THERE is an old and tired rule of thumb about beat writers and columns. A fine line between
fact and opinionYou're not supposed to have an opinion about the team that you cover.
For example, now that I am covering the UH men's basketball team, if I happened to write that Riley Wallace is a bum, it might be tough to get quotes for the rest of the season.
An objective game story that reads like this would not please my bosses: "Here is what Wallace probably would have said after losing to Michigan by 30 ... "
OK, you get the picture. So let me go on record as saying that coach Wallace is a fine lad and such an outstanding coach that only John Wooden could match his basketball expertise.
Or maybe Tony Sellitto.
Anyway, it's nice to be back in beat action after a long hiatus as a sports editor (too many meetings) and strictly as a columnist (too many car bombings and missile attacks).
My credentials? Well, I've covered about a million college basketball games over the years, especially during a five-year stint in Las Vegas in the late 1980s, when Jerry Tarkanian's UNLV team was a lot of fun.
It included travel to all of the places and hotels that I will never afford - highlighted by a week in New Orleans at the 1987 Final Four.
The four coaches in that Final Four? Tark, Bobby Knight, Jim Boeheim of Syracuse and Rick Pitino, then of Providence.
Plus, they're still adding up my Bourbon Street expense account at the Las Vegas Sun.
There also was a trip to the NIT finals in New York and a room at the luxurious Marriott Marquee overlooking Times Square. I woke up with a pounding head on Thanksgiving morning just in time to see the Bullwinkle float in the Macy's Parade pass right outside my window.
That preseason NIT championship game at historic Madison Square Garden in 1989 was a wild one. UNLV was down by 24 points in the second half to a huge Western Kentucky team, only to come back and win in double-overtime.
Then there were several years with my pal Norm Stewart at Missouri. Ol' Norm had great teams and is still a heckuva coach. But he also took a vow each season to make every writer's life as miserable as possible.
THAT beat included trips to great Big Eight basketball houses, though, including my all-time favorite: Kansas' Phog Allen Field House. If you are a college basketball junkie, a trip to Lawrence, Kansas, to hear the Rock Chalk Jayhawk is priceless.
Then there were great wars between Missouri and Oklahoma, especially at the Sooners' Lloyd Noble Arena, where former coach Billy Tubbs always had the heat in the gym turned up to the mid-90s.
Iowa State was also a fun place, where they played the old Tonight Show theme with a "Heeeere's Johnny!" as the hilarious former Cyclones coach, Johnny Orr, walked out, waving.
Eddie Sutton at Oklahoma State and Lon Kruger at Kansas State were no pushovers, either.
Other coaches I covered included: Dean Smith, Jim Valvano, Ray Meyer, Joey Meyer, Lou Carnesecca, Denny Crum, John Thompson, Lefty Driesell, Lou Henson, John Chaney, Bill Frieder, Tom Davis, Nolan Richardson, Lute Olson, Dale Brown, Roy Williams and my all-time favorite, Bill Mulligan.
Some players that I covered in college: Patrick Ewing, David Robinson, Armon Gilliam, Sean Elliott, Mookie Blaylock, Anthony Peeler, Stacey King, Sherman Douglas, Chris Mullin, Mitch Richmond, Stacey Augmon and the best college player I ever saw: the late Len Bias.
Toss in two Maui Invitationals and I'm lucky my eyeballs aren't permanently bouncing up and down.
The greatest coach in the game today? That's an easy one.
Hawaii's Riley Wallace.
Hey, it might be a long season.