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Golfing with the enemy
Posted: Tuesday June 06, 2000 02:38 PM
The lion hath lain with the lamb. Bill Gates agrees to break up Microsoft for the common good. Vince McMahon joins the Quakers. Hey, it could happen. They've been proving it in the Southeastern Conference for the last quarter century. The league's football officials host a golf tournament every June and invite the coaches to tee it up. Every school sends an assistant or two, if not the head coach himself. Not one fight has broken out. In fact, they have a great time. What ping-pong diplomacy did for U.S.-China relations a generation ago, Ping diplomacy has done in the SEC. The striped shirt doth play a scramble with the clipboard. When explaining why, both sides use the same word -- camaraderie. Ray Moon, a Birmingham stock broker, has been an SEC official since 1974. He started running the tournament 10 years later. He remembers when Bear Bryant played in it. Three current head coaches -- Phillip Fulmer of Tennessee, Mike DuBose of Alabama and David Cutcliffe of Ole Miss -- played in the tournament when they were assistants. "It's been one of the better means of creating a gentlemen's atmosphere between the coaches and the officials," Moon says. "I've gotten to know a lot of guys through the golf tournament. On Saturday afternoon, nobody is perfect. It creates a camaraderie. I know what they mean and they know what I mean." Tennessee assistant coach Woody McCorvey has played in the event while coaching at three different schools -- Alabama, South Carolina and again last week in Montgomery, Ala., as a Volunteer. "Instead of a coach on the sideline yelling, 'Hey, you a------!' you get to know the guy," McCorvey says. "You can say, 'Hey, John, you missed that call.' Or he may say, 'Woody, you got a problem with your substitution pattern. You were slow. Don't get a penalty for having 12 men on the field.'" Coaches and assistants talk on the field all the time. It's the grease that keeps the game playing. As one businessman after another tells his boss at expense-account time, there's nothing like a golf game to keep a deal lubricated. Moon deflects the idea that anyone gets too chummy. "Nobody is going to get a call out of a golf game," Moon says. If anything, he teases, the call "might be against them for missing a putt." For instance, Moon says Tennessee has sent more coaches to play in the event than any other school. Fulmer has played a few times. Moon says he once flagged the Volunteers for an illegal touch, which is what they're calling it these days when an ineligible receiver gets his hands on a pass. Fulmer used one of his timeouts to question Moon about it. Because of the golf outings, Moon says, they're on a first-name basis. Ever since Moon quickly dismissed Fulmer's question, the coach has teased him. "He keeps telling me I owe him a timeout," Moon says, "that I should have convinced him not to call it." June is the unofficial golf month for football folks. For a number of years, Arizona head coach Dick Tomey has helped put together an annual coach-am tournament at Pebble Beach that includes a couple of dozen head coaches from around the country. This week, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney and a gaggle of athletic directors from around the league are in Ireland, presumably searching for a 12th member at places like Ballybunion. According to Moon, however, the SEC is the only league where the officials and coaches get together. Some guys are serious about golf. Some guys sit down around the pool at 1 in the afternoon and stand up to leave at 1 in the morning having emptied enough beer cans, Moon says, to fill up a wheelbarrow. The sun rises and the sun sets. President Clinton teams up with House Majority Whip Tom DeLay to pass the China trade bill. Peace is making inroads in Northern Ireland, the Koreas and the Middle East. National League teams play American League teams every summer and baseball continues to thrive. Coaches tee it up with officials in the calm of a late spring weekend. The good in this idea is as obvious as a yellow hanky sticking out of a back pocket. Ivan Maisel is a Sports Illustrated senior writer who covers college football and is a frequent contributor to CNNSI.com.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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