THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 7, 1996 TAG: 9603070593
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: COMMENT
SOURCE: BY FRANK VEHORN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines
Sixteen years ago I was in the room when North Carolina State introduced a new basketball coach. He was Jim Valvano, a young man eager to get to the top of his profession and who had found the perfect elevator to take him there.
North Carolina State, situated in the most competitive 30-mile stretch of college basketball anywhere, was willing to do whatever it took to get ahead of ACC neighbors North Carolina and Duke on the hardcourts.
The message driven home to Valvano that evening was clear.
Here is the man who is going to take us to a national championship, we were told.
No one asked Jimmy V. to recruit students who wanted to attend class and graduate. No one said he would be responsible for ensuring that his recruits went to class or completed their assignments.
He would not have to wrestle with tougher academic requirements than other coaches in the league, and he would not have to deal with a hostile faculty.
He was the basketball coach. It was his job to bring in players who would take the university to a national championship.
Valvano did exactly what he was hired to do. N.C. State won the NCAA tournament in 1983.
Fine, he was told. Do it again.
Seven years later Valvano was forced to resign in shame. Not because he didn't deliver a second title quick enough, but because of incidents that embarrassed the university's academic community.
There were a few minor NCAA violations and irresponsible and unproven allegations of game-fixing and drug abuse.
But the real scandal of the Valvano years was academic abuse and grade-fixing.
The integrity of a great university suddenly, and rightfully, became more important than beating the Tar Heels and Blue Devils, or winning another national title.
Les Robinson, the new basketball coach, signed a contract requiring him to adhere to the stiffest set of academic standards in the ACC. He was not told to win a national title, but to keep his players on track to graduate. He had to recruit students, not just gifted athletes.
Robinson, a former State player with a national reputation for integrity and coaching ability, was a perfect choice, and he has done a splendid job in fulfilling his mission.
The Wolfpack basketball team's college-exam entrance scores are the highest in the league. Its All-ACC player, Todd Fuller, has a 3.97 grade-point in mathematics.
Robinson has lost potential recruits to other schools because they didn't meet State's standards, and he's had players placed on suspension during the season because they didn't keep up their grades.
But he never complained and overcame the obstacles to build a team that was competitive with every other one in the ACC this season.
Competitive, yes, but State didn't win the close ones. It lost three league games in overtime, eight others by five or less points, and finished 3-13 in the conference.
Through it all, Robinson and his players had to contend with pressures applied by so-called ``fans'' interested only in W's and L's.
They didn't care what Robinson had done to restore academic honor to their university. He hasn't won enough and they want him gone.
Some of them have influence because they have donated thousands of dollars for a new coliseum on the drawing board, and they contend it is going to take good athletes, not just good students, to fill it.
They are not talking about replacing Robinson with Sidney Lowe, the point guard on Valvano's national championship team, or Old Dominion coach Jeff Capel, either.
They want a Bob Huggins, a Roy Williams, a John Calipari. Twenty years ago, they would have wanted a Jimmy Valvano.
They'll show him their plans for building the best facility in the nation, and remind him that 65-year-old Dean Smith is in his final years at UNC and that rumors are swirling about Mike Krzyzewski's future at Duke.
It could be the perfect elevator for a coach looking to reach the top of his profession.
The big question, though, is if the next coach would be saddled with the same requirements placed on Robinson, and if he would be agreeable to having key players, eligible under NCAA rules, suspended or chased away because of higher institutional standards.
Will the emphasis again be on winning instead of academics?
For at least one more game, though, Robinson is still the N.C. State coach and he has a year remaining on his contract.
But, several weeks ago while under attack Robinson promised ``one way or another'' his critics would be happy at the end of the season.
Unless State becomes the first last-place team to win the ACC tournament, it is doubtful if those critics would be happy with anything less than Robinson leaving.
If that happens, Robinson would become the second straight Wolfpack coach to resign in shame after doing what he was hired to do.
This time around, however, it would be the university that deserves all the shame. ILLUSTRATION: A string of tight losses has put Les Robinson on the edge,
despite his great job of restoring academics.
by CNB