Majerus Goes With His Heart

Rick Majerus is back on the sideline.

His knee is fixed, his arteries cleared.

And back home in Milwaukee, his mother, Alyce, “is cancer-free,” Majerus said.

“I know everybody’s mom is special, but she’s got a big-time heart,” he added. “She’s weathered the storm.”

There wasn’t anyone quite like Majerus in college basketball even before he took a leave from his job as Utah’s coach last season--first because of his own health problems, then to be with his mother as she battled cancer for the second time in 13 years.

“I think everyone would do it if they could do it,” Majerus said, aware not everyone can afford to leave a job for months at a time. “I was able to do it.

“There are very few things in life you have only one of. Fifty percent of Americans end up having more than one wife. A number of Americans in Utah have more than one right now. But in life, you only have one Mom, only one Dad.

“I can coach another team. But I can’t get another mother. And I could never repay the one I have.”

So there they were last winter in Milwaukee--the mother whose son likes to say she doesn’t know Gladys Knight from Bob Knight or the NCAA from the National Custard Assn., and the son who lives large on the game of basketball and a wide web of friends.

“Everyone said, ‘Bring her to Utah,”’ he said. “But it’s her canasta club, her condo association, her doctor, her parking garage. She wants to remain independent. I examined every option available, and this was it.”

Majerus’ father, Raymond, died 16 years ago. One sister, Jodi, commutes from Wisconsin to a job in Philadelphia. The other, Tracy, lives in New York.

Majerus was the one able to go home. So he took Alyce, 75, to chemotherapy, fetched the food, watched Oprah and Jerry Springer.

She was not the only one he attended to.

Al McGuire, the former Marquette coach who was mentor and close friend to Majerus, was dwindling away with leukemia.

Before McGuire died in January, Majerus would visit, taking a burger or pizza or ice cream.

“You know, I tell people the nicest little story,” Majerus said. “Every day I would see them both, and my mom would always make an inquiry about Coach McGuire, and Coach McGuire would always ask about my mother. They were more concerned about each other than they were themselves.”

Majerus’ daily concerns are more mundane now. He frets over Utah’s 21 turnovers in a loss to Arizona State, searches for a rotation that will work for a team muddling along at 4-3, its best victory over Pepperdine.

“I really like being in the game,” he said.

This is familiar territory in a way. It is not the first time Majerus has come back after missing most of a season. He was forced to sit out after undergoing septuple-bypass surgery in 1989.

The next season, Utah went 30-4 and reached the 1991 NCAA Sweet 16.

This group doesn’t seem to have such prospects.

Assistant coach Dick Hunsaker took over while Majerus was gone last season and finished with a 19-12 record and a trip to the National Invitation Tournament.

That might be about what can be expected.

The leading scorer from last season, Kevin Bradley, isn’t back because of academic struggles.

“He was eligible. But I’m old-school. I draw a line in the sand,” Majerus said.

Seven of the 10 players in the rotation are playing under Majerus for the first time.

The most prominent player on the team, Chris Burgess, still is trying to emerge in his senior season after struggling with injuries since transferring from Duke after his sophomore year.

“It’s a transition year,” Majerus said, still working to make the team his own.

He is planning for the longer haul--saying perhaps he could squeeze out more victories if he were to sacrifice the development of the team and program.

“If this was the last year of my life and I was never going to coach again, I’d coach them differently,” he said.

Instead, he plans for next season and a recruiting class that will include Tim Drisdom from Downey Calvary Chapel, Richard Chaney from Los Angeles Verbum Dei and Bryant Markson from Monrovia High.

He mother is doing well, but he knows the time may come again when she needs him. He believes he would go.

But if there is another time, he won’t ask Utah to wait.

“I would quit,” he said. “I’d never put a team and my assistants through that again. I can get another job....I don’t think it’s fair to anybody. It’s not fair to the coaches, it’s not fair to the team.”

It’s a job, after all. Not a life.

“Even when things are going bad, and I’ve had tough times before, it’s nothing compared to the chemo room,” Majerus said. “It’s nothing compared to the daily battles people face.

“I tell people I don’t know if there’s a God or not, but if he wanted to teach me a lesson, I didn’t need a lesson. I knew the importance of basketball. It’s never been No. 1 for me. I pour my heart and soul into it, but it’s not No. 1.”