An open letter to Pepe and Diesel

Dear Pepe and Diesel,

Psssst.. Come on back. It’s okay. I’ll even make the first move. Things will be good again, I swear. Ever since I took over the reigns at McKale Center in Tucson, the Arizona basketball team has become infinitely more likeable – by being everything Arizona is not.

Sure, we don’t have that freakishly gifted athlete that we can call on in the clutch to go up and slam home a put-back, sweeping the crowd off its feet, forcing our opponent to call a time out and letting our pep band belt out a couple verses of “Moondance.”

And, okay, we’re not particularly all that exciting to watch. Our offensive style is more UCLA and Washington State than it is Kentucky in the mid-90s or the Wildcats you’re used to. Aesthetics-wise, we’re a better fit for the Big East or Big Ten. But, you see, this is the way the Pac-10 is going, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing – we’re playing in arguably the best or second-best conference in all of college basketball right now. We plan on winning it again soon.

And, I know, our uniforms look different now. Our shorts look weird, they’re lacking trim and the ‘CATS’ is placed far too high up the sides, and our jerseys have an unnecessary and distracting stripe down the back sides, but just look past all that for a moment.

Because, you know what? I think, despite the lack of high-flying, fast-break basketball that made Arizona so appealing in the first place, you’re going to love us again. It may not happen overnight, and you may find some of our games ugly and choppy, but we’d love to have you on board again.

I know you’re tired of the Purdues and Seton Halls beating your more talented teams, and so am I. Perhaps more worryingly, you’re tired of us having too many assholes that are difficult to root for, like Marcus Williams and Chris Rodgers, and not enough true student-athletes to be proud of. And I know you may have had poor relations with Shakes and found him to be too under-achieving at times and too hasty towards the fans and media.

But I’m working on all of that, trust me. I really am. You think Chase Budinger will get a big head and pull a classic Arizona ‘phenom that doesn’t achieve all of his potential,’ like Williams or Hassan Adams? That’s not going to happen. I tell him every day that, with hard work, someday he’ll perhaps have the opportunity to be a good player in Europe. Jerryd Bayless is one of my favorite players to coach, but until he handles the ball better, he’s headed there too.

Plus, I don’t appeal to the crowd and all their “We want Bagga!” chanting. Hell, I’m dumbfounded as to why Daniel Dillon got a near-standing ovation when he entered the game last week! I’m going to make these kids earn their playing time and you can be damn well sure that they’ll play hard – or else I’ll threaten to cancel their Christmas, like I did last week.

The biggest difference between me and Shakes is our personalities, which is perhaps my biggest selling point to you. Face it, fellas, I’m you. I watch basketball, make funny and outrageous statements and have a few drinks – when was the last time you saw Shakes in the same local establishment you frequented? My weekly radio show has become a must-listen to simply because I don’t hold anything back. When asked if watching 17-18 basketball game films every day helps me become a better coach, I interrupted the interviewer and told him you’d be an “absolute psychopath!” if you didn’t. During a recent press conference, a media member’s phone rang, and I (semi-) jokingly fined him $500 or pro-rated it to his pay. When was the last time Shakes did any of that?

Finally, I think what I’m doing here is pretty significant. Already this season, we’ve battled against two teams that have far superior size and talent to us – Kansas and Texas A&M – and we beat A&M in one of the best environments I’ve seen at McKale in years. We went to Chicago and beat Illinois using our toughness, something Sean Singletary has been poking fun at us about for years. (An aside, Who the fuck is Sean Singletary anyway?)

Saturday night, we’re taking on a very, very talented team in Memphis – think A&M, but better. I’d appreciate it if you tuned in and checked us out. We may not win, but we may not lose, either. There’s a new king in town, and you’d have to be a complete moron like Laval Lucas-Perry if you didn’t see this thing out with me.

Love,

Kevin O’Neill
XOXO

That's it

I hope all of you read the Hansen piece on Jim Rosborough's firing from the Arizona coaching staff. If you haven't check it out; I'll wait.

The departure of Roz, as Hansen notes, is a sad day for the program. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit to being a huge Roz guy, because when I was a student reporter covering the team, he was the only person in the program who never once big-leagued me. After every game, he'd give me as much time as I wanted, one-on-one, and treated me fairly. I know the same went for Hansen during his no-comm days with Olson, because it was often Hansen and I talking to Roz while everyone else huddled around the players for some non-quotes in the locker room. When I look back over my few days as a sportswriter, I find that I enjoyed my time with assistant coaches more than any athletes, with the very notable exception of Mark Grace. Roz was the first assistant I built a good working relationship with, and taught me how important it was to get to know the cooks instead of just talking to the chef.

I haven't always been kind to Hansen, for many of the same reasons that I am rarely kind to regular sports columnists in general; the job description is probably the greatest enemy of good opinion writing. It doesn't help that Hansen's never been particularly humorous (at least not in writing) and only has the "Remember in 1979?" shtick to carry his columns when there's really nothing worth offering comment on. But there have also been times when Hansen has proven himself to be the only guy up to the job of calling out the big boys in the athletic department. That he managed to do his job for the better part of a decade while being a persona non grata with the basketball team is a pretty big testament to his chops. Bad taste in shirts aside, Hansen is the kind of journalist you wish more up-and-coming guys had the balls to be.

I might differ with some of Hansen's specific take in his piece -- the Arizona program stopped being a "family" the second Bobbi died, in truth, and it's been a "business" ever since the Nike Elite contract -- but four sentences pretty much succinctly wrapped up why Roz's departure means I won't be watching Arizona basketball until Shakes is out of the picture:

Such is the sway of Olson. Such is the $16 million-a-year industry, a monster, Olson has built from the ground up. Many of us have worshipped and fed the monster.

But now, for the first time, the monster is insatiably hungry and it has begun to eat its own.

Any time you can come close to justifying the use of the term "monster" to describe what something has become, you know it's time to hit the panic button. I find it funny that of the 56 comments left on Hansen's story, not one person took issue with Hansen's "monster" epithet, instead choosing to call him a racist because he accurately noted that Arizona's not going to fire it's only minority assistant -- no matter how much of a cocksucker he is -- to bring in another white, veteran coach. It's no secret that Tucson's been willing to put up with just about anything in an effort to maintain a top-flight basketball program; I just didn't realize that they were so comfortable with it being explicitly stated.

Not me. Roz was the last remnant of the group of guys who made Arizona into something special. He was the last link to Lute Olson, Human Being, an entity we haven't seen pretty much since 1997. Roz was a relatively ambition-free dinosaur in league with raptors who would rape their mothers for a better job (or, more precisely, the job of the guy in front of them). Perhaps my fondest memory of Roz was talking to him after he had coached a handful of games while Lute was out. I asked him how it went, and he didn't waste a second. "I hated it," he said. "Nothing but stress." He went on to assure me that what few ideas he had about one day being a head coach disappeared after that short stint. If nothing else, it was refreshing to hear at least one person in the world of athletics not overestimate his abilities.

I realize that Arizona really doesn't care about fans like me. I haven't bought a ticket to a basketball game in years, I don't buy any new gear, and I'm certainly not in the pool of potential big-money donors. The McKale Center will continue to sell out, the team will continue (at least in the short term) to get waxed against any moderately talented team, and people will continue to blame everyone except the guy at the top.

I'll just be another alum who will keep his gear tucked away in a drawer somewhere, waiting for a good reason to pull it out again.