ShareThisWorking on a tip, I walked across campus Wednesday afternoon and stepped into an elevator at the University of Arizona administration building. I punched a button for the seventh floor and was soon at the compound of school president Robert Shelton.
Just like that. No appointment. The search for a basketball coach had gone on long enough and I wanted answers. Let me see the president, please.
He was out.
I asked if anyone had seen USC basketball coach Tim Floyd, a query that was met with a puzzled expression.
"About 55, flat-footed guy, probably 6-feet-2-inches tall, hasn't combed his hair since Monday," I said. "Probably has a wrinkled suit coat flung across his shoulder. Looks like he's in a hurry to get somewhere. He was probably pacing in the president's office."
No, I was told. Nobody fitting that description had been there. No Tim Floyd.
And so I took the search to McKale Center. Athletic Director Jim Livengood's secretary was leaving for the day. I caught up to her just in time.
"Any sign of Tim Floyd?" I asked.
With a nice smile, she said that she didn't know anything about the new basketball coach. I tried anyway.
"You remember Tim Floyd, don't you?" I asked. "Same guy who coached New Orleans in this building in 1992. Was all set to break Arizona's 68-game home-court winning streak until one of the refs blew a call. Same guy who charged out to mid-court, stompin' and fussin', and got a technical foul. Told his assistants to take over because he was going to get thrown out. Best tantrum ever seen here. How could you forget that guy?"
"Sorry," she said cheerfully. "Can't help you."
"Think of Lute Olson," I protested. "Now think of the exact opposite guy. Pants don't fit right. Always chewing gum and talking at the same time. You know how people used to say Lute looked like Cary Grant? Well, this guy looks like Harry Grant."
"To-da-loo," she said, walking away.
So on this day, nobody wanted to say that Tim Floyd was in town and that he will soon become Arizona's new basketball coach. And so nobody did. That part will probably come later, maybe as soon as Thursday.
This double-secret, five-month search for a coach had become so muddied and ridiculous that for a few frantic hours Wednesday it seemed that any coach contacted about Arizona's vacancy, official or otherwise, responded with the same six words: "no, no, a thousand times no."
Tubby Smith chose to stay at Minnesota. Gonzaga's Mark Few will stand vigil on The Ernie Kent Watch at Oregon for another year. Oklahoma's Jeff Capel was the unofficial coach-to-be for no more than two hours.
Those coaches who go by a single name -- Calipari and Pitino -- might as well have twittered the Arizona administration with a simple message: not in this lifetime.
So Tim Floyd it is. Or appears to be.
Floyd did something this year -- win the Pac-10 Tournament -- that Arizona hasn't done since 2002. And although his streak of NCAA tournament appearances is modest (three), he appears to be a man who can roll up his sleeves, muck around in the dirt and rescue Arizona from a considerably daunting predicament.
The fact that Floyd, or any glamour coach, would agree to take on Arizona's problems should be embraced. It also makes you think: Do you think they told him everything? The recruiting mess? The NCAA investigation? Full disclosure?
After all that, if Floyd is still interested, Arizona shouldn't let him out of its sight until a contract is signed.
Floyd knows all about dirty jobs. He took the Chicago Bulls coaching spot the year Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson exited. He agreed to coach USC a month after Rick Majerus got a glimpse of the debris -- a last-place Pac-10 club that would go 12-17 -- and asked out of his contract.
This is a guy who signed on to be the coach at Iowa State in 1995 and in his first three seasons won 23, 24 and 22 games, never losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
If Floyd indeed signs a contract and shows up for a press conference, on any day, it is a coup. He's not GQ but he has won at four of the worst stops in college hoops -- Idaho, New Orleans, Iowa State and USC -- so he should know what it takes to make Arizona relevant again.
And how to get it done.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
columnMust credit Arizona Daily Star
