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For Majerus, A Bad Team Still Is Better Than No Team
"I missed practice," Rick Majerus said. "In a way, it's as simple as that. I really like practice. I like the games, too."
(By Jeff Roberson -- Associated Press)
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As with so many coaches who walk away, just talking about it wasn't enough.
"I remember when it first began to hit me," he said. "A couple of years ago, we did a game at Wake Forest. They had gone from ranked number one in the country a year earlier to last in the ACC. After the game, I went out with [Wake Forest's then-coach] Skip Prosser. He was miserable about the way his team was playing, and we sat up very late talking.
"When I went home that night, it occurred to me that I had this empty feeling after games. We'd go out to eat and talk, and there was this emptiness. I knew Skip was struggling, but at least he had a horse in the race. The horse wasn't doing as well as he wanted it to, but he was working to get it to run faster. I didn't have that anymore."
That emptiness drove Majerus to accept the Southern California job just more than three years ago before deciding -- again -- that his own health and that of his mother (who lives in Milwaukee) made coaching in Los Angeles a bad idea. But when Saint Louis President Lawrence Biondi approached him about the job there, he couldn't resist. The team is moving into a new $100 million arena next season, and Majerus sees potential in a school that has won three NCAA tournament games in its history and last made the round of 16 in 1957.
"Plus, I can get in my car at my office and be in my mother's driveway in five hours," he said. "That was very important."
Now though, he's back in the cauldron, not sleeping after games and worrying about how to improve a team that lacks speed, quickness, size and depth while still fighting his weight every day.
"I'm never going to be a 42-regular," he said. "I swim a mile every day; I try to watch what I eat. The goal is to not go from double-X to triple-X." He smiled. "The problem will come tonight. We'll get home at 1 a.m. and I'll have the urge to go to Steak 'n Shake and eat one of their mooey-gooey desserts. It should come with a cholesterol warning or counter.
"I have moments where I say, 'Why did I come back?' But I like to coach."
And so, for now, Majerus endures nights such as Thursday because he expects to get better and because he likes to tell the story about his point guard, Dwayne Polk, who came to him recently after his grandmother had died. He was very upset and Majerus sat him down and had him tell stories about her for about 30 minutes.
"How old was she, Dwayne?" he finally asked.
"Very old, Coach, very old," Polk said.
"Well then you should feel good that she lived a long, full life," Majerus said.
"I know, Coach," Polk said. "You're right. I mean, she was in her 50s."
Majerus, who will turn 60 next month, stifled his laughter at that moment. Then, after Polk had left, he got ready to go to practice. He had a smile. Even after Thursday, he knows there will be more moments that will make him smile down the road.
His horse may be running very slowly right now, but at least he's back in the race.
