Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 18, 1993 TAG: 9303190019
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: ORLANDO, FLA. LENGTH: Medium
THIS CINDERELLA HOPES TO DANCE AFTER MIDNIGHT
As they say at the Magic Kingdom, when you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are. Even a Cinderella can have glasses and a mustache."I'm not as good-looking as Cinderella, but someone had to wave that magic wand to make Cinderella that way," said Frankie Allen on the eve of the NCAA men's basketball tournament. "I'd rather be called Cinderella than some other things. When you're a Cinderella, that means you always have hope."
Allen, the born-again basketball coach, arrived here for his first NCAA Tournament as a bench boss via Delta Airlines. He could have flown himself.
When Tennessee State makes its first Division I tournament appearance tonight at Orlando Arena against sixth-ranked Seton Hall, the Tigers' Cinderella act in the Southeast Region figures to end - appropriately - about midnight.
Allen, the second-year TSU coach with Virginia roots, isn't preparing for that eventuality. Call him foolish. Call him giddy. It's OK. A lot of people are calling him.
Like USA Today. Allen and his Tigers were the lead story in Tuesday's sports section. The former Roanoke College star and Virginia Tech coach's photo was right there, in living color.
"How could I have ever dreamed, after everything that happened in the past at Virginia Tech and at Tennessee State, that I'd end up on the front sports page in USA Today?" Allen said Wednesday before the Tigers' workout.
"People were coming up to me on the plane here, people I don't even know, asking, `Aren't you the coach at Tennessee State?' The other night, when CBS announced the pairings, people said James Brown mentioned my name.
"I didn't hear J.B. My players started screaming when they saw our name in the bracket. That made it official.
"Just to be here, in the NCAA with the other 63 teams, is the greatest thing that's happened to me professionally. We're here at the Magic Kingdom and I don't care whether we're playing Seton Hall or the Orlando Magic.
"We're playing."
At Wednesday night's news conference, Allen was a huge hit, entertaining the media with one-liners about himself, Seton Hall coach P.J. Carlesimo and his two point guards, who he said "are not six feet tall even when you stack them on top of each other."
The Tigers (19-9) reached the field as the Ohio Valley Conference tournament champions. In eight years since the NCAA bracket expanded to 64 teams, No. 15 seeds like TSU are 1-31 - the victory by Richmond over Syracuse two years ago.
"We have come out of nowhere," said Allen of the Tigers, who were 20-92 in the four seasons before this one. "Still, we may be a little bit better than what Cinderella has been. We will show up."
Allen, fired at Virginia Tech after three losing seasons followed a stunningly successful first year, told his players Tuesday that they "have got to make the most of first opportunities, because there may not be another."
While Allen has soaked in the cheers, he also has been mopping up tears. As the Tigers listened to their coach's pregame message before the OVC title tipoff, star center Carlos Rogers said Allen's eyes glistened.
"Carlos said that I was crying?" Allen said. "I thought he was talking about the time he ran out of meal money. That brought tears to Carlos' eyes.
"I've gotten very emotional at times," Allen said. "Before that championship game, I tried to talk to each player, and about what it meant for him. Then toward the end, I told them what it meant for me."
What it means is that Allen, 41, is again a viable coaching commodity. He spent 15 years at Tech, and when he took the TSU job to stay in coaching, he heard nobody say anything except that the Nashville school would be his coaching graveyard.
"Someone said, `You're just going to end up dying out there,' " Allen said.
On a four-year contract that pays him $57,000 annually - including his salary for teaching a racquetball class, Allen will have seven of his top eight players back next season, including the 6-foot-11 Rogers, who averages 20 points and ranks seventh in the nation with 11.6 rebounds per game.
"It takes time to become a head coach," Allen said. "You become one, but you really don't become one until a while later. That last season [1990-91] at Tech, I saw myself coming together as a head coach.
"I'm more at ease with myself as a head coach now. I'm a better coach than I was a Tech. I thought if I ever got here, I'd be Virginia Tech's coach.
"It just didn't happen. I guess you could say tears of joy have replaced tears of sadness.
"This feeling I have now, I don't want it to end."
Then, Cinderella's smile wrinkled his mustache.