Coach Is No. l With the Neighbors
Whole Street Showing Its Pride For the Star Next Door

By Carol Morello
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 31, 2006

The children who live on Wheatland Farms Drive in Oakton all know the nice man who lives in the red-brick house on the hill.

He gives them T-shirts and rides to summer camp, entertaining them en route with trivia quizzes on geography and sports. He hands out free tickets to basketball games and makes sure they get into the players' locker room. He lets them skateboard down his long, sloped driveway.

"Coach L" is their breezy nickname for Jim Larranaga. The coach of George Mason University's basketball team is their neighbor, gracing them with one degree of separation that has made them the envy of their classmates, especially this week.

"The kids all say I'm so lucky," said Wes Lincoln, 13, wearing the NCAA tournament T-shirt that he had his next-door neighbor autograph the morning after the win over the University of Connecticut that vaulted the team into the Final Four. "It's awesome living next door to him, because he's famous."

The children are not the only ones energized by the thrill of proximity on the wide street of spacious houses in Fairfax County where Larranaga lives with his wife, Liz. Residents who have attended block parties with the couple and watched basketball players troop in for dinner at the Larranaga house are as caught up in the hoopla as any Mason alumnus.

Almost every mailbox is festooned with yellow and green balloons. Congratulatory posters have been erected on the Larranagas' front lawn and doorway. The neighbor known for his elaborate Christmas displays has rigged a spotlight to shine on the posters so they are visible through the night. Children have marched up and down the block banging pots and pans after Mason victories and have chalked the words "We love you Coach Larranaga" on his driveway.

Now, the big neighborhood dilemma is what to do tomorrow night when a long-planned progressive dinner is scheduled at the same time as Mason's national semifinal game with the University of Florida. Already, husbands have told their wives to call around and make sure the hosts intend to have their televisions turned to the game, or they aren't going.

Residents who have known the Larranagas since the family moved into the neighborhood in 1998 say their excitement is born of their affection for a generous and kind couple.

"We thought Jim was a champion from the day he moved in," said Wendy Lincoln, who goes on a walk every morning with Liz Larranaga. "It's not because they're in the Final Four. He's a superstar because of the person he is. We're thrilled because we love Jim and Liz. They're great people."

Larranaga's neighbors say that when they tell people that they live near him, they are invariably asked one question: What's he really like?

"I always say he's just like you see on TV," said neighbor Rebecca Jarmas. "He's gentle. He's a quiet, caring man."

Mostly, he is known for his generosity. Virtually every child on the block has a George Mason or NCAA shirt from him, complete with his autograph on the back. They wore them, like so many uniforms, to school this week.

Many boys on Wheatland Farms Drive have attended the Jim Larranaga Basketball Camp at George Mason. And their chauffeur to the weeklong camp was Larranaga himself. Boys who went said the coach would amuse them during the drive with pop quizzes, like one in which he listed a country's physical and cultural features until they could identify it.

"He's very nice," said Bobby Lam, 9, a fourth-grader who attended the camp last summer and this year is the leading scorer on his team. "He told us what our grades need to be if we want to go to George Mason."

George Mason players are no strangers to the neighborhood. Liz Larranaga often invites them over for home-cooked meals. She also has tutored some of the players, the neighbors said.

On occasion, the team has even joined children in brief pickup games in the Lincolns' driveway, with its 7-foot-high basketball hoop adjoining the Larranagas' drive.

In this busiest of weeks, the Larranagas could not be reached to talk about what they think of their neighbors' enthusiastic gestures. Maybe when the basketball season is over, and the balloons come down on Wheatland Farms Drive, Larranaga will have time to give more autographs and basketball tips to the neighborhood children -- and to their fathers.

"Everyone is so excited for them," said Jeff Sanok as he wired a timer to the floodlights on the Larranagas' lawn. "Jim and Liz are wonderful, down-to-earth people."

He paused, considering what a hot property Larranaga has become, and added:

"They're the kind of neighbors you don't want to lose."