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Sidelines Kalani Simpson |
Fire still burns inside
Wallace
THEY'RE all up there, on the wall. Every one of them, every face. Even that first team, where it looks like they had trouble even standing up straight. Down the line, the great ones, the good and bad and in-between ones. The AC and Alika teams, the Savo teams, the ones that won 20. The ones that danced.
The ones that didn't.
They're all up there, every one of Riley Wallace's Hawaii basketball teams. All 17 of them.
There's a spot, room at the end of the wall, for just one more group shot.
Symbolism?
"I either gotta quit," Wallace says, joking, "or go back and push these back together."
Oh, the fire still burns, he assures you. The cough. The cough is back. It made its first appearance late last week.
Veteran Wallace watchers know what that cough means.
"Every year it seems to start earlier," the Hawaii coach says.
"I don't think 'mellow' is a good word for me," he says, when asked if he's mellowed.
"As long as that cough is there you don't have to worry about that," he says.
Yeah, same old Riley Wallace.
His 18th season and he's still intense. "Nuts," as one of his new guys was brave enough to put it on the radio the other day.
Red Rocha will always be Hawaii's greatest coach, its best coach. But by the time he is through Wallace may yet become something just as good.
Eighteen years.
He looks up at the wall.
"I don't even know how I made it back then," he says.
I don't know if any of us knows.
That was before sports psychologists and before white-outs and sellouts and before heart-ripping losses and before big wins. Before the Bob Wagner press conference, before the Stan Sheriff Center, before March madness, before the loss to Xavier. Before the haircut, before the health problems, before foreign languages, before beating Kansas, before Golden Corral.
Before those awful lime-green uniforms.
"I loved those limeys," Wallace says. "Somebody's got 'em hanging somewhere."
Before a million lessons learned, most of them tough.
Before he became the coach he would become.
"I had a lot to prove," he says, "and there's a lot inside you that never got out because (before then) you were an assistant."
And then he got here, and it all came out.
"I've come a long way, no question about that," he says. "And I would never admit that if I wasn't an 18-year guy," been through what he's been through, done what he's done, had tough times and better ones, is where he is now.
He recalls sitting in his office eight years ago when bearded, wild-haired sports psychologist Michael D'Andrea walked in, and later brought along his wife, Judith Daniels.
Wallace recalls sitting in his office again the other day when "Doctor D" jokingly asked him his winning percentage for the past eight years.
Yeah, he's changed. Wallace trusts his coaches more now, listens to his players more now, tries to turn team into family now. He sounds like somewhere along the line he's acquired some Phil Jackson Zen.
"It's easier to discipline your family than outsiders," he says.
"Some guys are harder to pull in than others."
Savo, for instance, that troublemaker, would sometimes sneak away on the road to go to the movies.
You know things are going well, you know it's going to be a good season, when that's the biggest headache you've got.
You know the program is working.
"It's a good feeling," Wallace says.
But it never stops. Not now. Another year. Another team. He knows it more than anyone, after all those lessons from all those teams.
"Every year you worry about it," he says. "Right now I'm worrying about keeping it going.
"Good's not bad. Great's good."
Eighteen years.
Time to put another picture on the wall.