Accounting For Every Hour

By John Feinstein
Thursday, March 20, 2008

They were lined up to talk to Dennis Felton yesterday. As his Georgia basketball team left the court after practice at Verizon Center, there were fans who wanted autographs, camera crews who wanted a minute and old friends who just wanted to say hello.

It was all good, a homecoming for Felton, who spent most of his childhood growing up at Andrews Air Force Base (his father was in the Air Force for 27 years) and played his high school basketball at Surrattsville before graduating from Howard in 1985.

"What a difference a week makes," Felton said, smiling as he walked out of the building.

He wasn't exaggerating. A week ago, most people in college basketball thought Felton would be out of a job today, not preparing for an NCAA tournament first-round game against Xavier. But last weekend, Georgia pulled off perhaps the most remarkable four-day run in college basketball history, earning the Southeastern Conference tournament by winning three games 29 hours after a tornado that ripped through the Georgia Dome forced the Bulldogs to play two games Saturday and the championship game Sunday afternoon.

"I know what we did was miraculous," he said, poking at a Clyde's salad while strangers stopped by the table to offer more congratulations. "The nice thing about it, short term, is that this group of kids has been through so much this season, so to have this happen to them is really cool. What's nice long term is knowing that now I've got the chance to continue to try to build this thing next year and beyond."

The talk about Felton's job being in jeopardy stopped the instant the buzzer went off late Sunday afternoon at Alexander Memorial Coliseum, the Georgia Tech gym where the tournament was moved after Friday night's tornado.

"I got fired from my first job out of college," he said yesterday, laughing. "I was working for a TV production company as a gofer, running tapes and talent around town in a Horizon hatchback. I got laid off after three months because they were going bankrupt. That ended up leading to my first job in coaching. I had a friend I had known in high school who was coaching at Charles County Community College. He asked me to come out and work for him -- for $1,200 a year.

"I thought about that a lot in the last couple weeks. I thought that getting fired back then turned out to be the biggest break of my life. So, if this happened, I had to believe it would lead to good things."

It isn't going to happen now. Felton and his Bulldogs are not only one of the feel-good stories of the tournament; they are the most interesting story of the week.

Before the season, Felton threw his two best players -- Mike Mercer and Darius Brown -- off the team after they had been suspended for missing academic meetings.

"Not classes, meetings," Felton said. "Last year our athletic director put in a new rule making attendance mandatory for athletes at classes, meetings with counselors, tutoring sessions, everything. You miss five meetings, you're suspended for 10 percent of your season. Each meeting after that is 10 percent more. Mike missed eight meetings which meant a 15-game suspension. We had to make a decision to move on, to not have any doubts about who would be playing and who wouldn't."

Then came injuries: Billy Humphrey, the team's leading scorer, hurt a knee and tried to keep playing on one leg. Jeremy Jacob, a freshman expected to play serious minutes in the low post, went down for the season. Another big man, Rashad Singleton, quit the team because he wasn't happy with his playing time.

"The worst part was that people thought our program was out of control academically again," Felton said, referencing the Jim Harrick era that ended in chaos before Felton was hired. "One of the reasons I was hired [after going 100-54 and winning three straight conference titles at Western Kentucky] was because all my kids graduated. All our kids here have graduated, too. In fact, Mike Mercer was 30 credits ahead of schedule to graduate when he was suspended. It hurt me that people thought that because I knew it wasn't true.

"The good news was that the kids we had left really pulled together. Sundiata Gaines and Dave Bliss [the two remaining seniors] are quiet kids by nature but they were able to get those younger kids to follow their lead. We really did stay together even through tough losses."

There were plenty of losses -- 12 in the SEC, which sent Georgia to Atlanta for the SEC tournament with a 13-16 record amid all the rumors that Felton was going to be fired.

"You know the funny thing is I thought I'd done a really good job this year given everything that went on," Felton said. "I think people who follow us closely know that. I think we've got three really good freshmen coming in next year. I felt bad for them and for their families because of all the uncertainty."

Felton, 44, is used to overcoming obstacles. A reasonably good high school player at Surrattsville, he received one scholarship offer -- to Bluefield State in West Virginia.

"I lasted a week," he said. "I hated it. I decided to come home and enroll at Prince George's [Community College], so I wouldn't blow an entire semester."

He played there for two years before. Royal Mason, who had worked in the gym at Andrews when Felton was a kid, knew A.B. Williamson, then the Howard coach, and persuaded him to take a look at Felton. He also got Mike Riley, then an assistant to John Thompson at Georgetown, to take a look.

"Howard offered me a scholarship," Felton said smiling. "Georgetown did not."

Felton majored in radio, TV and film production and graduated cum laude leading to his high-powered job as a gofer. Getting laid off led him into coaching. He moved up the ladder, eventually going to work for Rick Barnes at Providence and Clemson. That led to Western Kentucky and Georgia, where he took over in the wake of the Harrick scandal. It has been a long five years trying to rebuild on the court and off.

Until this past remarkable weekend, it looked as if it might not work out.

"You know after everything happened Friday and they were talking about alternatives I suggested playing the semifinals Sunday morning and the final in the afternoon," he said. "I thought that was fairer: Have two teams played twice on the same day rather than one. The funny thing is, I think when they made us play twice on Saturday, that was the thing that brought us together. Once we got by that Kentucky game [on a three-pointer by freshman Zac Swansey as time expired in overtime], we were a team on a mission. That night, we had three guys playing with four fouls and two guys in the training room hurt. I sent word back: 'Get those guys out here or we may not have enough players to finish the game.'"

They finished that game against Mississippi State and the next day, huffing and puffing at the finish, beat Arkansas to go from nowhere to this tournament -- and back to Felton's home town -- in what felt like the blink of an eye.

After the net-cutting and the news conferences and the congratulations, Felton walked outside into the parking lot. His phone rang. It was Barnes, his old boss.

"He didn't even say hello," Felton said, smiling again. "He was on the tarmac getting ready to get on the team plane. He was screaming, 'Do you understand what you just did? It's impossible to do what you just did.' "

Felton laughed. "That's what I love about all this. Apparently nothing is impossible."

When Felton and his team walked on to the court for their practice today, the PA announcer said, "Please welcome to the NCAA tournament, Coach Dennis Felton and the Georgia Bulldogs."

Apparently, nothing is impossible.