ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 19, 1995 TAG: 9512190056
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MINNEAPOLIS
SOURCE: From Associated Press and staff reports
THE FORMER VMI player and coach couldn't turn around the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Former VMI player and coach Bill Blair got the opportunity he wanted: to be a head coach in the NBA. It just didn't go the way he hoped.
The Minnesota Timberwolves fired Blair on Monday and picked general manager Flip Saunders to coach the team for the rest of the season.
Blair won Southern Conference titles both as a player and coach at VMI. He was a senior on the 1964 championship squad and is the Keydets' 20th all-time leading scorer. During the 1975-76 season, his last in Lexington as a coach, VMI reached the final eight of the NCAA Tournament.
Those remain VMI's only Southern Conference championship squads.
During a 1993 visit to his alma mater, Blair expressed regret that he had never had the opportunity to coach an NBA team for a full season. ``I haven't gotten a raw deal,'' he said, ``it's just that you have to be with a winner.''
Blair got a little more than a year with Minnesota, but the Timberwolves franchise has never been a winner in its six-plus years of play.
The Wolves' current assistants - Mike Schuler, Randy Wittman and Greg Ballard - will stay with the team for now. Saunders will keep his job as general manager, no matter how long he lasts as the head coach.
Schuler, like Blair, also coached the Keydets, from 1970-72. He later was an assistant at Virginia. Schuler joined the VMI staff one week after Blair got the head coaching position on August 29, 1994.
Saunders is the Timberwolves' fifth coach in franchise history.
Blair, a longtime NBA assistant, replaced Sidney Lowe, who was fired after Glen Taylor became the team's owner.
The Timberwolves' first two coaches, Bill Musselman and Jimmy Rodgers, also were fired.
``That's ridiculous. That's not what you want,'' Wolves vice president of operations Kevin McHale said of the legacy of coaching turnover. ``That is an embarrassing track record that this organization has. That's not the way successful organizations are run. I mean, holy cow, a guy barely gets a chance to change his underwear and it seems like he's out of town.''
The Timberwolves were off to a 6-14 start under Blair this season after going 21-61 last year.
``We just didn't feel the team was going in the right direction,'' said McHale, a former college teammate of Saunders at Minnesota. ``If you prorate our record right now, we end up with 24 or 25 wins, and that's just not acceptable.''
McHale said he would decide after this season who will coach the team next year.
Saunders, 40, was named the Wolves' general manager in May. He won 253 games during his seven-year CBA career, the second-most in that league's history.
``The big thing the CBA taught me more than anything is that you have to adapt,'' Saunders said. ``If you don't, you're going to be like a dinosaur, and you're not going to be around for very long.''
The Wolves lost at home 101-99 Sunday night to the Philadelphia 76ers, a team that hadn't won on the road since April 15.
Wolves forward Tom Gugliotta acknowledged the team's problems go far beyond the head coach. ``I don't know how much this is going to change the team. We are who we are,'' he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Blairby CNB