TheState.com: Ron Morris

Morris: Greek’s ticket was worth wait

Thu, 15 May 2008 23:34 EDT

EVERY RUNNING OF the Preakness sends my mind racing to 1989, when Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder threw his weight around to thrill five men experiencing a Triple Crown horse race for the first time.

I developed an acquaintance with Snyder during my days as a reporter in Durham, N.C., where the world's most famous odds-maker made his home late in life. So when five of us began eyeing the Preakness as part of a weekend of fun in Baltimore, I called Snyder and asked if he could supply us with tickets to the race.

Snyder said that could happen. I made doubly sure that Snyder understood I was seeking five passes to the middle leg of horse racing's Triple Crown, which was six months away. Snyder assured me he understood the request and I would be taken care of.

About a month before the race, I began to get nervous, and my friends were understandably concerned that Snyder might not deliver the tickets. I did not have the heart to tell them Snyder had reneged on a promise to me once before.

In the fall of 1988, when I was laying the groundwork for a lengthy story about Snyder and his family, he had invited me to his stately home for a Sunday evening of dining.

Morris: Staley brings instant credibility

Sat, 10 May 2008 23:59 EDT

IT IS UNDERSTANDABLY difficult for South Carolina fans to have much foresight. For decades they have hung their hats on mediocrity and so wallowed in it that they don’t know a good thing when they see it.

Well, that might have changed Saturday when Dawn Staley was introduced as the USC women’s basketball coach. She brings to the USC program what Steve Spurrier brought to football: instant relevance.

Staley’s arrival in Columbia puts USC on the women’s basketball map. Her presence trumpets nationally that USC is serious about competing for SEC championships in all sports.

On her good name alone, Staley gains entrance into the living rooms of the nation’s top high school players. Once she gets in the door, Staley and USC can go toe to toe in recruiting with women’s basketball heavyweights Tennessee and Connecticut.

Staley carries that kind of clout.

Morris: Fate, Spurrier brings Staley to USC

Fri, 09 May 2008 10:16 EDT

Indirectly, and unbeknownst to him, Steve Spurrier had a hand in the hiring of Dawn Staley as South Carolina’s women’s basketball coach.

Shortly after Susan Walvius announced her resignation, Eric Hyman began compiling an “A” list of candidates to replace her. These were names Hyman recognized as pipe dreams, coaches certain to command too high a salary for USC’s budget or coaches who would not leave their current team.

Hyman began making indirect contact with everyone on that list. He gathered what he likes to call the “byline” on every candidate. The “byline,” or read, on Hartford’s Jennifer Rizzotti was that she wanted to be the next coach at her alma mater, Connecticut. The read on another coach was she would not leave the West Coast because of her ailing mother.

The read on Dawn Staley was that getting her to leave her native Philadelphia would be difficult. Only the lure of her alma mater, Virginia, could pull Staley away from Temple.

Hyman then scrolled further down his list, all the while accepting phone calls from others who were interested in the job. One such call came unexpectedly from Ralph Cross, whom Hyman remembered meeting last fall in Knoxville, Tenn., on the Neyland Stadium sideline before USC’s football game against Tennessee.

Morris: A change in name only

Wed, 07 May 2008 12:43 EDT

NEWBERRY COLLEGE STILL does not get it.

Its board of trustees voted this past weekend to do away with the Indians nickname the school has carried for its athletics teams. Those teams will be known only as Newberry College for the 2008-09 athletic year.

As much as I would like to sing the praises of the school for finally caving to the NCAA’s mandate — on behalf of Native American tribes nationwide — to eliminate the offensive nickname, I cannot do it. Newberry officials are making the change for the wrong reason.

“Absolutely not,” were the words of Chuck Wendt, the school’s vice president for institutional advancement, when asked if Newberry finally had conceded that calling its teams Indians might be offensive or racist.

Instead, Wendt went on to say the primary reason Newberry is dropping “Indians” is so its athletics teams can play host to NCAA postseason events. Since 2004, schools such as Newberry were prohibited from serving as host sites for postseason events as long as they used what the NCAA deemed offensive nicknames.

Morris: Safe Havens

Sat, 03 May 2008 21:03 EDT

If you are looking for that moment of despair, that moment when Reese Havens slammed his bat against the back of the dugout, that moment when Havens began wondering if turning down a $1 million signing bonus was not such a good idea, well, stop searching.

It never happened.

Havens’ way is to instead look inward where he finds a quiet and strong confidence in himself. He will tell you, and USC coach Ray Tanner will tell you, Havens never wavered in his belief in himself, even through two seasons as USC’s shortstop that — at best — could be described as disappointing.

“I always knew I was a good player, and I always knew what I was capable of,” Havens says.

Tanner goes deeper in his assessment.

Morris: Fans will pay for elite aspirations

Thu, 01 May 2008 00:43 EDT

THE NEW GRANITE Quarry Park along the banks of the Congaree River in downtown Columbia will ultimately serve as the latest monument to the escalating arms race in college athletics.

Spending what eventually will be $40 million for a new college baseball stadium makes little business sense. But, as Eric Hyman points out, nothing outside football and men's basketball is sound business acumen these days in college athletics.

"If you look at it from a business standpoint, then we'd only have two sports," said Hyman, USC's athletics director and the man charged with raising enough money to cover the new stadium's $1.9 million annual debt service for the next 30 years.

So, while the USC athletics administration and baseball coaching staff ushered members of the media around the new park's grounds on Wednesday, it was easy to overlook the obvious question: Who is going to pay for the most expensive ball park ever built for college baseball?

The answer, of course, is USC fans, who from this point on should not be permitted to complain about the inevitable soaring ticket costs, increased concession prices, seat licenses and parking fees associated with the new park. That is because the price to field one of the nation's elite baseball programs just got steep.

Morris: Inferno, fans left out cold

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 08:14 EDT

WITH EACH PASSING Columbia Inferno game in the ECHL chase to the Kelly Cup, the city of Columbia marches one step closer to professional sports extinction. Sad, but true, Columbia soon will be among the largest cities in the country without a professional sports team.

Professional baseball left town three years ago, finding greener pastures and a more wonting community in Greenville. Now ice hockey is packing its bags after a seven-year run. The Inferno leave with a vague promise they will return when a new arena appears. Don’t hold your breath.

Columbia city officials will tell sports fans they still have the Columbia Blowfish, but that’s like the city of Brooklyn, N.Y., telling its baseball fans the Class A Brooklyn Cyclones of the New York-Penn League have replaced the National League’s Dodgers.

Owner Bill Shanahan has done a masterful job of promoting the Blowfish as if they were a minor-league baseball team. But the reality is that Coastal Plain League summer college baseball is glorified American Legion ball, and if I want to see USC and Clemson reserves, I can watch them at practice in the fall.

Besides, the Blowfish would not exist without the blessing of USC. That is the way sports entertainment works in Columbia these days. When Columbia Mayor Bob Coble long ago jumped in bed with USC, their lovefest came at the expense of the community good, at least when it comes to sports.

Gender Battle

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 01:20 EDT

Everyone in women’s basketball circles agrees the best candidate for any head coaching vacancy should get the job. The battle lines are drawn — women against men — when the debate turns to whether the best candidates are being hired.

Connecticut’s Geno Auriemma, the most successful male coach in the history of women’s basketball, says his gender is discriminated against in hiring because it is not “politically correct” these days for athletics directors to hire males.

Tennessee’s Pat Summitt, the most successful female coach in the history of women’s basketball, says men cannot accept the kind of discriminatory practices women have dealt with for decades in college athletics.

The issue hits home as South Carolina conducts its search for a women’s coach to replace Susan Walvius, who recently stepped aside after 11 seasons. Its relevancy becomes more apparent in the wake of hirings a week ago of male head coaches at Newberry, Presbyterian and S.C. State (see story page C9).

Eric Hyman, USC’s athletics director, says gender will not be a factor in his hiring. Nearly a decade ago as the athletics director at TCU, Hyman hired a male coach who transformed the program from a perennial loser into a championship club.

Morris: Male coaches have a long road to travel

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 00:59 EDT

There is every reason to believe Eric Hyman will strongly consider a man to be the next women’s basketball coach at South Carolina. That’s a good thing. Rare is the athletics director these days who has the courage to even consider a male in a female dominated profession.

Hyman bucked the trend once before when he was calling the shots at TCU. He hired Jeff Mittie to revive that once-moribund program. Mittie’s previous head-coaching experience included three seasons at Division II Missouri Western and four seasons at mid-level Division I Arkansas State.

Nine seasons later, Hyman deserves to wear the genius cap. Mittie has taken TCU to seven NCAA tournaments and one WNIT. His teams have won three conference championships. One season, the TCU women drew more fans than the men’s team.

Mittie represents the stagnant minority in women’s college basketball coaching. He is among the 35.4 percent male population in the women’s coaching ranks. Unfortunately for women’s basketball, that percentage has decreased slightly since the 2002-03 season.

The lack of growth for male coaches occurs while males continue to prove they are equal or better than their female counterparts. Every way you break down the numbers, male coaches have a higher winning percentage than females, whether those numbers include all coaches in Division I basketball or only those at programs in major conferences.

Trio of hirings reflect a statewide trend

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 00:59 EDT

Operating independent of one another and without knowledge of their historic undertaking, three South Carolina women’s college basketball programs recently hired male coaches over a two-day period.

“I wouldn’t see necessarily anything between what we’ve done, PC’s done and South Carolina State’s done as a trend,” says Andy Carter, Newberry’s athletics director, “other than the fact that there are a whole lot of women’s basketball staffs out there that have a male head coach and male assistant coaches.”

The hiring of Sean Page at Newberry, Ronny Fisher at Presbyterian and Doug Robertson at South Carolina State might buck the trend nationally, where there has been little growth among male head coaches of late, but it plays to what apparently is a growing trend in the state of South Carolina.

The new coaches at Presbyterian and S.C. State give the state of South Carolina five male head coaches among the eight NCAA Division I programs, excluding USC which is without a head coach. Coastal Carolina, Furman and Winthrop also have male head coaches, while Charleston Southern, Clemson and College of Charleston have females.

The athletics directors at Newberry, an NCAA Division II school, Presbyterian and S.C. State all say they hired the best available candidate, regardless of gender.

Morris: Taking the spring game for a ride

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:36 EDT

ADMIT IT, SPRING football games are a waste. Coaches don’t like them. Players despise them. Fans tolerate them.

Very little is gained by playing these annual rites of spring. Coaches seldom, if ever, make decisions on starting positions. A standout performance almost always is qualified with the disclaimer that it happened in the spring game. Fans become either delusional or paranoid in their evaluations.

Spring games serve no purpose. Discontinuing these nonsensical events would do everyone a favor, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. So, perhaps, it is better to help programs such as South Carolina salvage what is otherwise an unsalvageable event.

Schools around the country brag to no end about the number of fans who show up for these spring games. Nebraska sold out its stadium. Alabama and Florida drew in excess of 60,000 fans.

Those programs have it all wrong. It should not be about a program boasting that it has the best fan following. Rather, it should be about rewarding loyal fans, no matter the number.

Morris: Playmakers on offense wanted

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 19:25 EDT

IF SOUTH CAROLINA is to challenge for the SEC East Division championship this college football season, it badly needs to find some playmakers on offense.

It is not as if USC has no playmakers on the team. It is just that most of them play defense. Linebacker Jasper Brinkley is an All-American candidate, whose big-play abilities were so important to USC that its defense never was the same once he was injured the fourth week of last season.

Brinkley is back, along with strong safety Emmanuel Cook and Eric Norwood, an all-SEC defensive end a season ago who will move to linebacker this season. Then there is end Cliff Matthews, who defensive coordinator Ellis Johnson said could make four or five big plays a game.

If cornerback Akeem Auguste steps up as Johnson expects, USC's defense has a chance to be more than formidable.

The same cannot be said of the offense, at least when assessing it following Saturday's spring game at Williams-Brice Stadium. Aside from wide receiver Kenny McKinley, USC has no other threats to take the ball to the end zone on any given play.

Morris: Knock on wood

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 08:41 EDT

On the surface, Justin Smoak’s career home-run record at South Carolina looks beyond reproach. He broke Hank Small’s record in fewer games and fewer at-bats.

When one looks under the hood, though, a case could be made that Small’s home-run total was a greater achievement. Small hit 48 home runs in what is considered college baseball’s dead-bat era, when long balls were as scarce as cool summer breezes in Columbia. Smoak’s total of 52 has come during the aluminum-bat era, when home runs are as frequent as airline flyer miles.

Small’s home-run total is quite remarkable. So, too, is Smoak’s. So before delving into each player’s statistics and siding with one, perhaps it is best to view Small as the Babe Ruth of USC baseball and Smoak as the Hank Aaron. That way, neither one’s accomplishments can be perceived as any kind of slight.

Let’s approach this puzzle by making a case for each as the greater accomplishment, then see if we can draw a conclusion. For simplicity’s sake, let’s also refer to them as the Small Era and the Smoak Era of college baseball.

Small was USC’s first home-run hitter. In one nine-year period leading up to Small’s career, USC hit 42 home runs ... as a team. Small started slow, hitting four in 1972, then eight in 1973, the season that signaled the end of college baseball as we knew it.

Too many directions get program lost

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:46 EDT

LIKE DAVE ODOM before her, Susan Walvius acted in the best interest of the South Carolina athletics department when she stepped aside Monday as women’s basketball coach.

Her program was on life support, and by resigning she spared athletics director Eric Hyman from having to pull the plug. Now, perhaps more than ever, the opportunity exists for USC to build a national power in women’s basketball.

Before looking forward, it is worth looking back on Walvius’ 11-year run at USC. Give her credit for running a top-notch program. Aside from the recent unfortunate incident involving two players, Walvius’ players had few off-court problems and they graduated.

On the court, she slowly built a program that peaked with a run to the NCAA tournament quarterfinals in 2002. The following season USC advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament.

But instead of sustaining success, the program stopped growing. Walvius could not build on that two-year period, one in which USC won 58 games and lost 15. During her past five seasons, the program seemed to gradually slide. With that slide, what little fan interest there was in the program, waned further.

Morris | Renaldo Balkman, living large

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 22:18 EDT

NEW YORK — Renaldo Balkman loosened his green silk tie as he climbed into the back seat of his 2007 BMW 750 sedan. His night of work complete following another New York Knicks loss, Balkman and his entourage pulled away from Madison Square Garden and into the New York City night.

Balkman and his posse were not headed to any of New York City’s famous nightclubs. Instead, they drove 45 minutes north of the city to Balkman’s in-season home in Westchester County for an evening of video games and billiards.

Life for the 23-year-old former South Carolina player over the past five years has gone from abject poverty to inordinate wealth. Yet his is not a life of bright lights in the big city, but one of your typical NBA player trying to handle new-found fame within an inner circle of friends and business associates.

“They say this city never sleeps,” Balkman said before a recent Knicks game at the Garden. “Well, I like to sleep.”

To understand Balkman’s life, one needs to meet those who surround him. There are his parents and two sisters, who have been removed by Balkman from the Tampa, Fla., neighborhood that he escaped thanks to his immense basketball skills. He purchased his mother what he calls “a modest home” — although five bedrooms seems more than modest — in Tampa shortly after signing a rookie contract with the Knicks in 2007 that paid him $1.3 million.

Morris | Compressed schedule expands possibilities

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 22:23 EDT

IF THE FIRST half of this season is any indication, we’re in the middle of a renaissance in college baseball. It is the result of a simple rule change that called for a compressed schedule.

Little did coaches know when they approved a change from a 15-week season to a 13-week season that mid-major programs would benefit greatly, that pitching staffs would be stretched and that academic demands on players would be intensified.

The two coaches who sat in opposite dugouts at Sarge Frye Field on Wednesday evening have differing views on the compressed schedule. That is not surprising since Jack Leggett’s Clemson club compressed its season by an average of 10 days over the previous eight seasons.

Leggett says he always compressed his regular season because playing five times a week gives hitters better rhythm and it challenges his pitching staff. So there has been virtually no adjustment for Leggett and the Tigers.

Not so for Ray Tanner and South Carolina, and nowhere has the ramification of the rule change been more noticeable than with Tanner’s pitching staff.

New playcaller a twist for Spurrier

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 01:45 EDT

STEVE SPURRIER SAYS NOT to read too much into his recent decision to turn over playcalling to his namesake son. That is a lot to ask of anyone who has followed his coaching career.

Calling “ball plays” made Steve Spurrier one of the greatest coaches in college football history. He essentially extended his college and professional playing career as a quarterback by continuing to control a game through playcalling on the sideline.

All totaled, in 23 college and professional seasons, Spurrier has called 20,068 plays as a head coach. The advent of video football games never appealed to him much because he got to “play” quarterback, coach and be the mastermind of an offense every time one of his teams took the field. On top of that, he got to design all the plays.

So it is no big deal that Spurrier will no longer call plays for South Carolina? Come on. It is a big deal. It is big because we do not know where this is headed, and we have no idea when or how it will end.

It begs a couple of natural questions, though. Does this change signal that Spurrier believes his offense no longer works at the college level, as it did in the NFL when he threw up his hands midway through his final season with Washington? Does it signal the end might be near for the soon-to-be 63-year-old Spurrier as a coach?

Morris | Darrin Horn: Action Man

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 23:39 EDT

THE MAN PAYS ATTENTION TO DETAIL. He rattles off telephone numbers of friends and family as if he were staring at his Blackberry. Upon landing in Bowling Green, Ky., this past Wednesday, he made sure every piece of trash was cleared out of the South Carolina jet before his wife and two children departed the plane. Heck, he remembers the course (Interviewing) and who (Regis O’Connor) was teaching it when he first met his future wife at Western Kentucky University.

So, when you decide to rib Darrin Horn about the ceremonial first pitch he threw Wednesda prior to a USC game at Sarge Frye Field — which fell short of catcher Phil Disker’s mitt and skipped into the dirt— be prepared for a detailed account of his baseball prowess.

“But I threw it hard,” Horn says. Then he launches into a story about the time he first threw a pitch 80 mph. Horn was a senior at Tates Creek High School in Lexington, Ky., and had long since given up playing baseball. Yet, he boasted to his math teacher that he could walk outdoors anytime and uncork a fastball that would impress major-league scouts.

The math teacher happened to be the school’s baseball coach, Ron Cole, and he immediately pulled a radar gun from the class closet and marched his young student outside. Horn, of course, topped 80 mph. His math teacher should have known that years earlier, Horn pitched his South Lexington Little League team to a state championship.

For, if there is one and only one thing to know about Darrin Horn, South Carolina’s new men’s basketball coach, it is that when he sets his mind to do something ... consider it done.

Morris | As a risk, Horn offers similarities to 2 greats

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 23:53 EDT

SOUTH CAROLINA basketball fans should be thankful they have an athletics director willing to take a risk. That is what Eric Hyman did Tuesday when he introduced Darrin Horn as the program’s new coach. Hyman gambled that the risk will bring great reward.

Hiring the 35-year-old Horn was a risk in the same vein that Mike Krzyzewski was a risk at Duke 28 years ago and Dean Smith was a risk at North Carolina nearly 50 years ago. Just as Horn is a relative unknown from Western Kentucky, no one saw a future Hall of Famer in the 33-year-old Krzyzewski after five seasons at Army. Certainly no one saw the 30-year-old Smith as one of the game’s great innovators after a six-year apprenticeship as an assistant.

What the athletics director in each of those instances saw was a coach who fit the needs of the program and the school. Duke needed a coach who could accentuate academics as a means to better recruit players. North Carolina needed a coach who could steer the program through the remnants of a scandal and NCAA probation.

What USC did not need was a safe choice. It did not need to hire a “name” coach so the athletics director could puff his chest and boast of the program’s national prominence. Instead of seeking what he wanted in a coach, Hyman went to the team, to former players and to the USC board of trustees to find what they wanted in a coach.

Hyman found a common thread from all parties: They wanted a coach who was demanding, disciplined, dynamic, energetic, headstrong for academics, and one who taught an exciting brand of basketball.

Morris | Horn a bright find for USC

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:34 EDT

WHEN IT COMES to hiring men’s basketball coaches at the Division I level, athletics directors do not have to concern themselves much with the game’s Xs and Os. Most coaches these days can coach the game.

It is the other aspects of the profession that have the Eric Hymans of college athletics staying up late at night. Can the coaching candidate get along with associates? Can he manage a staff? Can he spark enthusiasm within the fan base? Can he recruit players? Is he smart enough to essentially act as the CEO of a multi-million dollar company?

Everywhere he turned for answers the past week, Hyman heard one consistent comment about Darrin Horn, South Carolina’s next basketball coach: The guy is smart. Smart beyond his 35 years.

One of those Hyman consulted about Horn was Wright Waters, the commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference. Horn coached the past five seasons at Western Kentucky, a member of the Sun Belt Conference.

“He is driven, and he is so smart,” Waters said of Horn on Monday. “He’ll have a plan. He’ll come across sometimes as shy, but don’t misunderstand the shyness. His mind is always thinking. Those wheels are turning.”