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If you're a college basketball reporter of a certain age, you almost certainly have a go-to Rick Majerus story.
Here's mine.
It was the fall of 1996, barely a year after I got hired by Sports Illustrated. The magazine assigned me to write a scouting report on Utah for our college basketball preview issue. So I flew to Salt Lake City to watch the team practice and interview a few players as well as its charismatic, enigmatic coach. Before I left, I asked my veteran colleague, Alex Wolff, for some advice. "Talk to Majerus about stuff other than basektball," he said.
Unfortunately, when I got there, Majerus didn't want to talk at all. It's not that he was opposed to being quoted -- Lord knows, he liked being quoted -- but rather because he was in a rush to get to...
Anyone who has followed college basketball the past few decades probably knows a good Rick Majerus story or two. There was the time he promised to quit at Utah if false allegations that freshman Britton Johnson had used a racial... more »
They say Rick Majerus died of heart failure. They're wrong. The Rick Majerus I knew was all heart. His life, all 64 years of it, was a breadcrumb trail of random acts of kindness. I'm not sure I can recall a conversation with... more »
You're better than this, St. John's. So are you, Georgetown. And you, Seton Hall. And Providence. And Villanova. All of you are better than what the Big East -- not merely your conference, but the conference you created -- is... more »
We stand here today watching traffic on the college realignment highway, wondering where it will all end, and marveling at the staggering power of football. That was Louisville, racing past, from the Big East to the... more »
It wasn't the price of a television or a fridge that caught my eye as I was perusing among the Black Friday offers last night. It was actually a ticket offer that appeared online from the Minnesota Golden Gophers, called a... more »
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