best of all as far as Don DeVoe was concerned, he was from Knoxville.

“When I first saw Doug Roth play as a junior in high school, I
thought he was a breakthrough player for our program,” DeVoe said, looking back. “We were averaging about twenty wins a year at the time. I thought he was the kind of player who could take us to twenty-three or twenty-four wins a year.”

DeVoe worked diligently to make sure Roth stayed home when it came time to choose a college, and when Roth announced in 1985 that he was going to Tennessee, DeVoe was elated. Roth had been named to virtually every high school All-America team there was. DeVoe, often accused of not being a good recruiter, had pulled off a major recruiting coup.

But that summer, DeVoe went to see Roth play in the annual Olympic Festival. Suddenly, playing against players who were much bigger and quicker than the ones he had played against in high school, Roth looked human. Very human. DeVoe also noticed that Roth had trouble at times doing simple things like catching the ball. There was a reason: Roth was legally blind in his right eye.

During Roth’s first two seasons at Tennessee, the Volunteers won a
total
of twenty-six games, a far cry from the average of twenty-three or twenty-four a season DeVoe had anticipated. There were many other reasons for the team’s troubles, but Roth, who averaged 3 points a game as a freshman and 9.7 as a sophomore, became a symbol of all those problems.

No one was more frustrated by those problems than DeVoe. This was a coach who had only had one losing season during his first fourteen at three different schools. Suddenly, at the age of forty-five he had rolled back-to-back losing seasons: 12–16 and 14–15.

“A lot of things went wrong those two years,” he said. “Our best player, Fred Jenkins, missed eighteen of our thirty-six conference games with injuries. Roth didn’t pan out the way we thought he would. We had other injuries. But the bottom line, to be honest, was that I hadn’t recruited well enough. If we had more depth, we could have overcome the injuries.

“Instead, we only won one conference road game [out of eighteen] in two years. We lost games that Mary Poppins would have won. Last year we were up 12 on Kentucky with 1:10 left and found a way to lose. We just have to find a way to be more consistent this year and, more than anything, to play better defense.”

Defense has always been the cornerstone of DeVoe’s coaching approach, not surprising considering his background. He was born and
raised on his parents’ 179-acre farm in Clinton County, Ohio, and to a large extent still looks and sounds like the farmer’s son that he is: He is tall and clean-cut-looking with a quick, eager laugh and a sincerity and intensity that carries over into his coaching.

DeVoe went to Ohio State on a partial scholarship during Fred Taylor’s glory years there. He fully intended to get his degree in animal sciences, go back to the farm and breed livestock. But after one semester under Taylor and a coaching class taught by Woody Hayes, DeVoe wanted to coach.

He graduated in 1964 with a degree in education and began looking for a coaching job. A year later, one of his former teammates, Bob Knight, was named the head coach at Army. He hired DeVoe as his assistant. Five intense years later, DeVoe left Knight to go back to Ohio State as a graduate assistant.

“Those were tough years working for Bob,” he said. “But I learned a lot from him. I figured I was destined for small college coaching somewhere and I would need a graduate degree. So, I decided to go back to Ohio State and work for Fred [Taylor] again while I got my master’s.”

DeVoe not only got his master’s, he got an offer to be the head coach at Virginia Tech—and took it. One year later, the Hokies wrote one of the more remarkable stories in the history of the NIT when they won four games by a total of five points and won the tournament on a desperation buzzer-beater by Bobby Stephens, stunning Notre Dame 94–93 in overtime.

DeVoe can remember most of the details of that tournament, including riding the subway with his team to the Garden for each game. “It’s funny how hard it becomes to top something like that,” he said. “That was an amazing experience for me as a coach. I’ve had success since then, but nothing that felt quite as exhilarating as that.”

DeVoe continued to win at Virginia Tech and when Taylor, under pressure, resigned at Ohio State midway through the ’76 season, DeVoe’s name was immediately linked with the job. He was on his way to a 21–7 record at Virginia Tech and, being an Ohio State alumnus, most people thought DeVoe would be hired.

DeVoe was on the last year of his contract at Tech. He didn’t want to sign a new contract. Ohio State was a possibility, although he told the school he would not talk to them until his season was over. The season ended, shockingly, with a first-round loss to Western Michigan
in the NCAA Tournament, a game DeVoe still shakes his head about. The next day DeVoe interviewed at Ohio State. But he came away sensing he was not going to get the job.

“It was just a gut feeling,” he said. “The next day I was driving from Blacksburg to Philadelphia and I heard on the radio that Eldon Miller had gotten the job. It didn’t shock me. But then when I got home, I found out that Virginia Tech had hired a new coach, thinking I was going to Ohio State. All of a sudden, I didn’t have any job at all. It was pretty depressing.”

DeVoe landed at Wyoming for two years before Tennessee came after him. Ironically, he got the Tennessee job in large part because of the recommendation of then UCLA Athletic Director J. D. Morgan. When Morgan was looking for a coach to replace Gene Bartow in 1977, he had called DeVoe. Eventually, Morgan hired longtime UCLA assistant Gary Cunningham, but when Tennessee Athletic Director Bob Woodruff called the next year looking for names, Morgan mentioned DeVoe.

During his first season at Tennessee, DeVoe won twenty-one games and beat Kentucky three times. His first five Tennessee teams reached the NCAA Tournament. The next two settled for the NIT but won twenty games each. It was the last two teams that had been failures.

Tennessee is not a school that deals well with failure. And DeVoe is not the kind of coach who can lose and remain popular. He has always been private, but became even more so when he went through a divorce in 1983. He has since remarried and has two young children with his second wife, Ana. But he is not comfortable out on the town or palling around with the alumni. To be popular, he must win. For two years, he had not won.

Now, with the new arena finally opening, DeVoe is feeling heat. Losing teams mean empty seats, especially in a huge arena. Tennessee, with Jenkins and leading scorer Tony White gone, is going to have to show improvement for DeVoe to keep his job. He knows that. His players know that.

DeVoe has a good enough reputation in the coaching profession that be knows he will find work somewhere if he loses his job. But he has no desire to leave Knoxville. His wife is from there, he honestly believes that the new arena will be a major recruiting tool, and he is comfortable there after ten years.

Knoxville is, in many ways, a typical southern college town. It is
neither big nor small. On the ride in from the airport one passes, among other things, a flea market, Madame Rene’s palm readings, the Baptist Exercise Center; a strip joint, and a sign that says: “
HAVING AN AFFAIR
? … Rodeway Inn Convention Center.”

Once across the Tennessee River one turns right, and there on the banks of the river loom both the Thompson–Boling Arena and Neyland Stadium, which has been expanded over the years to now seat 103,000. Both the stadium and the arena are completely orange inside. There is no doubt that this is Big Orange Country.

And, while they love their football here first and foremost, they take their basketball quite seriously. Ray Mears, DeVoe’s predecessor, brought in players like Bernard King and Ernie Grunfeld and challenged Kentucky for SEC supremacy. DeVoe, even with his recent troubles, has a record of 10–9 against Kentucky. That goes a long way toward keeping your job at Tennessee. But a third straight losing season will finish DeVoe and he knows it.

On opening night though, the past is forgotten … at least for one evening. The opponent is Marquette. Once, this would have been a very tough opener, especially back in the days when Al McGuire was coach. But Marquette has fallen on even harder times than Tennessee. It is a perfect opening night foil.

And so, all goes well. Well, almost all. The bathrooms in the new arena back up when suddenly confronted with 25,272 people and the two locker rooms are flooded. There is also some leakage from the roof. Only a little, though. And when the band plays “The Tennessee Waltz” just before tip-off, the new place is rocking.

Tennessee struggles for a half, leading just 33–30 at intermission. But a 13–4 run at the start of the second half breaks the game open, and the Vols cruise to an 82–56 victory before what will be the only sellout crowd in the new building all season.

“It’s as big a win as I can remember since I’ve been at Tennessee,” DeVoe says when it is over. “To open the new place like this in front of all these people is terrific. We’ve had some fun wins, some wins we didn’t deserve, but I can’t remember one that was bigger.”

DeVoe is genuinely excited. His team played good defense and his three new players—junior college transfer Clarence Swearengen and freshmen Greg Bell and Rickey Clark—played well. The kind of spark he has been looking for was evident.

Bell may have a distinction that no other player in America can claim: He is playing in a building he helped build. A year ago, Bell
enrolled at Tennessee as a Proposition 48 freshman. At the time, the rule (since changed) said that a player could retain all four years of his eligibility if he paid his own way to school during the year he was forced to sit out. Bell paid his way by working on the construction crew that built the Thompson–Boling Arena. Having helped build the place, Bell would now be asked to help fill it. Against Marquette, he shoots three-for-four in his college debut.

It is a big night for Tennessee and a big night for DeVoe. But it is only one night and one game. No one knows that better than DeVoe.

This was the joke they were telling in the Hoosier Dome today: Question: What is the one thing about the first annual Big Four Double-header that isn’t like the Final Four?

Answer: Notre Dame is playing.

Well, that may be just a bit unfair but there is little doubt that this is a gala event. They will sell 43,000 tickets to these two games and it could have been a lot more. When you put Indiana, Kentucky, Louisville, and Notre Dame in the same building in a central location for one afternoon, there is virtually no limit to the number of tickets that could be sold.

In the twelve years since John Wooden retired, Indiana (3), Louisville (2), and Kentucky (1) have won exactly half of the twelve national championships. Even Notre Dame has made a Final Four appearance during that period (1978), although Digger Phelps still hasn’t won a Final Four game.

This extravaganza was a long time in the making. It was originally discussed in the early 1980s when the Hoosier Dome was first opened. Since all four schools are within a couple hours’ drive of the Dome, the notion was to put the four of them there at the same time and rake in the money. Not to mention playing some pretty good basketball in the process.

Naturally, there were holdups during negotiations. The Kentucky schools didn’t like the idea of going into Indiana every year. They wanted to rotate the site. But neither Louisville nor Lexington had a building comparable in size to the Hoosier Dome and neither city was nearly as centrally located.

Then there was the question of format. Bob Knight wanted a two-day
day tournament. Eddie Sutton wanted a one-day doubleheader. What about matchups? It was finally resolved this way: a four-year contract and a one-day doubleheader, Kentucky schools playing Indiana schools with the opponent switched every year. In other words, Big Four Classic 1 would match Notre Dame–Louisville and Indiana–Kentucky. Big Four Classic 2 would be Indiana–Louisville and Notre Dame–Kentucky, and No. 3 would have the same matchups as No. 1.

Each school would get 25 percent of the ticket allotment and the TV revenue would be split four ways. It was a can’t-miss deal. All four schools were perennially good to excellent, all four coaches were national names, and all four had truly fanatical fans.

The whole weekend had all the trappings of a Final Four. The coaches closed their practices on Friday and the city began filling up that evening. By noon on Saturday, two hours before tip-off, I-65 was jammed with cars coming up from Kentucky.

Notre Dame was the only one of the four teams not in the Top Twenty. Kentucky was sitting second behind North Carolina. Indiana was fifth and Louisville, even though it had yet to play a game, was fourteenth.