Something about the game: Was it the rat-a-tat of a ball dribbled on a wooden floor? The stink of sweat and morning breath mixed with drafty gym air? The thousands of shuffling feet on game night, the voices rising as tip-off nears? Yes, all that. But even more, it was the thought of those young faces looking at him, waiting. It was practice that brought Rick Majerus back. Because there he had the answers. Because there -- in his watchmaker-precise breakdowns of what the fan later mistook for improvisation and flow -- was where he lived. He learned this while bombing around the country the last three years, another ex-coach TV analyst with his face pressed against the glass, around basketball but not truly in it. Practice was pure. Practice wasn't subject to opponents' whims or the pressure of parents frowning from the stands. Practice was his alone.
There were rules for those sessions, of course. Players on a Majerus team are warned: You must want it as much as he does. Lock your eyes on the man when he speaks; glance away and he'll blow you to bits. If Coach calls your name? Run -- never walk -- and stand in front of him, eyes wide, like a puppy panting for a treat. And for God's sake, don't take anything he says personally. Put a filter on your brain, let the knowledge from one of the great coaching minds of his time drip through and throw away all that profane sediment, all those gibes about your character or family, all the humiliation that comes from seeing your most embarrassing weakness paraded before teammates and then stomped.
Majerus admits he can go too far. He regretted making Van Horn cry, so he took him out for bagels the day after and explained, "You're living my dream. I'm hard on you because you're special, because I never was any good myself." Van Horn later made Majerus his daughter's godfather.
The six-inch display? Majerus says he's not the same coach he was a decade ago. "I'm probably a little embarrassed about some things I've said or done in practice," he says. But he's not going to apologize for calling things as he sees them. "You know what my doctor told me?" he says. "'You'll lose weight when you get tired of seeing your fat ass in the mirror.' I don't think he's being mean. He's telling it like it is.
"I got on Bryce [Husak] really hard the other day: 'If you're just another big guy who doesn't want to play, but you feel obligated because of your size and because we gave you the scholarship? Let me give you a hug, you got the scholarship; let's part ways. Because why should Luke Meyer and Kevin Lisch and Liddell have this passion and we're a team and you don't have it?' There's a lot of guys I'd want to go camping with; there's not a lot of guys I want to win with. Is that fair? Yeah. I don't take it personally. I love my doctor."
Something about pain: Rick Majerus prizes his. Because pain teaches you. Because pain is the price of chasing one's passion, and if you don't do that, you're not alive. Because, ideally, losses like tonight's 22-point thrashing at Boston College show how limited your immediate future is, and that kind of clarity can only help. Majerus inherited this Saint Louis team. Few doubt he can put the program in the national picture, but he figures on a three-year struggle, and who knows how long his body will hold up? He's got a team, but for now it feels nothing like Utah.
That sparked a tangent about parents today, and how they "want to take all the pain, all the heartache and all the sadness out of their kids' lives. All the things that make you a better person, a better coach, a better teacher -- all the things that are so much the fabric of life. I'm so much better for every loss I've had."
