In the Midst of a Rebuild, Mike Davis and Family Return to Indiana
By Jason Whitlock
Special to Page 2
There'southward no reason to tiptoe around it, then I won't. Mike Davis' inevitable demise at Indiana University is not a production of my home land's inherent racism. No way.
Indiana University and its fans have treated Mike Davis fairly.
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Mike Davis never embraced Indiana, and that's why he wasn't able to ultimately succeed there.
Davis is expected to denote Th that he will resign at the end of this season. He totally mismanaged a golden opportunity by throwing a six-yr compassion political party, surrounding himself with butt-kissers and failing to demonstrate leadership by embracing the very people he claims he desperately wanted to embrace him.
Now, in the interest of full disclosure, let me share with you that at once, I was an ardent Mike Davis supporter and a friend. We've been to each other's homes, met each other's families and friends, and spent countless hours on the phone discussing the politics of his situation at Indiana.
I grew upwardly in Indianapolis, and just similar every other Indiana male child, had a healthy respect for Bob Knight's basketball program. Just later on college, I worked for a paper in Bloomington for one year. Bob Hammel, the sports editor at the paper and Knight'due south best friend, was 1 of my early on mentors -- along with Andy Graham, Male monarch Kirts and Lynn Houser.
My point is, I know the territory, the character and the values of the people in the state. Information technology wasn't difficult for me to imagine the obstacles Davis faced in replacing Knight. I shared my insight with Davis until December of 2002. We oasis't spoken much since, because Davis was disappointed that I wrote a column criticizing his half-court tantrum at the end of a difficult loss to Kentucky.
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Since that time, I've rooted for Davis from afar. And I've winced time and time again as Davis inched closer to bungling a career job by repeatedly making stupid statements considering his skin was too sparse to handle replacing a legend.
You didn't have to spend much time effectually Davis, or be a Jesse Jackson supporter, to know he has long believed Indiana fans haven't embraced him, his NBA offense, three straight mediocre seasons and ane Final Four season because Hoosiers are uncomfortable with a black man running the house that Bobby Knight built.
Davis has subtly and not and then subtly played the race carte throughout his six-year tenure at Indiana. And this week, when he proclaimed from his Steve Alford-induced sickbed that Indiana needed 1 of its own to lead the program, Davis was again dancing with the issue of race.
On the day that Alford, Indiana'due south Swell White Hope, put a fork in Davis' Indiana coaching career by leading the Iowa Hawkeyes to victory inside Assembly Hall, Davis spent the evening telling a reporter that someone like Alford would be a better fit for the Hoosiers.
Come on, let's not pussyfoot around. Davis knows quite well that many Hoosiers fans desire Alford to supplant him. Davis' comments were calculated, designed to create sympathy and pigment Indiana fans in an unflattering, redneck light.
Davis went as far as to blame discontented Indiana fans for his players' inability to focus and perform. The Hoosiers, Davis claims, just tin't execute at a loftier level when their coach is existence unmercifully crucified by proficient old boys.
Davis isn't the first coach -- blackness or white -- to face up a hanging tree. And you know what? He'due south probably not the beginning to tie his own noose, option out the tree and kicking the chair out from underneath his feet. It but feels similar the start time to me, because I've seen it coming from the get-go.
While Davis believes Indiana needs one of its own to atomic number 82 the Hoosiers, I contend that all Indiana fans want is a double-decker who passionately wants to be a Hoosier. Catamenia.
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Davis spent too much time whining and feeling lamentable for himself at IU.
Davis' lack of passion for Indiana is at the crux of his Hoosier Crucifixion. IU fans take never embraced Mike Davis because Mike Davis has never embraced Indiana. You see, regardless of how Bob Knight's Indiana career ended, regardless of what Knight had to say about Davis' succeeding him, loving Indiana basketball begins and ends with loving Bobby Knight.
Davis needed to consume from the forbidden apple (Knight) from the outset and continue eating from the Knight tree to this twenty-four hour period, no matter how sour the apples taste. Without Bobby Knight, in that location is no Mike Davis, and there's certainly no one thousand thousand-dollar-a-yr contract.
Instead of playing higher up Knight's insults and political games (Sean May), Davis thought he could survive by winning early and befriending members of the Indianapolis and national media willing to criticize Knight and champion Davis.
Yous know what that will get you? Six years, 1 good contract, a couple of groupie TV anchors and a nice home to hibernate in when Alford comes to town and your entire fan base wants you lot fired.
Information technology doesn't even prepare you upwardly for your side by side job. Seriously, athletic directors aren't looking for leaders who phone call in sick when the going gets tough. And unless a job opens in Davis' home country of Alabama, I'm not sure Davis is a practiced fit anywhere.
Once again, this all comes back to Davis' unwillingness to dear the one he's with. Jared Jeffries and Tom Coverdale, 2 Indiana kids, led Davis' 2001-02 team to the national championship game. Nevertheless Davis spent the entire season talking publicly about how much meliorate the Hoosiers would exist the following season one time Bracey Wright and Marshall Strickland made information technology to the country of Indiana.
Jeffries, Coverdale, Dane Fife, Jeff Newton, Jarrad Odle, Kyle Hornsby and A.J. Moye -- the core of Davis' best team -- never were properly celebrated by Davis. The following flavour, Davis turned the team over to Wright, whom Davis described equally a "Shaquille O'Neal-type impact role player" on my radio prove in 2002. (Wright didn't come close to living upwardly to that.)
Shortly after the Last Iv run, Davis complained that Indiana's nameless jerseys and candy-stripe warm-up pants hurt his ability to recruit. He might as well have said, "you lot know, we need to play half our dwelling house games in Birmingham."
Davis needed to kill the Knight supporters (and the bigots) with unbridled dear of all things Hoosier, even the hokey, erstwhile-school traditions. He could cry and bitch at dwelling house, but his public statements should've expressed a deep want to be Indiana'south head coach and a willingness to immerse himself in Indiana'south unique basketball culture.
Davis chose to speak of his desire to someday bus in the NBA. He told other college coaches that he'd take a pay cut and charabanc in the South. In public and in private, Davis told people exactly what was on his mind.
It was impossible for Indiana fans to love a bus who so plainly didn't love Indiana. Hoosiers fans are merely similar you and me. They tend to love people who dear them.
Davis' loathing of all things Indiana ruined any chances of his consistently tapping into what has been a very fertile crop of Partitioning I talent in the country the final few years. Davis and his coaching staff failed to do the necessary legwork to build bridges with the Indiana high school and AAU coaches.
Frustrated by his inability to land Bloomington standout and Indiana legacy Sean May, Davis preferred to shop for players downwardly South. He thought Florida'southward Roderick Wilmont was a improve player than Indianapolis' Rodney Carney, who is an All-America candidate at Memphis. Even in landing Indianapolis Thruway's Robert Vaden, Davis managed to piss off Vaden'southward influential coach, Larry Bullington.
Vaden was a Damon Bailey-type fable in Indiana. But Bullington and many Indiana high school coaches felt that Davis steered Vaden toward a prep school his senior flavor. Vaden's transfer cost Bullington a country championship and damaged Davis' reputation with Indiana'southward prep coaches.
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Question is, where does Mike Davis state side by side? Who will hire him?
Davis' recruitment of Indianapolis' Greg Oden -- known every bit the 7-foot LeBron James -- was about comical in its execution. Oden, an Ohio State commit, was office of a package bargain. He was going to commit to the same school as his point guard teammate, Mike Conley. And Mike Conley was going to commit to the schoolhouse his male parent, Mike Conley Sr., felt most comfy with. Conley Sr., the Olympic triple jumper, coached the boys in AAU basketball.
For Davis, the recruitment of Oden should've been unproblematic: Offer Conley Sr. a job on the Indiana coaching staff. Oden is that good. Oden, Conley Jr. and Conley Sr. form a meliorate package than Danny and Ed Manning. If Conley Sr. didn't desire a chore, at least convince the male parent that his son is a critical piece to IU's hereafter.
Instead, Davis was initially lukewarm most recruiting Conley Jr. Davis targeted Chicago signal guard Sherron Collins (a Kansas commit), and someone on Davis' staff fifty-fifty managed to send mail intended for Collins to the Conley household.
Indiana never made it on Conley Jr.'s listing of schools. Oden listed Indiana equally a possibility, as a courtesy. Davis had no shot. He never developed a meaningful relationship with Conley Sr.
Bobby Knight turned Indiana into a powerhouse by stocking his roster with the all-time talent Indiana, Illinois and Ohio had to offer. Davis tried to win big this year with three mercenaries from the state of Alabama -- D.J. White and Auburn transfers Marco Killingsworth and Lewis Monroe. Killingsworth and Monroe enrolled at Indiana with just one twelvemonth of eligibility left. White, a sophomore, committed to Indiana with the intentions of turning pro equally soon every bit possible.
Monroe has been a disappointment. White injured his human foot. And Killingsworth, who lacks the kind of Indiana-bred basketball savvy of players such as Jeffries, kills Indiana's law-breaking because he doesn't know how to pass out of a double-team.
Are there some IU fans who don't like Davis merely because of the color of his skin? Aye. But that element in no way cost Davis his chore. Mike Davis toll himself one of the all-time jobs in America by wallowing in pity.
Compassion provides comfort, but it sure don't pay the bills.
Jason Whitlock is a regular columnist for The Kansas City Star. His newspaper is celebrating his 10 years equally a columnist with the publishing of Jason's starting time book, "Love Him, Detest Him: 10 Years of Sports, Passion and Kansas Urban center." Information technology's a drove of Jason'due south most memorable, thought-provoking and funny columns over the by decade. You tin buy the volume at TheKansasCityStore.com. Jason can be reached past email at ballstate68@aol.com. Audio off to Page ii here.
Source: http://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story?page=whitlock%2F060216
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