I don't pretend to know everything that's been going on with Tim Floyd's basketball program at Southern California, or what led to his resignation yesterday.
All I know is, it looks like the classic case of a coach quitting before the hangman could get his rope ready.
Yes, it appears that Floyd's bosses were going to pull the plug on him because of the rumors going around about players being paid to participate in what is called an amateur sport.
Hah!
Anyone who thinks college basketball is amateur needs to make an appointment with Jerry Tarkanian.
They didn't call him Tark the Shark for nothing when he was doing all that winning at Nevada-Las Vegas.
If collegiate basketball is amateur, so is the NFL scene that Brett Favre keeps wanting to go back to.
Anyway, Floyd [he's the guy in the white shirt in the photo] is out after four seasons at USC--the last three of which ended in trips to the NCAA tournament.
That's Tim Floyd. He'll always get you to the NCAA.
But four seasons is about all you'll get out of him.
Ask Iowa State.
Speaking of Iowa State, and before I get too far into this essay about Tim Floyd, let me point out that the search to find a new coach at USC is now official because Larry Eustachy's name is mentioned among the list of potential candidates.
Yes, the same Larry Eustachy who succeeded Floyd at Iowa State, and left because he couldn't control his consumption of alcohol.
*
I know Tim Floyd a little.
Not a lot. A little.
I like the guy.
I never had a problem with him, and I don't think he ever had a problem with me.
I was doing newspaper work when Iowa State was courting him prior to the 1994-95 season.
Floyd didn't know if he wanted to leave the University of New Orleans and be the successor to Johnny Orr at Iowa State.
He took the job once, then said he didn't want it.
He thought and he thought.
Finally, he said yes. He took the job.
I figured he'd make Iowa State a winner, and he did.
*
I covered Tim Floyd's first game at Iowa State, and I covered his last game.
I never got to go to an NCAA tournament with him, and he apologized to me for that.
No apology needed.
I've been to plenty of NCAA games. Plenty of Final Fours. Plenty of championship games.
I covered Bill Walton and John Wooden. Jerry Tarkanian and Roy Williams. Maury John and Rick Pitino.
*
Anyway, late in the fall of 1994, when Floyd was getting ready to coach his first game with the Cyclones, I went into his office at Hilton Coliseum.
He probably didn't know what he was getting into with me.
It had been a miserable autumn for me already.
I had covered Jim Walden's final football season at Iowa State.
Final season? It felt like five years in a fire at the old Cargill plant at Cedar Rapids.
The Cyclones' record was 0-10-1, and Walden was told he was fired before the season ended.
The 31-31 tie Iowa State had was at Oklahoma State. Walden had his players sing the school song after the tie, and singing the song was supposed to be reserved for victories. So I figured Walden didn't think he'd win a game all season.
He didn't.
Iowa State's opening game ended in a loss to Northern Iowa.
Not many coaches survive when they start the season by losing to UNI.
Walden didn't.
*
There were a number of strange happenings and a number of strange press conferences that season.
I, of course, had gotten the reputation of being a lightning rod for controversy. In other words, rouble followed me around.
I was a bigtime participant in the 19 consecutive non-winning football seasons Iowa had in the 1960s and 1970s.
I covered Frank Lauterbur's 0-11 Hawkeye season. I wrote the Christmas Day story that got Gordon "Slim" Chalmers fired as Iowa State's athletic director. I covered the black boycotts at both Iowa and Iowa State.
So Tim Floyd probably didn't know what to expect when I told him I'd be covering him in the Big Island Invitational at Hilo, Hawaii, in 1994.
Maybe he thought he should buy a one-way ticket back to New Orleans.
*
No problem.
When I talked to Tim Floyd for the first time in Hilo, he gave me a bunch of newspapers he had gotten on the trip. He told me about a good restaurant on the beach in Hilo.
We got along fine. Floyd and his Cyclones won their first two games in the Big Island Invitational, but lost to Purdue in the championship game.
I took over another collegiate basketball beat -- maybe Iowa, maybe Drake -- when I got back home, and Iowa State went on to a 23-11 record, including a second-round loss to North Carolina in the NCAA tournament.
Everybody at Iowa State was happy. Floyd included.
*
But as time went on, Floyd became disenchanted with Gene Smith, his athletic director, and the rest of Iowa State's athletic department administration.
Something always seemed to be bothering him.
Finally, the rumors were rampant that Floyd was using the Iowa State job simply as a steppingstone to the Chicago Bulls.
I didn't cover Floyd again until his final season at Iowa State.
It wasn't a good one. The record was 12-18.
I was sitting in a hotel room in Manhattan, Kan., one day when I called Floyd's office so I could talk to him about the next night's game against Kansas State.
Floyd called me in the room at about 8 p.m., and spent the entire conversation wondering why Marc Hansen didn't write a column about something that was bothering Floyd.
"It's not my week to assign Hansen's columns," I told Floyd. "Call me next week, and we'll get things figured out."
Like I said, something always seemed to be bothering Floyd, and that was too bad.
*
In the final game of the season -- in the opening round of the conference tournament at Kansas City -- Floyd tried hard to get kicked out by an official he didn't like.
The official wouldn't do him that favor. Even after Floyd marched from the sideline to well beyond the middle of the floor to protest something, the zebra wouldn't eject him.
No matter. The Cyclones weren't going to win, and didn't. Off to the Chicago Bulls our man Tim Floyd went.
It was after that game that Floyd said he was sorry he didn't take me to the NCAA tournament.
"Don't worry," I said. "I enjoyed watching you coach."
*
So now there's a new adventure in Floyd's life.
He's 55, and I'm sure he'll coach again.
I hope so. He's too good not to coach.
