Sometimes mothers need to shut up

I really enjoy college basketball. It’s an obsession.

I was born and raised in Indiana, a state infatuated with the game of basketball. Basketball to a Hoosier is like meth to a junkie. I got hooked on college basketball in the mid-1970s when Indiana University went 63-1 between 1974 and ’76 and won the 1976 NCAA National Championship. The 1975-76 Hoosiers were the last team to not lose a game the entire season and post-season tournament. I was then a student at IU when the basketball team won the National Championship in 1981 and watched the 1987 championship game with my former college buddies on the IU campus.

My addiction intensified about 10 years ago when I started joining my dad and uncle in Laughlin, Nevada for the first weekend of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. I’ll describe those weekends in a future post.

While looking over game and team stories and blogs from college basketball writers I respect, I read some of the details about the Larry Drew III case. Drew III, son of a star basketball player and professional head coach, was a junior guard for the North Carolina Tar Heels until he suddenly left the team and the university on February 4, 2011. From Seth Davis’ blog (Davis is the college basketball writer for Sports Illustrated and is the “expert in residence” on the set for CBS Sports), I learned:

  Much has been made about the role that Larry Sr. might have had in his son's decision, but Drew's mother, Sharon, is a far greater problem. Sharon is the one who would call the coaches to complain about how many minutes her son was playing or how many shots he was getting. The news site Inside Carolina reported that in 2009 Sharon called the basketball office irate after she heard (head coach Roy) Williams spoke with John Wall, who was then a high school senior, about coming to play in Chapel Hill. (Wall played for one year at the University of Kentucky and is now a professional.) Sharon was the one who would protest how many tickets she was getting to games, and where her seats were. She is the one whose meddlesome tactics led the coach at Drew's former high school to dismiss his younger brother, Landon, from the team in the spring of 2010. The coach, Derrick Taylor, told the L.A. Times, "I informed [Landon] and his mother he could no longer be on the team. He's a great kid, but the circumstances are too unbearable." The school's principal later instructed Taylor to reinstate the player, saying "Landon can't be punished for adult behavior."

Sharon Drew reminds me of the mother who over-promoted her son to his coaches, athletic directors and the media in the late 1990’s. The boy we’ll call “David” was a forward at one of the high schools my paper covered in central Indiana. David was 6-foot-3 or 6-4 tall, weighed between 180 and 190 pounds and an okay basketball player – not good enough to be a starter, but better than the team’s manager.

David’s mother regularly complained to the coach, athletic director, and school principal about her son’s playing time. She then started impersonating other people wanting to see David play more. When that didn’t work, she would pretend to be the secretary of a famous and successful college coach and tell the athletic director over the phone this famous and successful coach would be personally scouting David at a particular game and the coach would really appreciate see David do more playing than watching. Shortly after laughing at the absurdity of a famous coach personally coming to see David play, someone looked at the college team’s schedule, and that team had a game at the same time David was playing his high school game.

David transferred to a private school before his senior year. Because the talent pool was much smaller at the private school, David became a starter.

The fall after David graduated from high school, David’s mother came to me saying her son will be playing college basketball – as a walk-on – at Utah State University. Based on what I knew of David’s skills and his mother’s bombastity, I knew it wasn’t true, but I had to check it out. I called the coach at David’s private high school and said “I hear David’s going to play ball at Utah State.” His reply was “Where did you hear that (poop)?” The coach said he could have gotten a couple of smaller colleges to offer David a scholarship, but David’s mother insisted he play at a major university.

I attempted to talk to Stew Morrill, who has been the head coach at Utah State for many years. I never actually talked to Morrill, but his secretary said “I know all the boys on our team, but I’m not familiar with that (David’s) name. I’ll talk to Coach and have him get back to you.” Two days later, I got a fax from Morrill’s office with a supposed quote from Morrill saying, “I love the guys on this team. We’re really excited about the upcoming season and NCAA tournament. Thank you for your inquiry into Utah State basketball.”

I eventually found David’s picture with the Utah State practice squad – the group of guys the real team beats up on when the real team is not playing for real.

I hate to admit it, but David’s mother left an indelible impression on me. I can’t help but laugh when I see the Utah State men’s basketball team on television.

My mom has made – and continues to make – an indelible impression on me. Fortunately, it’s an impression I will never hate to admit.