Gonzaga Coach Now Influences Game He Loves

At first, putting Dan Fitzgerald on the NCAA basketball rules committee seemed to resemble the bank that once hired an experienced safecracker to design its new security system.

Fact is, though, the Gonzaga basketball coach has never been interested in breaking rules - just finding ways to use them to the advantage of his team.

So it really does make good sense. Because, over the years, very few coaches have been so generous in their willingness to assist officials in interpreting the rules.

Now, he can help make them the rules in the off-season, as well as vocally aid their implementation during the season.

Fitzgerald got his first exposure to the prestigious committee last week in a series of meetings in Kansas City.

And he came away - in a word - “overwhelmed.”

“I have a real appreciation of the guys who went before us, starting with the guy who said, ‘let’s take the bottom out of this basket so we can get rid of these ladders.’

“You spend your whole life in the game and you realize you’re doing some serious things here, you realize that the guys before us made this a better game,” Fitzgerald said.

“Only 12 people get this opportunity and the consequences are incredible,” he said. “I mean, if we got together and decided for some reason that there should be six people on a team, that’s it, there is. So, for me, this is a very special deal.”

It should be. Rules committee chairman George Raveling recommended Fitzgerald’s appointment after member Rollie Massimino lost his job at UNLV.

What they get with Fitzgerald is a guy who has a willingness to speak up, along with an abiding concern for the well-being of the game.

“When George nominated me, he wanted to get somebody who has been in the game a long time who is also an A.D.,” Fitzgerald said.

So you wonder, to any degree, has Fitzgerald’s slightly devious nature served as a benefit in foreseeing ways in which coaches might try to exploit new rules?

“Oh hell yes, no question,” Fitzgerald said.

A proposal arose, for instance, to not call lane violations on made free throws. Which quickly caused Fitzgerald to find a way to capitalize.

“I said, wait a minute, I’m going to violate every time,” Fitzgerald said. “Because if my guy makes it, I’m okay, but if my guy misses, it becomes a violation and they’ve got to take it out of bounds. That allows me to set up my press and trap and do a lot of things I couldn’t do otherwise. Coaches would intentionally use that rule to their gain.”

Some of the work might have seemed a bit ridiculous. Once, for instance, in working to unify men’s and women’s rules, a member of the women’s rules committee felt it was important that women adopt a rule the men already had - prohibiting the chewing of tobacco during games.

“You laugh, but they said that at the Division II semifinals, there were three women with the Copenhagen and the cup,” Fitzgerald said. “(Minnesota coach) Clem Haskins (from Western Kentucky) said, ‘Hey, wait a minute. Most of the women I used to date chewed tobacco.”’

For the most part, though, serious matters were at hand.

New rules added the 20-second timeout and stressed that coaches stay inside the “coaching box,” while the issue to move the 3-point line was not voted upon.

Rules were also passed to allow commercial logos on the court (spurred by the $5 million McDonald’s offered Georgia Tech for a slice of prime ad space).

More importantly - and this is a pet project of Fitzgerald’s - the committee came up with a major point of emphasis.

“This year, it’s sportsmanship,” Fitzgerald said. “We want to get this game back where it should be. We’re going to ask every coach, male and female, to spend at least an hour with their team discussing this.

“Everybody sees what’s going on. Even in our practices, a guy makes a dunk, and they talk a lot of stuff,” Fitzgerald said. “That’s good-natured, but against an opponent, there’s no place for it. So, we’re going to make a strong statement that we want it stopped.”

For the good of the game.

You can contact Dave Boling by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5504.