On the Day After, Barely a Trace of Hazzard Is Left

Peter Dalis did not want to discuss Jim Valvano Thursday afternoon. Or Larry Brown. Or Lute Olson. There wasn’t even a hint of a smile when someone lightly brought up the name of Pat Riley as the successor to Walt Hazzard as UCLA basketball coach.

The man sitting in the athletic director’s office at UCLA had little time for humor, and none for interviews. Dalis did, however, refute reports that Valvano has been offered a contract to leave North Carolina State for Westwood.

“We’ve not offered anyone the job,” Dalis said.

Is there a front-runner?

“No.”

How about a timetable?

“Next week, if I can get it.”

With that, Dalis turned to the stack of yellow phone messages left by callers from around the country. In happier times, they might have been concerned with UCLA’s prospects in the Final Four, but the Bruins haven’t been there since 1980, four years before Hazzard became coach.

In quieter times, those calls might have been about spring football practice, where the same coach, Terry Donahue, has been barking orders for the last dozen years.

But these are once again intemperate times for UCLA basketball, where the line of succession to John Wooden has been a series of dots and dashes.

Walt Hazzard did not go to his office Thursday, and by all appearances, has no intentions of ever stepping inside again. The night before, at a gathering at Hazzard’s house of his players and coaches, An’Nisa Mansour, Hazzard’s administrative assistant, volunteered to pack his things.

By midday Thursday, the office was all but empty. The filing cabinets were cleaned out, and Hazzard’s prized pictures had come down off the walls that now displayed only nails.

Gone was the autographed picture of Mike Tyson, the numerous photos of Hazzard’s close friend, Bill Cosby, and of the trip to Paris the Cosbys and Hazzards took together. All the plaques and awards, the citations and honors, those related to basketball and those related to Hazzard’s community work, were stacked in boxes. Hazzard’s sister, Zene McIver, drove over to take them home to Hazzard.

The trophies awarded annually to UCLA players still lined the mantel behind Hazzard’s clutterless desk. Among them, however, was the silver trophy awarded UCLA for its 1985 National Invitation Tournament championship.

“This is his, isn’t it?” Mansour said, taking it down. “I’ll have to give it to him.”

Mansour, who has worked with Hazzard since 1985, was asked if it had hit her yet, this task of boxing and crating the mementoes of a boss and friend.

“It probably will about 6 o’clock,” she said. “When I’m here, I try to keep a very businesslike profile. This was just something I had to do.”

Trevor Wilson, looking like most players whose season ended far short of this championship weekend, stopped by the athletic offices.

“We’re all dangling,” said Wilson, a sophomore on Hazzard’s last Bruin team, which went 16-14 and became the third team of Hazzard’s four to miss the NCAA tournament.

“The way Coach was talking, we all thought he’d have another year. As it turned out, he didn’t.

“We had heard the rumors all season that he was out, that people wanted him out, but the rumors died out. Coach seemed pretty optimistic about next season.”

Wilson spoke of the farewells of the night before, when coach and players parted company.

“He wasn’t really bitter,” Wilson said. “I don’t know what he was thinking inside, but he was a little hurt, a little disappointed. He felt we could be better next season, that we could do a better job, that we have a lot of talent. He was a little sad that he’s not going to be a part of it.”

Wilson shook his head when asked if a change might be for the better.

“I can’t say that,” he said. “Right now, it’s a scary situation. We don’t know what kind of coach we’re going to get, what kind of personality. We knew Coach Hazzard. There were no surprises.”

Except the one that came on Wednesday, when UCLA Chancellor Charles Young announced that Hazzard had been fired with two years remaining on his contract.

“He won the Pac-10 championship last year,” Wilson said. “He was Pac-10 coach of the year. He took us to the NCAAs. I thought he did a fairly good job. But they tend to forget the past. It’s what you do right now.”

Jack Hirsch, one of Hazzard’s two full-time assistants, also cleared out his desk, his contract having run out Thursday.

“Monday night, Walter and I had been out working hard recruiting,” said Kris Jason, the other full-time assistant. “He felt everything was going really well. Driving back home, he really felt good about things.”

So did Jason, until 1 a.m. Wednesday, when he answered the phone and Hirsch was on the other end.

“He said, ‘We’re outta here,’ ” Jason said. “My reaction? Disbelief.”

Jason has been asked to stay on to help the new coach make the transition, but he accepts that he may not be long for Westwood, either.

“This is an incredible place, UCLA,” he said, “and I mean that in a positive way.

“You’re in the fishbowl. Always. When things are going well, everybody’s your friend. When things are not, the whole world wants to know why.”