Sutton sets selfish standard
Never mind Barry Bonds. Question is, should Eddie Sutton’s record – whatever it winds up being – be adorned with an asterisk?
Surely it won’t be any less manipulated than whatever Barry did with a syringe and a Louisville Slugger.
And surely the mercenary and shameless sides of college athletics have never been quite so exposed as they’ve been this past month with the revival of the Eddie Sutton Story, now playing at gyms throughout the West Coast Conference wherever the University of San Francisco Dons show up as the evening’s afterthought.
On Monday night, this was Gonzaga. ESPN’s cameras were here again as Any Job Eddie sought career victory No. 800 and the host Bulldogs tried to avoid being a footnote to a charade.
They didn’t have to try all that hard. The Dons have been brutal – less so in the Eddie Era, though history remained on hold as the Zags lurched to a 72-64 win.
The good news for USF is that three other WCC teams appear to be every bit as brutal, which is why Sutton was able to get out of Portland the other night with his 799th victory.
And how many wins was that for the Dons? Is that even relevant?
This is all about Sutton and the school, and has very little to do with the current players, who will benefit from the basketball wisdom and endure the harpings of their interim schoolmarm out of pride and a competitive itch. Besides, it’s not likely this is the first time they’ve had to play through the dark side of a coach’s ego or the mess of a hyperactive administrator.
It all came to a head the day after Christmas. Somehow over turkey dinner, what had been lingering dissatisfaction with coach Jessie Evans was inflated into an emergency. He was out, the 71-year-old Sutton ended his involuntary two-year retirement to take over without ever having stepped on campus and athletic director Debi Gore-Mann tried to get her timeline straight, without success or much in the way of credibility.
The cartoon they cooked up was that Evans had requested a leave of absence. Like K-Fed is taking a leave of absence from Britney.
It was all as clumsy as a 7-footer wearing screen doors for sneakers, and perfectly impossible to decide who came off looking worse. Sutton had shown up for USF’s game in Long Beach on Dec. 18 to see what he’d be getting himself into, showing a professional courtesy toward a fellow coach not seen since the last time Bobby Petrino was shopping himself around. Gore-Mann, hopeful that Sutton was looking for longer term work, called it “an audition for USF basketball,” as if her program was not worthy of being coached well. That should have earned her a stinging rebuke from her bosses, except they were probably lining up for autographs.
And soon enough, Sutton made it clear he was a Don on the 11-week plan – affirming, as if there had been any doubt, that he was in it strictly for a meaningless number.
The milestone had been denied him at Oklahoma State, or rather he’d denied himself. In February 2006, Sutton was injured in a traffic accident, cited for DUI, and put on medical leave six wins short of No. 800. His son, Sean – already his designated successor – took over. The school, as it was allowed under NCAA rules, decreed that the remaining wins and losses that season would go on dad’s record.
(Along those lines, a press row colleague from Seattle brought up another issue: if those four wins at OK-State belong to Eddie, why don’t any more this season at USF belong to Evans?)
In any event, it was a crummy way to go out.
This was a crummier way to get back in.
In press accounts since, the Sutton clan and Gore-Mann have tried to soften the No. 800 angle by noting that another school had offered Sutton a gig last year that he turned down. Never mind that he suggested himself to replace his youngest son, Scott, at Oral Roberts last April when Scott sniffed at the Wichita State job. And the fact is, he doesn’t want a long-term situation. He wants only the needed victories. He has said there are projects back in Oklahoma – a Tulsa athletic complex and a Stillwater addiction center – that need his fund-raising attention.
Just not, you know, for the next couple of months.
So how does he teach – with a straight face, anyway – his new charges the concepts of selfless basketball when he’s making such a transparent glory grab?
And how does he not realize the stink this puts on his profession?
Look at it this way: At the moment, Sean Sutton is in the crosshairs at OSU. The Cowboys are 10-8 and haven’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2005. Suppose Bobby Knight had been bumped aside a year ago short of 900 wins, and suddenly showed up at last night’s game against Texas to see if he’d like to replace Eddie’s kid just to reach his own milestone?
Think Eddie wouldn’t have something sour to say about that?