Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 15, 1990 TAG: 9004150025
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WILLIAM HARVEY CRAIG
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Sound judgmental and self-righteous? Yep.
Hypocritical? I think so.
Accurate? Maybe. But then again, who is worthy?
That's where the hypocrisy comes in.
In the Atlantic Coast Conference - some believe that to be Brill's beloved and perceived-to-be-squeaky-clean ACC - four out of the eight teams, at last count, are currently on NCAA probation or under investigation. That makes about 50 percent of the teams, if my figuring is correct, and must be a national sordid record of sorts.
Yet, have we read, "Valvano not worthy of NCAA title"? Did we read, "Bob Wade (former Maryland basketball coach) not worthy of NCAA title"? How about "Danny Ford (former Clemson football coach) not worthy of NCAA title"?
Going beyond the ACC, did we ever read "Charlie Moir (former Virginia Tech basketball coach) not worthy of NCAA title"? Or, staying with Tech with Wake Forest thrown in by association, how about "Bill Dooley (former Tech and current Wake Forest football coach) not worthy of NCAA title"?
All these folks are or were in NCAA hot water, but I don't recall seeing such headlines. Will we ever read anything like that about our area coaches?
Not likely. And that's what is so worrisome about the whole thing.
Why is Jerry Tarkanian picked out as so unworthy? Actually, I guess he's not a very likable fellow, this Elmer Fudd look-alike - except maybe to some fans out in Nevada, and, perhaps, to a few dozen players "from the junior-college campuses and the inner-city ghettos" for whom "he (Tarkanian) doesn't apologize," as Brill states it.
Should Tarkanian apologize?
To the Nevada folks or those players? Probably not.
To you or me or Bill Brill? Certainly not.
Tark the Shark is simply a convenient and very visible and vocal target, who is quite possibly the best coach in college basketball today who undoubtedly coached the best team in the nation - and a man who seems to be trying to right some earlier wrongs.
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, a class act himself, called the UNLV players "class kids" and "gracious" after the game. Wonder how such an undeserving maverick as Jerry Tarkanian - a man "unworthy of (the) NCAA title" - managed to recruit "class kids?"
Granted, we should never condone NCAA rules violations and/or the existence of low academic standards for athletes in any university by any college coach.
The point is it's too easy to single out and pick on the Jerry Tarkanians way out in Nevada.
Let's clean up our own act in our own backyard before we go out West, young man.
Only after we expose and eradicate the problems in college athletics in our area can we point then-clean fingers elsewhere. Then perhaps our words can be heeded as having a universal loud and pure ring, instead of a regional hollow and sour sound.
by CNB