Looking out for No. 1

In the business of basketball, loyalty doesn't exist

It's such a tempting position to stake, I'm not surprised so many of my media brethren have parroted it. "Coaching Capitalism Only Leaves Players Wanting" -- that was the headline on Harvey Araton's column in The New York Times on April 22. The phrase no doubt caused many readers to sigh wistfully into their morning coffee. Araton was bemoaning the fate of all the young hoopsters who feel jilted by coaches who take jobs at other schools. That sentiment has also been echoed on SI.com by two of my colleagues, Mike Fish and Roy S. Johnson, as well as by many other commentators and talk-show hosts around the nation.

Well, pardon me if I don't join the pity party. Every single person who plays big-time college basketball understands full well that it's a business -- first, last and always. Does anyone really think that, in this or any other business, loyalty trumps the bottom line?

Don't get me wrong. It's not that I have absolutely no sympathy for someone like Kansas forward Wayne Simien, whose right arm is still in a sling following surgery to repair a separated shoulder. Referring to his former coach, Roy Williams, Simien said plaintively, "I gave my right arm for that man." But I promise you this: If Simien found out tomorrow that he was going to be top-five pick, then he and his right arm would enter the NBA draft lickety-split.

Hurt feelings (and shoulders) aside, it is simply unfair to suggest that coaches should be denied the chance at upward mobility extended to you, me and everybody else in America. Williams, Bill Self, Ben Howland and Dennis Felton left their current jobs for better ones, just as Carmelo Anthony is entering the draft despite his "loyalty" to Syracuse. Fish even went so far as to say that coaches should remain at schools until they fulfill their contracts. Did having a contract mean anything to guys like Matt Doherty, Jerry Dunn and Larry Shyatt, who were all fired because they didn't win enough games? On the flip side, does anyone really believe that Kentucky coach Tubby Smith's new eight-year, $20 million extension will single-handedly keep him in Lexington if the NBA comes calling?

That's why I had to chuckle when I saw Illinois athletic director Ron Guenther decry Self's departure for Kansas after just three years on the job in Champaign. "When you make a commitment to get the job done, the right thing was for him to stay," Guenther said. I wonder: Would Guenther have been so "committed" to Self if his teams didn't win games? And will Guenther worry about "commitment" as he tries to woo another head coach from his current job to replace Self with the Illini?

I do agree that all this movement is particularly harmful to recruits who have yet to arrive on campus, but those players are mostly the victims of the ridiculously one-sided national letter of intent (a topic for another day). Still, these kids have more savvy than many commentators are giving them credit for. They understand full well that the business of college hoops has some very simple precepts. The athletic directors are loyal to the coaches -- until they stop winning. They coaches are loyal to the players -- until a better job comes along. The players are loyal to the schools -- until they have a chance to turn pro.

So when I read columns like Araton's, I can't help but recall an exchange Jim Valvano once had with some N.C. State fans (or said he had; you never knew with Jimmy). When the fans told Valvano they loved him, he asked, "Would you still love me if we only won five games a year?"

"Yes," one of them replied. "And we'd miss you very much."

Sports Illustrated staff writer Seth Davis covers college basketball for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com. Davis' first book, Equinunk, Tell Your Story: My Return to Summer Camp, is available through Chandler House Press.

 

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