The Billiken Brief : Charlie Spoonhour Isn’t Singing the Blues at St. Louis, Which Is Having One H of a Season

Kevin O’Neill, Marquette’s basketball coach, steers his four-wheel drive through the slush of the parking lot, finds a space and then points Charlie Spoonhour toward the front door of the restaurant.

“I swear, Charlie, we’ll be in and out in 15 minutes,” O’Neill says to the St. Louis coach.

Spoonhour nods. He has a sore throat and the Billikens’ game against Marquette starts in less than three hours. But a promise is a promise, and Spoonhour told his buddy O’Neill that he would say a few words at the weekly booster breakfast. Anyway, O’Neill could use the help. Relations between the locals and the Marquette coach are, uh, a little tense.

“Just as long as I’m back to the hotel by 11,” Spoonhour says, his Arkansas drawl contrasting with O’Neill’s Upstate New York accent.

So here he is, coach of the nation’s unlikeliest 16th-ranked team, stuck in a German restaurant as Marquette boosters, many of them wearing little adhesive tags that read, Hello, My Name Is . . ., chow down on sausages the size of water balloons.

Midway through the pregame cholesterol fest, Spoonhour, 54, is introduced to the crowd. Forks and knives fall silent.

“Well, y’all, I’m not going to get up here and make fun of Kevin,” he says.

And he doesn’t. Instead, he gushes

about Marquette’s tough schedule, about Marquette’s many victories, about O’Neill. To listen to him, you wouldn’t know that St. Louis was on its way to its first NCAA tournament appearance in nearly 40 years, or that the Billikens began the season with 14 consecutive victories, or that white-haired Charlie was one of the better kept secrets in college basketball, a coach-of-the-year candidate if ever there has been one.

“It will look like a father-son game when we get out there,” Spoonhour says to the boosters, who have forgotten all about their mounds of eggs. “We got a player--Donnie Dobbs is his name--and he’s a 6-3 1/2 power forward . . . which is just what everyone in America is looking for.

“Well,” he says, “we got him.”

Spoonhour decides to work the room a bit. So he pulls out some of the A-minus material, which means a visit to Rocky Comfort High in Missouri, where Spoonhour made his coaching debut 34 years ago.

“Rocky Comfort isn’t much of a city,” he says. “There’s no businesses, just one big ol’ school. There was an opening for a coach and I got the job. I believe it was because I was the only applicant.

“First day of school and I’m living in a 8 x 28 pink trailer by the home-ec cottage. That was part of the deal. All of a sudden I hear this banging on the door. I stagger out of bed, open the door and it’s pitch black outside. The school supervisor is standing there.

“I said, ‘What time is it?’

“He says, ‘About 6 a.m.’

“I’m thinking, ‘Six a.m.? I don’t even throw up till noon.’ So I ask him, ‘What time does school start?’

“And he says, ‘We start at 8:20, but you’re driving the bus.’ ”

So Spoonhour drove the bus, even though he didn’t know how to operate the clutch.

“People were yelling at me as I went down the road, ‘Hey, Fatty, grind a pound out for me, too.’ ”

Some of the boosters are slapping their knees by now. This Spoonhour fellow is sort of interesting.

“Reba Westfall was the principal at Rocky Comfort,” Spoonhour is saying. “Now you got to remember that the folks in Rocky Comfort weren’t the most sophisticated in the world. They ate a lot of vanilla wafers and drank milk through a straw. One time Reba got one of the parents real mad at her, so the parent started saying, ‘A spell . . . a spell on Reba Westfall.’

“Well, I didn’t know any better, so I asked what the spell was for. Turns out Harold’s momma put a spell on Reba because Reba flunked Harold in biology.

“So I ask, ‘Anything happen to Reba?’

“They said, ‘Not much. She limped a little.’

“So I say, ‘Is Harold gonna play basketball?’

“They said, ‘Prob’ly.’

“I say, ‘Well, then he’s a starter because I’m not fixin’ to limp.’ ”

And with that, Spoonhour thanks the crowd, puts a final public relations plug in for O’Neill (“I hope you ‘preciate what your team is doing.”) and then takes a seat. A few minutes later, Spoonhour and O’Neill are quick-stepping it out the restaurant, into the four-wheeler and back to the hotel.

“Thanks, Charlie,” O’Neill says.

“Don’t you worry about it,” Spoonhour says.

Later that day Marquette hands St. Louis its first loss of the season. Spoonhour doesn’t seem too upset. He didn’t figure the Billikens would go undefeated.

Truth is, he didn’t figure on any of this.

*

Two seasons ago, the Billikens were 5-23 and finding new and exciting ways to lose games and fans. Then along came Spoonhour, fresh from a nine-year reign at Southwest Missouri State, which might not sound like much until you look at his record.

Victories: 18- 17- 24- 28- 22- 21- 22- 22- 23.

Conference championships: four.

NCAA appearances: five.

NIT appearances: two.

He could have had the Wyoming job, but he changed his mind at the last moment. He was interested in the Kansas opening a few years back, but the offer went elsewhere. “The guy they’ve got has done fair,” Spoonhour said of Jayhawk Coach Roy Williams.

As for St. Louis, Spoonhour isn’t quite sure why he’s there.

“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “Like most things, it seemed like the thing to do.”

Now, his team has a 22-3 record and he is a local celebrity, all thanks to a lineup that includes a point guard--former Nevada Las Vegas player H Waldman--who is as tall as the power forward Dobbs . . . and a center, 6-8 Evan Pedersen, who isn’t really a center at all.

Of course, Waldman is used to winning national championships and Dobbs, despite his size, is averaging about 16 points and six rebounds. The Billikens also have guard Erwin Claggett, who averages about 18 points and, according to Marquette’s O’Neill, is one of the five best players in the difficult Great Midwest Conference.

The rest of the roster could use some work, but no one seems to mind. Fire marshals look the other way whenever the Billikens have a home game. St. Louis Arena, capacity 18,000, is nearly filled to the rafters whenever “Spoonball”--that’s what they call it at the school--is being played.

“They get a standing ovation for blowing their nose,” said a slightly envious O’Neill.

Spoonhour has his own TV show and spends more time on the airwaves than Bob Costas. So numerous were the radio talk-show requests earlier this season, that Spoonhour finally asked, “Doesn’t anyone else in this town talk?”

They do, but for the moment Spoonhour is the one they listen to.

Don’t ask Spoonhour how he did any of this, because he says he doesn’t have a clue. Honest. He got lucky with Waldman’s transfer. Dobbs, his first recruit at St. Louis, was a junior college player who was leaning toward Pacific. Claggett, Pedersen and forward Scott Highmark were leftovers.

“We didn’t have a big plan,” Spoonhour said. “We didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into.”

That’s not entirely true. For instance, Spoonhour knew he wanted the undersized Dobbs. Spoonhour had been recruiting him to come to Southwest Missouri, but now he wanted Dobbs to reconsider schools.

So he called and told him so.

“Donnie,” he said, “I’m going to St. Louis. I’m calling you from the side of the road to tell you that.”

“Naw, Coach, you’re not on the side of the road,” Dobbs said.

“Listen . . . “

Dobbs listened and when he did, he heard the traffic noise.

“Coach,” he said, “I’m coming.”

St. Louis won 12 games during Spoonhour’s 1992-93 rookie season, but it was enough to spark some interest in the program. The Billikens finished 51st in average NCAA attendance, 8,591, which was better than UCLA, Georgetown or Pittsburgh, among others.

This season, St. Louis is averaging about 13,000. At last check, there had been four sellouts.

Spoonhour, no dummy, padded his nonconference schedule this season with the likes of Mercer, Cornell, Chicago State, Augustana, Samford, Creighton and, at the time, undermanned Arizona State.

Better yet, he finally had Waldman available. Waldman, who played on UNLV’s 1990-91 NCAA championship team, gave St. Louis a player accustomed to winning, to top-25 rankings, to NCAA tournaments, to bright lights.

“He’s kind of flamboyant,” Spoonhour said.

Waldman used to infuriate Spoonhour with his mistakes. It got so bad that one day Spoonhour yelled, “Dammit, H, that isn’t Larry Johnson on the end of that pass.”

Waldman has toned down his showmanship, but not his pregame intensity. Even now his teammates marvel at his ability to focus on a coming game.

“We call him Preparation H,” Dobbs said.

But in a good way.

*

Spoonhour sits near the hotel bar and sips a cup of coffee. His throat still hurts, but that doesn’t keep him from telling stories.

As always, there is Rocky Comfort.

“The first volleyball game I ever saw, I coached,” he said.

Spoonhour taught English, drove a bus and coached four sports. He even helped direct the junior class play.

He did all that for $4,280 a year. He lived in that pink trailer and one day discovered the work of an incompetent electrician.

“I turned the shower on and when I woke up I was on the bed,” he said. “The guy had it wired incorrectly and nearly electrocuted me. So I had to turn my shower on every day with a broom handle.”

And if he forgot?

“You’d get a real shock,” he said. “This would be like (Jack) Nicholson in ‘Cuckoo’s Nest.’ That’s about how I looked. You’re sitting on the bed, wet, wondering what happened to you.”

Spoonhour still is wondering how any of this happened. From Rocky Comfort to the top 25 in only 33 years. Imagine.

“Hey, Coach,” a fan says, “give us a shot tomorrow.”

“Hey, you guys be nice to me,” Spoonhour says. “I’m old people. Leave old people alone.”

“But you’re coming in with a ranking,” the fan says.

“I know. Isn’t that silly?” the coach says. “Somebody’s got a sense of humor, don’t they?”