Pat Riley Won't Give In

"Think you'll ever get back into it?" Dampier asked.

"I really don't think so," Riley replied.

Twelve days later, Van Gundy quit. Even those who abhor the way Riley let Van Gundy dangle over the summer insist that he resigned for his family and has been happier ever since. "Pat had nothing to do with Stan's decision," says Bill Van Gundy, Stan's father, "and Pat doesn't deserve any rap of that nature."

Whatever you believe about this change, Riley's return to coach O'Neal and Wade always seemed logical, if only in a narrative sense: He was the marquee coach in the league's glory years, and his return to work motivational magic on its most outsized personality and its newest superstar gave the Heat a glamour Detroit and San Antonio will never match. TV programmers loved the prospect--no team has appeared more on cable TV this season--and the players saw it as their due. "Stan did an incredible job here," Mourning says. "But coaching credibility? Hands down, Pat has it. So why not have the teacher here instead of the pupil?"

Riley's public stance was that this was a ride to the rescue: Van Gundy's sudden departure demanded only one fix. "I'm the best person," Riley said when he took over. "The team is a mess." Two weeks later Ramsay approached him before the Heat's Christmas Day game and asked if everything was O.K. between them. Riley smiled and said, "We're coaches. Sure!"

Those who know Riley weren't shocked at his return to the sideline. Even now, few of Riley's peers are more organized or work harder, and his ability to take something he read or heard on TV and spin it into a compelling motivational speech remains unmatched. And now, no matter what happens in these playoffs, the dip at the end of his coaching bio will be balanced by a final spike upward, a blue-chip stock's final rebound. And if he could make it past Detroit? "His legacy would certainly expand," West says.

In returning to the chase, Riley has been forced to face constant reminders of time's ravages. His 96-year-old mother, Mary, began to decline in upstate New York, and Riley missed the final two games of the season to be with her. Then last Friday, before the playoff opener against Chicago, Mary died, and Riley found himself preparing and coaching in grief. "My mother always used to say, and she told me time and again this week, Life goes on, so get on with it," he said before the opener.

Four months earlier, his return to the bench had all but coincided with the release of Glory Road, a movie about the first all-black college team to win a national title. Riley, who had jumped center in the historic '66 loss to Texas Western, was a consultant for the film, produced by his friend Jerry Bruckheimer, and there was chatter about it everywhere as winter turned to spring--TV, magazines, theaters, the in-room network in every hotel room--everywhere reminders of his younger self, 40 years gone.

On January 21, when all the Runts gathered at Lexington's Memorial Hall to commemorate the '66 team, Riley was to have been there. It was all arranged: The university would send a jet to pick him up, he'd miss a practice. In Heat circles the fact that Riley agreed to this was taken as a sign of his mellowing; the younger Riley would never have skipped practice for a mere reunion. But then, the night before the gathering, Miami lost to San Antonio at home. Riley sent regrets and went back to work. Nineteen sixty-six was lost; he still had a chance to win this season.

The Runts were disappointed. That Riley evolved into such a grind didn't square with the Pat they knew at Lexington; there he had been less disciplined, less obsessive. In their room Riley would monopolize Dampier's phonograph player, and it was always spinning: the Four Tops, the Supremes. "He was a free spirit," Dampier says. "He really loved music and dancing."