By John Feinstein
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Rick Majerus poked at some eggs Thursday morning and tried to explain why someone with plenty of money, a job he liked and no reason to lose sleep at night decided to return to a job that meant lots of lost sleep and days like this one.
"I missed practice," he said. "In a way, it's as simple as that. I really like practice. I like the games, too -- once the ball goes up. The rest of game day, all the waiting and worrying, I can't stand. But I enjoy working with the kids, trying to get them to be better."
Majerus has plenty of work to do right now. He is coaching a Saint Louis University team that went into Smith Center at George Washington on Thursday night and made history in a humiliating 49-20 loss to the Colonials, the 20 points being the NCAA record for offensive futility since the shot clock era began in the 1985-86 season.
"This isn't a very good team," Majerus had said that morning. "It's not the kids' fault; I didn't recruit them. They're trying to learn my ways and what I want to do, but it's hard. Sometimes when I'm talking they look at me like I'm from a faraway land. I get that. But we'll get better."
The Billikens were 9-6 entering last night's game against No. 17 Dayton but, in a ramped-up Atlantic 10, might have trouble winning more games this winter. In 20 years as a coach at Marquette, Ball State and Utah, Majerus never had a losing season. He took Utah to the national championship game in 1998 and became a celebrity not just because he could coach, but because of his rotund figure and penchant for poking fun at himself. He was one of the first coaches to abandon Armani on the bench for the comfort of a sweater or turtleneck.
In 1989, after he had septuple-bypass surgery at age 41, Majerus said the doctors had worked on seven valves "because they represented each of the major food groups."
His humor hid an intense competitiveness that players will tell you manifests itself in practices and team meetings. After Thursday's embarrassment, Majerus spent 35 minutes with his coaches and then with his players before coming out of the locker room.
"I was a terrible player," said Majerus, who played for Al McGuire at Marquette and then coached under him. "I got a master's degree after I graduated, went to law school for a while. But I loved ball. I love to talk about it, to work at it and to compete. That's why I became a coach."
Majerus went to the NIT three times in three seasons at Marquette but began to emerge as a star at Ball State, which went 29-3 in 1989 and a year later advanced to the round of 16 in the NCAA tournament. From there, Majerus moved to Utah, where he reached 10 NCAA tournaments, sent 12 players to the NBA and saw 95 percent of his players graduate.
"Of all the stats you can put next to my name, the one I'm most proud of is that I'm the only coach who ever started two academic all-Americans in the Final Four," he said, referring to Michael Doleac and Drew Hansen. "That's a record that will never be broken."
Poor health -- first his own, then his mother's -- drove him out of Utah in 2004 and into television work. He enjoyed it -- "I didn't like working for ESPN; I loved working for ESPN," he said -- and was getting better at it.
"One night I showed up with 33 pages of notes," he said. "My boss was at the game, and he said to me, 'Rick, you don't have to coach the game or win the game; you just have to talk about it.' "
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.
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