Miracle at the ‘Mount’

The Virgin Mary seems to float above the campus of Mount St. Mary’s College here in northwestern Maryland, her robes skimming the tops of the bare-limbed trees.

Far below the tower-mounted gold statue of the Blessed Mother, past the quaint old stone buildings of a school founded in 1808 by an immigrant priest, a basketball team practices.

Its players and coaches believe that if they have not somehow witnessed a minor miracle, they are at least part of something extraordinary.

This is not merely the story of another longshot, though it is partly that. The Mountaineers were a 12-14 team only two weeks ago, but they will play Michigan State in the first round of the NCAA tournament on Friday after winning three consecutive games to sweep the Northeast Conference tournament. The last of those, incidentally, was Coach Jim Phelan’s 800th victory--a milestone only Adolph Rupp, Clarence “Big House” Gaines and Dean Smith reached before he did.

“Eight hundred, coming the way that it did--at the end of a three-game tournament, where if you win you go to the NCAA tournament--was something special,” said Phelan, a bow-tied gent who turns 70 this month and has been coaching at Mount St. Mary’s for 45 years.

Senior forward Tony Hayden said, “You think about 800, when a great season here is 20 wins. What’s 20 into 800? It blows your mind.”

This is also a story about forgiveness, and whether it is wise to offer it.

Mount St. Mary’s best player, 6-foot-10 center Melvin Whitaker, watched the NCAA tournament from prison last season.

“Everybody there is pretty much sports fans, basketball fans,” Whitaker said. “A lot of people requested that we watch it and we did. A few games.

“I always pictured myself in it.”

He seemed on his way three years ago.

But in March 1996, Whitaker slashed the face of another young athlete after a pickup basketball game at the University of Virginia, where he was preparing to enroll after a high school career as one of the top 50 players in the nation.

After tangling with Virginia football player Maurice Anderson, Whitaker left and reportedly returned with a box cutter he used to open wounds on Anderson’s face that required 75 stitches.

“I made a mistake, like everybody in the world,” said Whitaker, who turns 23 this month. “I’m not saying that’s an excuse or anything like that. That’s just the facts. I made a mistake.”

He pleaded guilty to malicious wounding with intent to maim, disfigure, disable or kill, and served almost 2 1/2 years in the Powhatan Correctional Center, though he disputes whether the weapon was a box cutter, saying it was an accessory on a key chain.

Only a detail.

“It was something sharp, and he did it, and it was a vicious attack and he certainly paid the price,” Phelan said.

But Whitaker was welcomed at Mount St. Mary’s in November, after his release.

There are plenty of other schools that would take a former convict, and have.

There are plenty that would not.

But for Mount St. Mary’s to do it seems incongruous at first. A small Catholic school?

Quite so, Phelan said.

“Forgiveness, particularly after doing the penance, is certainly the heart and soul of Catholicism,” he said. “Catholics have a saying, ‘Forgiveness is our business.’ ”

For the coach at a big state school, a powerhouse, to say he was taking an NBA prospect partly in the spirit of religious forgiveness would be ridiculous, maybe even odious.

Many another small school would be condemned for accepting Whitaker, especially if it had a coach perceived to be on the make.

Phelan, however, isn’t bucking to make it anywhere, and his career has already been stamped by an NCAA tournament appearance in 1995, five trips to the Division II Final Four and the 1962 college division national championship. He also was an assistant coach at LaSalle, his alma mater, when Tom Gola led LaSalle to the 1954 NCAA title. (His most notable player at Mount St. Mary’s has been Fred Carter, the former NBA player and coach.)

“We were taking a chance on Melvin, but I wasn’t really concerned about my reputation,” Phelan said. “It’s one of those things where you accept the fact that there was an aberration. He had positive recommendations from the different high schools he had attended. He had never been in trouble before.”

Whitaker, originally from Raleigh, N.C., became familiar with Mount St. Mary’s after the attack while staying in nearby Gettysburg, Pa., with the family of a high school friend from Virginia’s Oak Hill Academy, and his enrollment began to become a possibility.

“My assistant coaches had seen him play, but we don’t recruit at that level,” Phelan said. “That’s left to the ACC, the Big East, the Big Ten, the Pac-10.”

The ultimate decision was made last year by school President George R. Houston Jr., who says he has no doubt he made the right choice.

Phelan believes it might have been different if Whitaker hadn’t served time, as once seemed a possibility under a plea agreement.

“The fact that he would go to school without paying the price after having committed this assault, there was resistance to that,” he said.

“A resistance not so much from the administration, but from people around the campus. Part of the faculty, part of the administration, part of the alumni.

“But then he was convicted and sentenced to jail, and served almost three years. And about six months before his release, he called and asked if we would be interested in allowing him to come to school here.

“So then we ran it all the way up to the vice president, to the president of the alumni, to the student body, to everybody. And there was almost unanimous agreement that, yes, he had paid the price, he had gone to jail, he had served the time, and he was deserving of another chance.

“At that point, there was virtually no resistance. They did get one or two letters, and actually I think one parent said they wouldn’t send their child to Mount St. Mary’s.”

Whitaker became eligible to play Dec. 19, and scored two points in 10 minutes. He faced taunting a few times, once with chants of “jailbird,” another time with “box cutter.”

By a Jan. 4 game against St. Francis, he became a starter. His season high was 23 points, and he led the conference in blocked shots with 63 in only 21 games--eight against Central Connecticut State in the NEC title game. He emerged as the team’s leading rebounder and third-leading scorer, averaging almost 11 points a game behind junior guard Gregory Harris, who averages 17 points, and Hayden, who averages slightly more than 11.

Hayden admits Whitaker’s arrival worried him. The violent act stemmed from an on-court altercation, after all.

“It did a little, because it was a terrible thing that happened,” Hayden said. “But I really trust [assistant coach Don Anderson], and he told us he knew him as a person.

“It blows your mind that something like that happened. Whatever happened, happened. You move on.”

Whitaker’s victim has tried to as well, but Anderson has not granted Whitaker the forgiveness he has sought in two letters.

“I think his biggest regret is that the victim won’t accept his pleas for forgiveness,” Phelan said.

Mount St. Mary’s has granted its absolution, and the school with an enrollment of 1,400 known simply as “the Mount,” will go up against mighty Michigan State on Friday.

“Well, this No. 801 will be the hardest,” said Phelan, mindful that no 16th-seeded team has never knocked off a No. 1.

No. 801 probably will come, as many of the others have, almost by surprise.

“Eight hundred never really crossed my mind until suddenly last year, when everybody said, ‘You’re at 785 and you’re going to get to 800 next year,’ ” Phelan said. “Boy, it didn’t look like it was going to get here the way the season was going. It was such a mediocre season.

“Then when it happened, it was like the planets got in line and Venus and Mars came together and all of a sudden good things happened that hadn’t been happening. My wife attributes it to prayer.”

Phelan has been here since 1954 and has outlasted more university presidents than you can count on one hand.

“I think seven or eight,” Phelan said. “And it’s almost the same with presidents of the United States. I started with Ike. Ike was president.”

Despite the simple beauty of the opportunity to go out with 800 wins and an NCAA tournament team, no one expects Phelan to retire any time soon.

“Nah, he told me when he was recruiting me he was going to stay around for at least four more years,” said Harris, a junior. “More and more people keep talking about it, but he still feels like he has a love for the game and can communicate with the players, so he doesn’t have any interest in retiring.”

He has coached 1,242 games--more than anyone else except Gaines, who coached 1,275--and has had only eight losing seasons in 45 years.

“My idol is Joe Paterno, just up the road in State College,” Phelan said. “I’ll hang in as long as he does.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Winningest Coaches

Most victories, college basketball coach:

Coach, School(s) (Years): Record, Pct.

1. Dean Smith, North Carolina (1962-97): 879-254, .776

2. Adolph Rupp, Kentucky (1931-52, 54-72): 876-190, .822

3. Clarence Gaines, Winston-Salem (1947-93): 828-447, .649

4. Jim Phelan, Mt. St. Mary’s, Md. (1955-): 800-442, .644

5. Henry Iba, NW Missouri St. (1930-33),: 767-338, .694

Colorado (1934), Oklahoma St. (1935-70)