Lavin returns to UCLA with 'wonderful life'

St. John's athletics directer Chris Monasch, right, holds a jersey to welcome Steve Lavin as the the new coach. Lavin was joined at the introduction with his wife, actress Mary Ann Jarou.CRAIG RUTTLE, ASSOCIATED PRESS

Lavin returns to UCLA with 'wonderful life'

Published: Feb. 4, 2011
Updated: 4:15 p.m.
BY SCOTT M. REID
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER




LOS ANGELES – Two years ago Steve Lavin called former Purdue coach Gene Keady to tell his longtime mentor that he wanted to trade his career as a rising star at ESPN for a return to coaching.

"Are you crazy?" Keady told Lavin.

Keady's wife Pat was more encouraging.

"After I hung up with Steve," Keady recalled this week, "my wife told me 'you call him back and to tell him to keep his dream alive.'"

It is a dream Lavin has clung to since he was a Marin County teenager, writing the likes of Keady, Mike Krzyzewski and Bob Knight, seeking direction on an unlikely course that would take him from his playing days at Chapman University to the head coaching post at UCLA at just 32. And now, at 46, after seven years as an analyst for ESPN and ABC, he has the task of restoring storied St. John's to a place of national prominence.

Along the way Lavin has referenced not only Keady and Knight and Pete Newell and John Wooden, but Thomas Jefferson, Don Zimmer, countless authors, the Karate Kid, the Great Santini, Vince Lombardi, Noah's Ark and Buddha.

But mainly, Lavin channels his inner Jimmy Stewart.

"It's a wonderful life," he said referring to what he calls his "magic carpet ride through basketball."

As Lavin returns to Pauley Pavilion Saturday morning for the first time as an opposing coach, he is comfortable with the revisiting of his seven seasons at UCLA, a period that saw the first-time head coach guide the Bruins to five NCAA Sweet 16s in his first six season only to be forced out in 2003 for failing to reach the Final Four.

"Clearly not the success expected at UCLA, because there it has to be national championships and Final Fours or you're out," he said. "But I understand that comes with the territory so I never really took offense to it."

What Lavin cannot comprehend are those who, unlike Mrs. Keady, begrudge him the dreamer's improbable ride.

"That they somehow want you to apologize or feel guilty about having some wonderful opportunities over the last 23 years," Lavin said. "There is this impression that people expect you to apologize or feel guilty for having a degree of success."

No one these days is asking for an apology in New York, where Lavin and St. John's (13-8) have taken the Big Apple by (red) storm, knocking off three Top 15 teams last month.

Defending national champion Duke is St. John's latest ranked victim. The Johnnies led the No. 3 Blue Devils by much as 25 points en route to a 93-78 victory at a sold out Madison Square Garden last Sunday.

"I tried to send over those letters at halftime, but I couldn't reach him," Krzyzewski told reporters afterward referring to Lavin's teenage correspondence.
After falling on hard times, St.John's, for decades the standard bearer of Eastern basketball, the program of Lapchick, Carnesecca and Mullins, is in the hunt for the school's first NCAA tournament appearance since 2002.

"The buzz is going and once that buzz starts going in New York, you never know," Utah Jazz guard Earl Watson, who played for Lavin at UCLA, told the New York Daily News.

Lavin has had New York humming ever since he was hired March 30, agreeing to a six-year deal reportedly worth $9 million after Florida's Billy Donovan and Georgia Tech's Paul Hewitt turned St. John's down.

Lavin has made St. John's relevant again in a crowded New York media market. He handed out 300 business cards his first two weeks on the job and then quickly went about putting together the nation's No. 2 recruiting class. The Mets asked him to throw out the first pitch at a game. About 4,000 people showed up for his first public appearance on campus. He and his actress wife Mary Ann Jarou are regulars on the back (and front) pages of the New York tabloids. Jarou, who has appeared on "Entourage" and "King of Queens," was immediately dubbed by the tabs as the "Queen of Queens."

He has also brought Keady with him to St. John's as a special advisor. Keady, 74, gave Lavin his first break in coaching, a graduate assistant post at Purdue, and Lavin in turn refers to him at different times as his "Mr. Miyagi" or the "Don Zimmer," to Lavin's Joe Torre, the "Great Santini" and the "Lombardi of basketball."
"My basketball oracle," Lavin finally says.

Keady is also Lavin's chief defender and he tackles Lavin's treatment at UCLA with his usual bluntness.

"The administration never really respected him," Keady said of UCLA. "They didn't support him or appreciate him like they should have. Anybody who followed Coach Wooden was going to have a hard time."

He was the third assistant on Jim Harrick's staff when UCLA won the 1995 NCAA championship. Twenty months later Lavin, with only two years as a full-time assistant under his belt, was named UCLA's interim head coach when Harrick was fired for lying to university officials in the midst of an investigation into recruiting violation allegations.

With UCLA atop the Pac-10, Lavin was given the position on a permanent basis on Feb. 11, 1997. He guided UCLA that first year to the Pac-10 title and the first of five NCAA tournament Elite Eights in six seasons, a feat matched by only one other coach, Duke's Krzyzewski. He was the only coach in Bruin history to win at least 22 games in each of his first three seasons and the only coach in NCAA history to beat a top-ranked team in four consecutive seasons.

Watson was part of a first Lavin recruiting class that was ranked No. 2 nationally. Lavin followed that first group with back-to-back, top-ranked recruiting classes.
But Lavin could not sell the UCLA administration or the school's impatient fans that he was the coach to return the Bruins to the Final Four on a regular basis. To his critics he was a slick back, pretty boy, Guy V. Lewis with a better hairdo, a Pat Riley wannabe.

Keady and others are quick to dismiss criticism of Lavin's X's and O's as off-base, pointing to the fact that Lavin was 8-1 against Top 25 teams in overtime.

UCLA officials, however, were not convinced. The Bruin athletic director Pete Dalis approached Rick Pitino about coming to Westwood in 2001. When Dan Guerrero was hired as Dalis' replacement in April 2002, it was clear Lavin was a lame duck well before UCLA finished the 2002-03 season at 10-19.

"What the administration did (with its actions) was tell the players that they weren't loyal to Steve," Keady said. "And loyalty is one of the keys, and the administration wasn't loyal to him."

Lavin for his part has never displayed any bitterness toward UCLA. Just weeks after getting fired he took his replacement, Ben Howland, Howland's wife and some friends out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant near his Venice home, giving Howland tips on how to navigate in the shadow of the Wizard.

"We had margaritas," Lavin recalled. "Mine was virgin of course."

"UCLA is just unique," Lavin said. "You have the Green Bay Packers and Vince Lombardi, the Yankees and Lakers, the Celtics with Red Auerbach. There are certain sports entities and institutions that are just unique from any other. When you coach at UCLA, there is only one coach in the history of this program, and that's John Wooden. Everyone else understands that is inherent in the equation. You are grateful to get to play a small part, however long it is, in being a part of that tradition.
"I understand that anything less than a national title or a Final Four at UCLA is a failure. That's OK."

So he drifted into what he calls his "extended sabbatical," the move to television. He was a natural both in studio at ESPN and doing analyst work for the cable network and ABC.

"I was more than comfortable with the possibility of riding out my professional life in broadcasting," he said.

Lavin was offered the North Carolina State job in 2006 but turned it down after bouncing the prospect off Wooden and Keady among others.

"I wasn't in a hurry to leave (broadcasting) unless it was a great opportunity and had all the components that you need to have in order to be successful in the highest levels of college basketball," he said.

And in St. John's and a fertile New York recruiting base, Lavin found that foundation. St. John's has produced two Wooden Award winners and sent 59 players to the NBA. Only six schools have won more NCAA tournament games.

"At St. John's, the timing and the opportunity were right," Lavin said. "There was no better place than a school that has heritage and tradition, a home court at Madison Square Garden, a city where you can recruit a tri-state area, a fan base and a great conference."

But the glory days of the mid-1980s, when Lou Carnesecca's Chris Mullin-led team battled Georgetown for the No. 1 ranking and reached the Final Four, were a distant memory when Lavin arrived in Queens. The Red Storm haven't been a part of March Madness in nearly a decade. When St. John's upset No. 13 Georgetown Jan. 3, it was the school's first victory against a Top 25 team since 2004-05. The Red Storm followed up the surprise of its old rival by knocking off No. 9 Notre Dame two weeks later.

"As far as expectations, he talks about winning," Red Storm guard Paris Horne told reporters. "We feed off that. It's contagious."

Keady and Lavin dismiss the notion that Lavin returned to coaching to answer his critics.

"He doesn't need to prove anything," Keady said.

Both agree that he has benefited from age and his time as an analyst.

"He was really young then and he admits that," Keady said. "He's really good now, a great teacher. He's more confident in what he's doing. He's better at handling, disciplining the players. That comes with a new maturity. Before, he was too close to their age."

"The distance and looking and looking at the game through a different lens is valuable," Lavin said.

"The strongest motivation for my return to coaching was to teach, coach and work with young people. I missed the camaraderie with the coaching staffs and players. I missed the competition at the highest level."

And he missed the magic carpet ride, its soaring heights and its bumps.

"You have to win a lot of games, create revenue streams, fill the seats, make runs to the (NCAA) tournament and get boosters to write big checks," Lavin said. "I've always been aware of that. In terms of criticism, I've always understood that comes with the territory. The only thing at times that puzzled me was the way people somehow want you to apologize for having some wonderful opportunities for the last 23 years."

Those waiting for an apology shouldn't hold their breath.