Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 18, 1994 TAG: 9402180210
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Everyone plays like no one wants to be No. 1. A boycott is threatened to restore the 14th man. John Chaney threatens to kill noted zebra-rider John Calipari with something besides defense and patience. That's serious stuff.
There was more bad news for college hoops here Thursday. Sonny Smith still can be funny, but he isn't sunny. The game must be in critical condition.
In a profession that far too often takes itself far too seriously, Smith has coached the game with one-liners that had nothing to do with two forwards and a center.
Smith's needles always have given the game the sort of acupuncture it needed. He laughed his way to five consecutive NCAA Tournament bids at Auburn. In his fifth season at Virginia Commonwealth, he still tells jokes, but not as many people laugh - including him.
"I'm feeling pressure now for the first time ever," Smith said before the Rams' Metro Conference visit to Virginia Tech. "I supposedly came to VCU as a highly paid, highly visible coach.
"I haven't done as much for them as I'd like or they'd like. I haven't given them as much as you're supposed to get back. . . . I've changed. I still tell jokes. I still put up front what used to be the genuine article."
Smith said he doesn't feel the heat so much from the VCU administration as he does from radio call-in shows - "one of the worst things ever to happen to coaching," he said.
This is a guy who used to grin at the bears. He was born on a mountaintop in Tennessee. He survived Charles Barkley and Chuck Person - at the same time - at Auburn. He survived a day on Dale Earnhardt's pit crew at Talladega in 1985. He also has coped with health crises in his family.
Smith sees Chaney going out of bounds and knows he won't do that. Smith hasn't threatened to murder anything except the king's English. He also knows he's not laughing his way to the bank anymore, either.
"In coaching now, the amount of money paid, winning isn't something you just hope happens," Smith said. "It has to happen. Coaching is all so much `having to do' something now.
"I didn't ever think I'd have that mentality. I thought I'd never change, but I have. I've felt more pressure the past two years than I did in all my previous years as a coach."
It didn't help when VCU went 20-9 in 1992-93 but didn't get the NCAA bid it deserved after a great finish. "That disappointed me as much as anything that's happened to me in basketball," Smith said.
This season, the Rams are on the NCAA fence again. They're 36th in the Ratings Percentage Index this week, but they've played the seventh-toughest schedule in the nation according to the same poll that's used by the NCAA committee to select the 34 at-large teams for the tournament field.
That said, the Rams (12-9) have underachieved. VCU is the only team to win at Louisville. A fluke? Hardly, but the Rams haven't won on the road in six weeks since. It's just that too often Smith's team seems to play soft and according to one of his tongue-in-cheek tenets:
"My coaching philosophy has always been, `Shoot it before you throw it away,' " Smith has said umpteen times. "Let's face it, coaching isn't brain surgery."
In his 18th year as a head coach - two at East Tennessee State and 11 at Auburn before his move to the urban Richmond school - the one-time Hokies' assistant isn't sure how smart he's played it.
"You don't know what this stuff does to you until you've done it," Smith said. "Saying things like that, about my coaching, I've only hurt myself. I spent years acting like Gomer Pyle. It's cost me money and my coaching reputation. But it was fun."
Smith, 57, started at VCU with a five-year contract. It was rolled over after two seasons, so he has two years remaining on the deal after this winter. His annual package - he's the highest-paid coach in the state - reportedly is $250,000.
"The feeling I still have is I want to get it done for these people," Smith said. "Could I live without basketball? Frankly, I'm rasslin' with that now. After this year and one more, I'll make a decision."
When Sonny packs his oft-used suitcase for that last time, it surely won't be a bright day for basketball.
by CNB