By Brian Hoffman – Fincastle Herald Sports Editor
The recent incident between the Michigan and Wisconsin basketball teams brought back memories of a time when I called a late timeout with the game in hand.
If you’ve been out of the country for the past two weeks, Michigan basketball coach Juwan Howard became irate when Wisconsin coach Greg Gard called a timeout with a 15-point lead and 15 seconds left. It resulted in a near brawl when tempers flared during the handshake line and Howard was suspended for the remainder of the regular season.
Certainly, there’s a matter of etiquette involved here. It was unsportsmanlike of Gard to call that timeout with the game decided, but others might argue that Michigan was still pressing at that point and they might have better served to back off as well. They weren’t going to catch the Badgers, down 15 with 15 seconds to go.
Whatever, there was no excuse for punches being thrown after the game, and I’ve yet to hear either coach offer an apology. Cooler heads should have prevailed.
With that said, I coached recreation basketball teams when my step-sons played and recall a game when I called a timeout in a similar situation. My team had the game well in hand with time running out when I signaled for a timeout with just seconds on the clock. With that, the obviously aggravated coach from the other team charged over to our bench and wondered just what the heck I was doing?
I explained to him that we had a boy on the team, Dave, who had never scored a point. He was a bright young man and a wonderful child but he had some motor skill challenges and, when he was on the floor, we were virtually playing four against their five. I always had him on my team because he was a friend of my son’s and his dad helped me coach and, hey, it’s recreation basketball.
When I told the opposing coach I called the timeout to try and get Dave a basket in his last chance he not only settled down, but offered to have his team back off when Dave got the ball. With that I drew up the play to have the ball inbounded to Dave under the basket. There was no guarantee he would put it in.
The teams took the floor, the whistle blew, and my player inbounded the ball to Dave. He looked round, concluded he was open, and put a two-handed shot high off the board. It bounced on the rim a couple times and dropped through the net just as the horn sounded.
Dave watched the ball go through the basket in half disbelief. He threw his arms in the air, the crowd roared and players from both benches rushed the floor, congratulating Dave on his first ever basket. At that point no cared who won the game, it was a win-win for everyone.
Nic Schmitt, who punted and kicked for the Virginia Tech football team, was on my 14 year old team that season. Years later, when he was a senior for the Hokies, I did a story on Schmitt for the paper. One of the questions I asked him was ‘what are some of the most memorable moments you’ve had in your sports career?’”
Nic was a member of state championship high school football teams at Salem, kicking the game-winning point one season. He was an all-state kicker and also a standout receiver, defensive back and kick returner, so he had many memorable moments.
At Tech, he was the first string punter and backup placekicker. He played in some huge ACC games and won all kinds of honors at Tech. You’d think his favorite sports moment would have been pinning Miami inside the 10 or punting against Auburn in the Sugar Bowl, or even kicking the winning point to win that high school state championship. But no, do you know what Nic said?
He said his favorite all-time moment in sports was when Dave scored that basket.
I did my best to hold back tears, and that was one timeout I’ll never regret.
COMMANDERS ON THE WARPATH
How do you like the new name for the Washington football team?
As I suspected, most of my friends who were longtime Redskins fans hate it. I can understand that, no one likes change. And, I don’t have any Native American friends in the Roanoke Valley I can ask who might have a different opinion.
That’s sort of sad, since at one time Native Americans were the only people who lived here. Then folks came from Europe and ran them off their land and killed them, but of course we can’t talk about that according to our new Governor because it might make us feel guilty. Personally, I don’t feel the least bit guilty because I had nothing to do with that, but I still think it’s something we should teach in school since it happened and we can’t deny it. Whatever, that’s a topic for a different day, and I might not want to dip into that at all.
As for the Commanders, I guess it’s as good a name as any if you have to change. I thought it was funny that Joe Theismann gave the name away a few days before the official announcement. I watched the TODAY SHOW when the “surprise” announcement was supposed to be made and I was 99 percent sure of what it would be, and I was right.
Of course, former Skins quarterback Doug Williams talked about how he just loved the name, as did current player Jonathan Allen. What else are they going to say on the TODAY SHOW? If they said they hated the name they wouldn’t have been sitting there with Craig Melvin to announce it on TV.
The thing is, if the team is good next year the name doesn’t really matter. Folks will come around to it.
It’s like a women’s name. If the woman is beautiful, you can call her any name and it will sound good. If Beyonce was instead named “Beulah,” you’d think good thoughts when you heard the name Beulah. Then again, if the woman is ugly she can be “Caitlin” or “Sophia” or whatever, and it won’t do her a bit of good getting a date on Saturday night.
Likewise with the Commanders. If they beat the Cowboys a couple times next year people will take to that name, but if they go 4-13 no name out there is going to make a difference.
The good thing is, people seem to like the uniforms, especially the black ones. I guess if you take an ugly woman and dress her up real nice it might help a little.
