Sneed Having Great Time Cast in Role of ‘John of Arabia’ : Basketball: Former Titan coach working to raise level of sport in desert nation.

Operation Desert Sneed has begun, and while it may not be the easiest of missions, it figures to be a lot of fun.

John Sneed, fired as Cal State Fullerton’s basketball coach after a four-year career that was at times exhilarating, often exasperating, but mostly frustrating, has experienced a renaissance of sorts since becoming Saudi Arabia’s national team coach in June.

No longer plagued by those Titan-sized problems at Fullerton--limited resources, player revolts, team dissension--and engrossed in a new job and culture, Sneed seems to have swallowed a big chill pill since last winter.

“I’ve learned a great deal of patience,” said Sneed, whose Fullerton teams went 55-59 from 1988-92. “People in the United States are on a schedule, always rushing around to get somewhere, always under the gun, but this isn’t as stressful. I think I needed a change, and I was very fortunate to land this position.”

Sneed spent most of July touring Saudi Arabia, scouring club teams for talent for the national team and junior national team, learning the kingdom’s traditions and soaking up its hospitality. When he returned to Orange County with his national team, which is training here for most of August, even Sneed’s wife, Rose, could notice the change.

“He’s a lot more relaxed,” Rose said. “He’s enjoying himself, and the players seem very easy to get along with. They’re very proud of their heritage. We had dinner with them the other night, and they sang and clapped. It’s very interesting to be a part of it.”

There’s something soothing about the whole atmosphere surrounding Sneed. At Fullerton, he had to stop practices to discipline players. With the Saudi Arabian team, he has to stop practices to pray.

Muslims pray four times a day, and when one of those prayer times falls during practice, Sneed calls a timeout and prays with his players.

At Fullerton, players sometimes grumbled about Sneed, questioned his coaching decisions and tested his patience--they once formed a mutiny against him, hoping to get him fired. The job was part coaching, part crisis management.

But Sneed is now treated with the reverence of a sheik by obedient and appreciative players who affectionately call him, “Mr. John.”

“Let’s just say we don’t have any discipline or budget problems,” Sneed said. “It’s a different culture. A kid would never speak back to a coach. There’s a great deal of respect (for superiors). You can see it in their family system. They don’t drink, and there’s very little crime in their country. It’s the way of life.”

Sneed wouldn’t say much for the record about his team’s budget, but suffice it to say, the word “limited” never came up.

Saudi Arabia is an oil-rich nation, and it appears to be pumping some of that wealth into basketball.

Brand new facilities are popping up all over the kingdom, and Sneed’s team will be based in a nice, 8,500-seat arena in Riyadh that he calls, “My little Thomas & Mack Center.” Whatever equipment Sneed needs, he gets.

Sneed, who declined to reveal his salary but said it’s much more than the $65,000 he made at Fullerton, took $1,500 to Saudi Arabia in July and came back with almost all of it--he never had to buy a meal or pay for a hotel room.

The team, which travels with a general manager and an accountant, is spending almost the entire month of August at the Fullerton Marriott, and most of its meals are catered. If there’s something they want that the locals don’t know how to prepare, they have recipes faxed from Riyadh.

When Sneed’s family joins him overseas in October, their home will be in an American compound that Sneed describes as “the Park Avenue of Riyadh.”

Sneed got a good feel for the country’s wealth when he attended a reception held in honor of a team that had won a recent tournament. It was given by Prince Abdulrahman Abdullaziz, the president of the Saudi Arabian Basketball Federation.

“We went in, and there was all this incredibly plush furniture and a beautiful, solid gold chandelier,” Sneed said. “But that was only the waiting room.”

If only Saudi Arabia was as rich in basketball talent, Sneed’s job would be easy. This kingdom might have the real Mecca, but it’s no hoops mecca, which makes Sneed’s task all the more challenging.

His national team, which has been scrimmaging area teams at Chapman on Friday nights, is composed of players ranging in age from 21-30. Sneed said they are comparable to an NCAA Division II or a very good community college team.

They might be competitive in their tournaments--they play in the Arab Games at Damascus, Syria in September, travel to the Gulf Games at the United Arab Emirates in the fall and will play in Beijing next year--but they are light years from an Olympic berth.

“I’m trying to upgrade basketball as a whole,” said Sneed, who also will oversee the country’s club teams and set up clinics for coaches and players. “It’s a five-year plan, and the first thing we need to do is get the youths interested and develop the junior national team.

“The Saudis love to play, but the sport is so new to them, and many don’t start until a later age. They have the physical skills, but they’re not being taught at a young age.”

Four of the team’s 14 players are fluent in English, six understand varying degrees of the language, and four don’t speak much English at all. Sneed has a bilingual assistant who translates, but the language barrier still has made for some humorous exchanges.

“I told one kid not to telegraph a pass, and he gave me this perplexed look, like he didn’t know what a telegraph was,” Sneed said. “I made a motion with my hands like I was using a telegraph and he said, ‘Oh, we don’t telegraph anymore, we fax.’ So I said, ‘OK, don’t fax the pass.’ ”

Sneed has learned many of the Saudi customs and has even donned a keffiyah , the traditional Arab head covering, during dinner. Instead of saying, “Goodby” or “See you later,” he says, “In Shaallah.”

The phrase means, “God willing,” but for Arabs, it’s an all-encompassing saying that is used much the way those in Hawaii use, “Aloha,” or those in California use, “Later dude.”

But Sneed has been passing some of his American--and Californian--culture to the Arab players this month.

The team has gone to Disneyland--the players gave Space Mountain a thumbs-up--and Sneed has planned outings to other local attractions. They’ve seen American movies and baseball, America’s pastime. After what happened on the first night in Fullerton, Sneed learned to keep a close eye on them.

“Five of the guys decided they wanted to walk back to the hotel from the Sizzler after dinner,” Sneed said. “They ended up walking on the 57 freeway.”

It seems every day Sneed finds something to laugh about, something to enjoy. He’s so happy, he refused to say even one bad word about his previous employer.

With last season winding down, tensions between Sneed and Athletic Director Bill Shumard revving up and Sneed’s firing seeming more imminent by the day, Sneed indicated that, when it was over, he might tell his side of the story.

But when the school announced in mid-March that his contract would not be renewed, he didn’t blast the athletic department. Sneed didn’t comment publicly on his firing, and even months later, he decided to handle the issue with diplomacy.

“I’m not living in the past--that’s all behind me,” Sneed said. “I spent 12 years there (eight as an assistant), had a lot of good times and made a lot of friends, who I’m still in contact with. Things turn out for the best sometimes, and I’m really enjoying what I’m doing. Every day is a learning experience, and every day brings something new.

“You can’t put a value on the educational experience for my family. I’d never get to see the world, but now I will. And at the same time I’m coaching basketball, which is what I love.”