Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 16, 1995 TAG: 9501250008
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The six-guns are gone, and he may be a husband and father of two, but he's still ``Billy the Kid.'' Donovan is the youngest head coach in NCAA Division I men's basketball, and he has guided Marshall to a 9-3 start and more.
Donovan, 29, brings the once-again Thundering Herd to VMI tonight for a game that figures to be played at such a frantic pace and shot from such a distance that it should be sponsored by Sprint.
It's the kind of game that made Donovan a Rick Pitino protege. As a Catholic kid growing up on Long Island, Donovan heard he wasn't good enough to play where he's now coaching. When others were thinking CYO, he was thinking NBA.
Pitino told the 6-foot guard - that might be a stretch - he could play for him. Donovan did, and a year after that silly gunslinger photo was shot, the Friars shocked their way to the NCAA Final Four.
The next season, 1987-88, Donovan played 44 games for Pitino with the NBA's New York Knicks. Then, Donovan spent five years as a Pitino assistant at Kentucky. When Marshall's athletic director, Lee Moon, asked Donovan if he'd be interested in the Herd job, whose advice do you think Donovan sought?
``At first, Rick said that he thought maybe if I stayed at Kentucky another three or four years, I could go to a head-coaching job in the Big East or ACC,'' Donovan said. ``To be honest, we just didn't know much about Marshall.''
Moon, a Roanoke native and VMI alumnus, began his coaching sales pitch with calls to Pitino, Bobby Knight and Mike Krzyzewski, among others. When he hired Donovan, some thought Moon was just trying to save on moving expenses for a guy who lived only 140 miles east on I-64.
``After we talked to Lee, Coach Pitino asked me two questions,'' Donovan said. ``He said, `Do you think you can recruit there? Do you think you can win there?' The answer to both was yes. He said, `Then you have to go after this job.'''
Donovan took over a program that fell from a 22-victory average in a six-year stretch to NCAA probation the Herd still hadn't charged from six years later.
``He's everything I thought he'd be,'' said Moon, whose biggest problem with Donovan is being mistaken for his young coach's father by restaurant waitresses.
Marshall's home attendance slipped to a 4,064 average last season, a low for the 13 seasons in the 10,250-seat Henderson Center. The average has crept above 6,000 this season, although five of six home dates have been played with students vacationing.
What's more important is the talent the Herd has attracted since Donovan's arrival. He not only signed two of Kentucky's top three high school players during the November recruiting period, he also has a starting lineup of transfers sitting out. He'll need them to replace this year's senior-dominated roster.
Most of those transfers practice every day against the Herd, whose only losses were to Kentucky, Wake Forest and Kansas State. Donovan charts every minute of practice and charts every drill, and the Herd is forcing 27 turnovers per game.
It's all about attitude, said the rookie head coach.
``Now that I'm older, I think back, and the majority of things you hear about yourself when you're a kid are negative things,'' Donovan said.
``It's, `You don't do this, you can't do that.' That's all these players here heard. All I heard when I came was how they were losers, how they were lazy, how they don't work, how we'd never win.
``We tell them what they're good at. I learned long ago from Coach Pitino that you should start with the question, `How good are you?' not with the statement about what someone can't do.''
Donovan has a four-year contract with a buyout clause and an annual base salary of $60,638. His goals obviously are beyond taking Marshall to the first NCAA Tournament victory in school history, but it wouldn't be a surprising start.
``There hasn't been one thing bad about being the youngest coach in the country,'' Donovan said. ``Someone has to be the youngest coach. It might as well be me.''
by CNB