By John Feinstein
Sunday, March 2, 2008
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.
With 13 minutes left in the game, the Northwood University coach finally lost his patience. His team down 13, he called timeout and told his players what he thought of their performance. He shucked the jacket from his expensive suit, called for full-court pressure and spent the rest of the game standing just inbounds, imploring his players to keep playing defense until the buzzer.
As it turned out, even though Northwood got within four with plenty of time left, it wasn't enough. Edward Waters University walked away with a 74-66 victory to advance to Saturday night's championship game in the Florida Sun Conference tournament.
Twenty years ago, a loss like this one, in which his team shot under 32 percent and was outrebounded 50-42, would have torn up Rollie Massimino.
"I would have let the kids have it afterwards," he said. "I told my guys that tonight. Once, I would have gone off after a performance like that. Now I tell them losing is part of the deal and the best we can do is learn from it."
He paused for a moment. "Don't misunderstand. I still hate to lose. If we weren't winning, I wouldn't still be doing this."
What he's doing at age 73 is coaching at a 900-student school that plays in NAIA Division II -- that's one level below NAIA Division I, which is one level below NCAA Division II. Friday night's game, played in the sparkling 1,000-seat Countess de Hoernle Student Life Center (that's the actual name) on the Northwood campus drew an announced crowd of 300.
Even after the loss, Northwood was 25-7 for the season and will advance to the NAIA Division II tournament, which will be played in Point Lookout, Mo., beginning March 12.
"We lost in the first round last year," Massimino said. "I hope we do a little better this time."
Massimino is in a place now that is far, far away from the night 23 years ago when his Villanova team played a near-perfect game and pulled off what was arguably the most important upset in the history of the NCAA tournament, beating Georgetown, 66-64, in the championship game to deny the Hoyas a second straight national title. Massimino became a celebrity, the little rumpled coach who spent every game hopping along the sideline, mostly inbounds.
"He starts the game looking like James Bond," said his son, R.C., who played on Villanova's championship team, "and ends it looking like Danny DeVito."
Seven years after winning that championship, Massimino bolted from Villanova to Nevada-Las Vegas. Four years later, he landed at Cleveland State. In neither place did he win as much as he or anyone else expected. He retired after the 2003 season with a career record of 515-391 and moved to Florida to play golf with all his old buddies -- Chuck Daly, Billy Cunningham, Bill Raftery and John Havlicek among them.
"We all live a few minutes from one another," he said. "We played golf every day, hung out and enjoyed life."
Well, sort of. Three years ago Massimino got a phone call from another old friend, Rick Smoliak. Years ago, Massimino was the basketball coach at Stony Brook, and Smoliak was the baseball coach. Smoliak was now the athletic director at Northwood, and he wanted Massimino to help him start a basketball program.
"I thought he wanted me to help set things up for them," Massimino said. "The school's only 25 minutes from where I live, so I said I'd help out, get them started, maybe help them find a coach."
Smoliak had other ideas. He wanted Massimino to be the coach.
"At first I said no," Massimino said. "My buddies told me I was crazy. But then I decided why not? I still like being around kids."
Or, to quote his ever-patient wife, Mary Jane, "He's a lifer."
Northwood is located just off Military Trail, a few miles from the heart of Palm Beach. It was started 24 years ago as a branch of the original Northwood, which is in Detroit and mostly trains students to go into the automobile management business. The conference consists mostly of specialty schools. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the conference's dominant basketball school until Massimino showed up, is better known as the flight school where several of the Sept. 11 pilots got their training.
Massimino's two-year record is 48-16, and he has been voted conference coach of the year both seasons. Massimino's golfing buddies frequently show up at the games. So do many of his former players.
"I'd say seven or eight guys from the championship team have been down this year," he said. "It's been fun."
With six scholarships to work with, Massimino has cast as wide a net to find players as he can with a limited budget. His best player, DeSean White, transferred from Providence after Villanova Coach Jay Wright called Massimino to say he was a kid in need of another chance at a level somewhere below the Big East. White, the conference player of the year, had an awful game Friday (2-of-11 shooting, five turnovers) and was distraught afterward.
As Massimino sat in his office making postgame dinner plans, White walked in with a forlorn look on his face. "Coach, how late will you be up?" he asked.
"A while," Massimino said. "You need to talk?"
White nodded his head. Massimino stood up and put his arm around White's neck.
"Don't get too upset about this," he said. "You've had a great year. Last night [the league's awards banquet] was a big night for you and maybe you got a little sidetracked. It's one game."
"But Coach, look at my stats."
Massimino looked. "You got 15 rebounds," he said. "You kept at it on a night when you were struggling with your shot."
White was still frowning. "I'll call you later," Massimino said.
As White left, Massimino smiled.
"People can say what they want about the past or about why I wanted to come back or needed to come back," he said. "Right there is why I came back. I've always loved the kids; I really have. The level of play here is a lot different than Villanova, but the coaching isn't all that different. I still get after them in practice, I still want to win and when it's over they all come to my house and Mary Jane still cooks for them on Thanksgiving and Christmas and I love being with them. I hope I'm giving them something because I know they're giving me something. Even with the ups and downs at Vegas and Cleveland State, I never stopped loving working with the kids and having them in my life."
He has 17 grandchildren now -- "I can name almost all of them," he joked -- and he looked very tired in the aftermath of a loss. He can go back to playing golf tomorrow if he wants.
But he won't.
"I'll do it another year," he said. Pause. "Maybe two." Pause. "I don't know, we'll see."
Count on another year, maybe two, maybe more. Some guys really are lifers -- not because they need the money or the limelight but because they need DeSean White coming into their office and asking if there's time to talk later that night.
It doesn't matter if it's Villanova or Northwood, Massimino has time to talk -- probably for a long time to come.
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