Dukes of Harrisonburg Take a Shot to Reach Basketball’s Kingdom : James Madison Hails the Return of Lefty Driesell

Charles Grice (Lefty) Driesell is like a brush fire in a Santa Ana wind: Just when you think he has been extinguished, he roars back to life somewhere else.

And the flames are burning as brightly as ever these days in the Shenandoah Valley where Leftymania is raging through this once-serene countryside nestled in wooded hills between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountains.

James Madison University, an erudite state school, may never be the same.

After his controversial demise at Maryland--the cocaine-induced death of Len Bias and revelations of the academic deficiencies of some of his players forced Lefty into a 2-year slow burn--the big guy is back. He’s stomping the sidelines (and occasionally on his sports coat), bellowing at officials, signing post-game autographs and making friends faster than a guy handing out $10 bills on a street corner.

The sports director of a local television station proclaimed it was as if God had descended.

“It’s been an absolute zoo around here,” said Gary Michael, James Madison’s sports information director. “I mean we lost four starters from a team that went 10-18 last year and we’ve already had two visits from Sports Illustrated and ESPN and a half dozen major newspapers.”

Driesell, who is as calm off the court as he is volatile on it, hasn’t made it any easier for Michael. When Lefty strolled into his weekly booster luncheon recently, Michael breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well . . . he has missed a couple,” Michael said.

About 1:30 that afternoon, Driesell decided the Dukes would practice at 3:30. When informed the women’s team would be practicing in the Convocation Center then, he looked confused. He never had such problems at Maryland.

There are those who say Driesell returned to coaching because he had something to prove. He vehemently denies it, lapsing into one of his famous “ Aw - can - coach “ discourses.

“I’ve never been in any trouble with the NCAA. I’ve always abided by the NCAA rules. I’ve always been an honest person. Obviously, I did nothin’ wrong at Maryland. And I’ve been scrutinized by the grand jury, the school and the NCAA and they didn’t find anything unlawful or against NCAA rules.

“I didn’t do anything wrong at Maryland . . . but nobody backed me.”

There’s little doubt about Driesell’s ability to win. He has won 531 and lost 227. He averaged 20 victories a season and won 70% of the time for 26 seasons. The Dukes are 7-3 this season.

With nothing to prove, Dean Ehlers, the James Madison athletic director, believes “Lefty wanted to write a new ending to his coaching career.”

Driesell says it ain’t so.

For 2 years, Driesell sat in an office near Maryland’s Cole Field House--the seat of his throne during a 17-year reign--and did little more than collect $100,000 a year. His attorney, Edward Bennett Williams, had negotiated a settlement after Driesell’s forced resignation that would have allowed him to do the same for 6 more years.

Maryland is making up the difference in Driesell’s current 5-year contract, altogether worth about $75,000 a year, with James Madison.

Lefty, though, swears he enjoyed those 2 years away from the game.

“Every weekend, I’d be at my beach house (in Delaware) thinkin’ ‘bout those stupid coaches out there practicin’, gettin’ ready for games and makin’ recruitin’ trips and there I was layin’ down smokin’ cigars.

“I didn’t know who the good high school players were and I didn’t see one high school game in those 2 years. It was a good time for me. When you do somethin’ for 32 years, sometimes it’s good for you to take a break. I got to be with my family. I was doin’ television (color commentary on Atlantic Coast Conference games) and the fans gave me standin’ ovations everywhere I went. Everybody wanted to take me to dinner.”

But Driesell, who turned 57 Christmas Day, is back in sweats watching his players work. See the Dukes run. See the Dukes sweat. See Lefty rant, wave and stomp.

“He really does stomp,” senior forward Anthony Cooley said. “He must feel the vibration all the way up his leg.”

But why have to stomp? Why not keep the big salary and little job and have fun?

I make this announcement with mixed emotions because I have loved every one of my 17 years as head coach at Maryland. But it is obvious that the administration wants to make a coaching change and I do not want to coach if I’m not wanted.

--Lefty Driesell, announcing his resignation as Maryland coach Oct. 29, 1986

Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe Lefty Driesell was born to coach. Maybe a couple of decades from now he’ll keel over while screaming at an official.

But when pressed for the compelling reason behind his return, he said, “I don’t really know . . . a combination of things.”

A strange combination, indeed:

--”I don’t golf. I’m a coach, not a fund-raiser or an insurance salesman. I guess that’s what I do. And I was uncomfortable goin’ over there every day. People at Maryland were extremely nice to me, but I felt like dead weight.”

--”I’m too young to retire.”

--”My wife didn’t want me to coach again. She was dead-set against it. She liked havin’ me at home. We went shoppin’ together a lot. But she wanted to get away from the Maryland situation and she’s got herself a brand new home we just built here (on a free lot).”

--”It’s close enough to our beach house.”

--”My daughter (Pamela) graduated from James Madison and she was pressurin’ me to take the job.”

--”I knew my son (Chuck) was lookin’ for an assistant job and I knew it was an opportunity to hire him.”

Perhaps, although Driesell merely shrugs at the suggestion, it was nothing more than a desire to feel wanted again. He was not openly campaigning for a coaching position when a friend suggested he call Ehlers.

“When we began looking for a coach,” said Ehlers, who needed a replacement for John Thurston, “we didn’t start by saying, ‘We want a Lefty Driesell.’ When it became apparent he was interested, I still didn’t believe it would happen.”

The petitions that were circulated in favor of hiring Driesell and the “We Want Lefty” banners hanging from the dorm windows around the tidy stone campus may have had a stronger impact than anyone believed possible.

“This is a great academic school and any player who visits this campus will give us serious consideration,” Driesell said. “I’ve never been to a school with better spirit. I don’t mean just athletic spirit. Walk around campus and ask kids if they like it. They just don’t say they like it, they say they love it.”

James Madison President Ronald E. Carrier and Ehlers knew they might be opening themselves up to criticism by hiring Driesell, but Ehlers says they’ve received little.

“The stigma of Len Bias’ death will never be eliminated,” Ehlers said. “And there’ll always be references to the academic performances of some of his kids at Maryland. Someone had to be blamed and a coach is responsible for his players, to a degree.

“But we, as coaches or even parents, can only teach and advise. We can’t control every action of our young adults.

“I think Lefty is really happy only when he’s coaching. I think, contrary to what he says, he really missed it. He has a lot of energy and, I believe, a tremendous desire to still coach.”

Don’t forget the desire to win. It’s a driving force in Driesell’s life. During his first meeting with Carrier, Driesell bluntly asked, “Do you want to be in the top 20?”

Carrier says the question took his breath away, but after a minute of consideration, he figured top 20 beats 10-18.

If Driesell really had been candid with Carrier, the James Madison president might still be trying to catch his breath.

“I’m gonna win the national championship here,” Driesell said. “I didn’t come here to be in the top 20. I want to be in the top 10 every year. I was able to do it at Maryland and Davidson. What happens here remains to be seen, of course.

“Talk is cheap. But you don’t have to have but five or six good basketball players to be in the top 10 . . . if you’re willing to work hard. And I don’t figure anybody’s gonna outwork me.”

They were comin’ in before games, playin’ music and dancin’ around. I told ‘em I never saw Buck Williams or Albert King or Tom McMillan dancin’ around before games. Those guys came to a game to go to war.

--Lefty Driesell, on his first game as coach at James Madison

One of Driesell’s first actions as James Madison coach was to suspend senior Kennard Winchester for the season after it was revealed Winchester, a second-team All-Colonial Athletic Assn. selection, had stolen a $15 cord for a VCR.

That left him with a team of six sophomores, three freshmen, three juniors and two seniors that was picked to finish last in the less-than-awesome CAA.

Most of the community’s attention has been focused on next season when Driesell’s recruiting impact will kick in, and transfers Steve Hood, formerly of Maryland, and Fess Irvin, from Louisiana State, will become eligible.

Driesell, however, has no intentions of rebuilding and losing in the process. He has experienced only 1 losing season in 19 years as a college coach--his first year at Davidson College in 1960-61. His nature is to wring something out of whatever he can get his hands on and already he has made this team, well, at least interesting.

“I want these kids to work hard and have pride,” Driesell said. “We can’t get too excited because we haven’t won any conference games yet, and considering the teams we’ve played, we haven’t exactly set the woods on fire, but our goal this year is to win the conference tourney and make the NCAAs.”

When Lefty Driesell talks, his players at least, listen. Some say he’s overbearing, overrated and obnoxious. But you won’t hear such a characterization from his players.

To them, he’s a messiah who will lead James Madison to college basketball’s promised land.

“The minute I heard he was being named coach, I knew right then and there Madison would take off in basketball and reach heights never reached before,” Cooley said.

“We’ve posted the preseason predictions on the board for motivation, but there’s a bigger motivation: There’s no way we’re going to be the second team to have a losing season under Coach Driesell.”

Driesell says he has “never asked any team to do anything but play hard” and he seems to be accomplishing that goal at James Madison. Jim Britt, the Dukes’ radio play-by-play announcer, said he sees more than just hard play on the court this season.

“This team has developed a unity, a team concept, that has to be credited to Coach Driesell,” he said. “Anyone who saw the Dukes play last year would have to notice that difference.”

Some things never change, however, and Lefty’s histrionics remain.

“That’s just my personality,” he said. “One year, when I was about 45, I decided I was too old to be gettin’ all excited. I decided I’d be calm, you know, like John Wooden was, no matter what happened.

“I tried it the whole year and we ended up 15-13. It was the worst year I ever had at Maryland. I found out you have to be your own self. Sometimes I get too excited, gettin’ all mad when somebody throws the ball out of bounds or misses a layup.

“I try to control it, but I want to win real bad and I’m an emotional person.”

Cooley thinks all this foot-stompin’ is the sound of music to the Dukes. “It transfers over to the team,” he said. “Even practices are emotional.

“Coach Driesell is a paradox. There’s all this glamour in college basketball and sometimes he’s in the center of that glamour. Heck, he’s one of winningest coaches in history. But he’s easy to approach and easy to talk to and, at those times, there’s no glamour at all.”

Just the slow drawl, the easy smile and the sweeping waves of those big, but elegant, hands that are one of his main sources of communication.

Recently, Driesell entered the Convocation Center with both palms aimed skyward, and found some players huddled around a phone in the lobby, receiving their fall-quarter grades.

“Well, how did it go?” Driesell asks one.

“They all told me they were gettin’ A’s and B’s,” he said, “but I’ve been anxious to see for myself.”

Lefty’s back. A little older and a lot wiser.