ST. LOUIS -- After a while, all Final Four cities begin to look the same. The banners lining the streets all have some form of an NCAA logo, and the scalpers standing on the corners with their cell phones asking, "Anybody selling?" -- code for "I'm selling" -- are the same guys who were in San Antonio last year and have made reservations for Atlanta next year.
The city's famed Arch looms over the restaurant where coaches in sweat suits sit trading stories, most of them not even glancing in the direction of the structural marvel on the riverbank. The earliest arrivals always seem to be the guys who are out of the business, who live for this week; for the chance to sit around with old pals -- and, in some cases adversaries -- telling and re-telling stories from their glory days. In one corner Thursday afternoon, Norm Stewart, the ex-Missouri coach who never quite made it to the Final Four, sat chatting with Billy Tubbs, who took Oklahoma to the championship game in 1988 in Kansas City, a four-hour drive from here on I-70. Tubbs is back in coaching now, having hired himself two years ago to coach at Lamar where he was the athletic director.
"I did a nationwide search for the best coach I could find," Tubbs said, his voice still sounding like a Jack Nicholson send-up. "And I ended up deciding the best coach available was me."
A few yards from Tubbs and Stewart, Nolan Richardson, who won the national championship at Arkansas in 1994, is holding court with a few friends. Jeff Capel, now the coach at Virginia Commonwealth, walks by and shakes hands. Capel was a freshman on the Duke team that lost to Arkansas in that final. Now, like so many others, Capel and Richardson stand around listening for gossip.
"I remember the first time I came to this thing in 2000," Capel said. "I was with my dad [who was at Old Dominion as the head coach then and is now an assistant with the Charlotte Bobcats]. I couldn't believe so many grown men could stand around gossiping for hours and hours."
A Final Four is a center for gossip and stories and wild rumors. Thursday, everyone seemed to be asking everyone else whom Craig Littlepage is going to hire to replace Pete Gillen at Virginia. The Tubby Smith rumors seem dead. Rick Barnes has no interest. Apparently neither do Mike Brey, Mike Montgomery or Mark Few -- all of whom have been mentioned. The latest name is Dave Leito, the DePaul coach. Digger Phelps, the ex-Notre Dame coach turned ESPN announcer, has told friends he might make a comeback at 63 if Leito goes to Virginia and DePaul asks him.
"I had the job back in '97 when Pat Kennedy ended up taking it," Phelps said. Former DePaul AD "Bill Bradshaw and I talked for six hours. I was ready to do it. Then I thought, is this about ego or about really wanting to coach again? I decided it was about ego. I told Bill then they should get out of Conference USA and get into the Big East. I said, 'Do that and you can be what we were at Fordham in 1970.' " That was Phelps's first year as a coach, and the Rams went 26-3 and reached the round of 16. "So now, they're going in the Big East. It's a great job."
One not so huge job has been filled: Fran McCaffrey, the coach at UNC Greensboro, is going to Siena. North Carolina writers were suddenly trying to find out if Buzz Peterson, recently fired by Tennessee, was interested in succeeding McCaffrey.
"Put it this way," one coach said. "He interviewed for the Coastal [Carolina] job. He'd definitely be interested in Greensboro."
Tom Abatemarco, who has been an assistant coach at most colleges in America, was wearing a Sacramento Kings shirt. Abatemarco worked for Lefty Driesell at Maryland; for Jim Valvano at North Carolina State during the national championship run in 1983 and, most recently, for Rick Majerus at Utah. There have been numerous stops in between. Now, he is an assistant coach for the Sacramento WNBA team and does pre- and postgame radio shows for the Kings games.
"I don't miss the college game," he said. "I don't need to chase a job. I'm making good money. I like what I'm doing." He paused and looked around the lobby. "I think I could help Gary [Williams]. I hear he's coming to town tomorrow."
This may well be the last place in the world Gary Williams wants to be this weekend. He'll have to endure those awkward moments when colleagues aren't quite sure what to say about Maryland's 19-13 season, and with one opening on his staff already (with Mike Lonergan leaving for Vermont) and another likely (Dave Dickerson perhaps to Tulane), Williams will be very popular with out-of-work coaches.
Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun first came to the Final Four in 1973, as a rookie coach at Northeastern.
"I remember walking through the lobby and being awed seeing some of the big-name coaches who were there," he said. "I never dreamed one day I'd really be part of it as a coach."
Now, Calhoun is one of the big-name coaches that the young coaches stare at when he walks through the lobby. On Monday, Illinois Coach Bruce Weber called to ask for his advice on how to handle the week.
"I told him to get in early enough so your kids can enjoy being at the Final Four," said Calhoun, who is 4-0 in Final Four games. "That's what we've done. Spend a day feeling as if being here is a reward for something you've accomplished -- because it is. Then, on Friday, begin to get honed in on what you have to do to win."
Weber's team is clearly the hometown favorite here, although Louisville isn't that much further away -- about 250 miles south and east of here on I-64. By Friday, the town will be filled with people in red and in orange and in light blue and in green. That's the way it works at the Final Four: the guys in sweats with tickets and cell phones show up first. Then come the coaches, first the retired ones and the ones looking for work, then the big names.
Then come the fans and the city feels as if it will burst. The celebrity hangers-on; the Bill Murrays and (though not this year) Ashley Judds of the world won't show up until they know the TV cameras are ready to roll. The biggest star in town on Friday when all the fans have arrived? Not Weber or Williams or Tom Izzo or Rick Pitino. It will be Dick Vitale. No one will sign more autographs; no one will have his name screamed more often than Vitale.
The gang is gathering. Soon, they will all be here. By Tuesday, they will all be gone.
A year from now, they will gather again. The hotel lobbies will be different; the rumors will carry different names. But all the faces will be the same.
