Georgia Tech’s Cremins Discovers That Being Nice Guy Has a Price

Bobby Cremins has just been through the wringer, one of those nights when he feels as if nothing is working, when he screams and yells and jumps up and down and still walks off the floor seeing the silly mistakes in his mind’s eye like a haunting nightmare that keeps coming back.

“I was very disappointed in this game,” he said, shaking his silver-haired head, his voice thick with the Bronx of his boyhood. “I really got on (Duane) Ferrell at halftime. We need him to play well and he wasn’t. The play that (Craig) Neal made at the end of the half, that shot he took, was bad. Worse than bad. If I had taken a shot like that at South Carolina, I don’t think Frank McGuire would have let me come out of the locker room for the second half. It was a joke.

“We had 20 turnovers in the game. That’s just ridiculous.”

He paused. “Of course, it was a good win.”

That display, moments after Georgia Tech had blitzed Louisiana State, 87-70, last week, is typical Cremins. LSU had been a nemesis for two seasons, beating the Yellow Jackets three times, twice in the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament. Georgia Tech responded emphatically in the Omni, a victory that left the players full of themselves. “We’re coming into our own now,” point guard Neal said. “Last year, we wouldn’t have won a game like this.”

Cremins didn’t see it that way. He can’t. As good a coach as he is, he wants to be better. As good a program as he has built at Georgia Tech, he sees deficiencies. As happy as he is with his life, he worries about the future.

“His mind is always on the next thing,” said assistant coach Kevin Cantwell, a longtime friend. “Tell him something and he’s apt to forget it five minutes later. But when he’s focused on something, there’s no stopping him. He’s never satisfied until he succeeds. And even then, he isn’t always satisfied.”

In six seasons at Georgia Tech, Cremins has turned the worst program in Atlantic Coast Conference history--1-29 in league play during the two seasons before he arrived--into a perennial national contender.

The Yellow Jackets won the ACC tournament in 1985 and reached the NCAA tournament final eight. They have been to three straight NCAA tournaments. During one stretch, Cremins recruited four straight ACC rookies of the year: Mark Price, Bruce Dalrymple, Ferrell and Tommy Hammonds. He has the odds-on favorite to win it this year, Dennis Scott.

In short, Cremins is a winner, a big-time winner who has been rewarded with a lucrative contract, plenty of endorsement money and status in his profession at age 39 envied by most.

He isn’t satisfied.

“I want this to be a great program,” he said, driving toward a preseason scrimmage on a rainy night. “The first few years after I got here, we kept going up, doing better every year. We weren’t getting guys the whole world wanted, we were getting guys who came here and got better like Price, (John) Salley and (Yvon) Joseph. Dalrymple was the first big name recruit we had.

“But then after we had the great year in ‘85, people picked us No. 1 in ’86 and that team was under a microscope all season. I wanted us to peak that year in March, but we just didn’t do it. I felt like I let Price and Salley down not getting them to the Final Four. We still haven’t done that yet, and until we do, I won’t be completely happy.”

If then.

When Cremins arrived at Georgia Tech, the situation was so hopeless and his enthusiasm so boundless that every reporter in the country felt obligated to pop down here, spend a day or two being charmed by Cremins and then deliver a paean to his future greatness. By his second year in the league, Cremins had a nickname: media darling.

Cremins was funny--sometimes on purpose--and he was good. Most of all he was intense. He had been that kind of player at South Carolina, playing on great teams that never quite reached the pinnacle.

He was an overachiever who took losing so hard that he often had to go off by himself for days at a time after a loss. That hasn’t changed. He had coached six years at Appalachian State and taken a lowly program to two NCAA bids when Georgia Tech called on him--after two other coaches had turned it down--in 1981. Given the chance at Georgia Tech, he was determined to make the most of it.

“My dream was always to coach in the ACC,” he said. “I’m an ACC guy. I played in the league and always wanted the chance to come back. We worked hard, everyone in the program did and that’s why we got better. But we can’t stop now. There’s still a lot more to do.”

Having gotten the program going with players such as Price, Salley and Joseph, Cremins was able to move to the next level, recruiting blue-chip players Ferrell, Hammonds and, most recently, Scott. Other coaches tell the story of Hammonds announcing to the four finalists--Georgia Tech, Wake Forest, Florida and Virginia Tech--his choice by saying, “I’ve decided to go to Tech.”

“Which Tech?” screamed Cremins. “Is it Georgia Tech?” Everyone else in the room knew the answer. “Yes, Coach,” Hammonds answered. “It’s you.”

Stories like that have helped feed the false image that Cremins is dumb. There are others. When Bob Staak was hired as Wake Forest’s coach three years ago, he and Jim Valvano wondered if Staak was the youngest coach in the league or if Cremins was.

“Bobby,” Valvano asked, “how old are you?”

“I”m 36,” Cremins answered, “or 37.”

“Which is it?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, what year were you born?”

“It was ’46. Or ’47.”

Actually, it was ’48 and, knowing Valvano--a friend of Cremins--the story is at least half-apocryphal. But that is Cremins’ reputation. He knows it and it does not bother him in the least.

“People have always thought of me as a dumb Irishman,” he said. “That’s OK with me. But I know I’m not dumb. I don’t think I could do what I’ve done if I were dumb. I don’t want to be too smart, though. If I was really, really smart I might look around me and realize that this business I’m in is filled with a lot of phonies and a lot of dishonesty. Then, maybe I wouldn’t want to do it anymore. I’d miss it because I love doing it.

“Look, let’s be honest, when you become a coach, you know you aren’t going to save the world. If that’s what you want to do, you go join the Peace Corps.”

He smiled. “Actually, when I was playing ball in South Carolina, I hung out with a lot of people in the Peace Corps, but about all I ever did with them was (party) and have a good time.”

The smile faded. His mind was back on his coaching. “If people don’t think I’m smart, that’s fine. But I get upset when people get on my coaching. I’m a good coach, I know that and I think my record proves it. The last couple years, we haven’t been as good as I would like, but I don’t think I’ve done a bad job.”

Cremins might have been the most lauded coach in America during his first four years at Georgia Tech. Not only did he turn a moribund program into a major winner--27-8, the ACC title and a spot in the final eight in 1985--but he did it without being a bully, without being secretive and without losing his sense of humor.

The ’85 season ended in Providence when Price--the heart and soul of the program Cremins had built--shot 4 for 13 against Georgetown, and Georgia Tech came up short of pulling a stunning upset against the 1984 national champions. But with Price and Salley back, and Ferrell and Hammonds playing the forwards, Georgia Tech was everyone’s preseason No. 1 pick the next season.

The Yellow Jackets were very good that year (27-7) but lost the ACC final to Duke at the buzzer and lost in Atlanta to LSU in the NCAA regionals. People labeled the season a disappointment. Then came last season, a struggling 16-13 record that included a fifth-place ACC finish. Suddenly, for the first time in his coaching life, Cremins heard critics.

“Sure it ticks me off when people say and write things about me that aren’t true,” he said. “I don’t mind guys saying I screwed up when I screw up, but sometimes guys criticize just because it’s easy. That upsets me. There are times when all of this gets to me, fighting the recruiting fights, the games, trying to get these kids to do what I want. Some nights I come home and go upstairs and just get into bed for a little while with my little boy (Bobby III, who is now 11). That makes me feel better.”

The players say that up or down, Cremins stays the same: intense. “When I first got here, I had no idea what it would be like,” said Scott, a Flint Hill graduate who won the Naismith Award as the high school player of the year last spring.

“I came in overweight and he just told me, ‘lose the weight or you don’t play.’ It wasn’t any threat, it was just fact. He told me that at the weight I was at (253) there was no way I could play at this level. Every time I messed up, he was on me. But I know there’s good reason for it.”

Cremins’ railing, a strict diet and teammates’ help has gotten Scott down to about 230 pounds. It is still too heavy for Cremins’ taste, but light enough to keep Scott in the lineup. He has provided the Yellow Jackets with a consistent three-point threat. Against LSU, he hit three straight bombs in the second half to blow open a close game. He is cocky--recently he commented that his basketball hero, Magic Johnson, “would really be something if he had my shot”--but immensely talented.

His presence might be a key to Georgia Tech getting back to the level Cremins wants. Even though the team does not have a natural center, it is strong up front with Hammonds and Ferrell, and if Neal or Michael Christian can play consistently well at point guard, the Yellow Jackets can be a factor in the ACC.

Cremins, naturally, is looking past this year.

“I really thought we had a shot at Alonzo Mourning,” he said after the 6-foot 10-inch recruit signed with Georgetown. “But we’re still in it with (Jerrod) Mustaf (of DeMatha High) and (Don) Maclean (of Simi Valley High, Calif.). If we get those guys, or even one, we’ll be all right. Recruiting can kill you, though. No rest, and it’s such a battle. I don’t want five guys a year, I just want one or two. Give me a Price, a Salley, a Ferrell, a Hammonds and I’ll go to war.

“You know, I never dreamed when I got in this business that I’d make this much money or live in a big house on the river like I do or any of this. All I’ve ever wanted to do is have a good program, wherever I am.”

Wherever he has gone, Bobby Cremins has had just that. He shakes his head at that notion. “We haven’t done what I want yet,” he said. “There’s still a lot of work to do.”