Basketball Coaches Organize Relief Effort

USC basketball Coach Tim Floyd, a former coach of the NBA’s New Orleans Hornets whose sister lost her home in Mississippi to Hurricane Katrina, is among a group of coaches that has organized an online sports auction to benefit Habitat for Humanity’s relief efforts.

Floyd is contributing a Pacific 10 Conference basketball tournament package that will allow the winning bidder to attend USC meetings and practices the week of the tournament, stay with the team at its Los Angeles hotel and join the players for their pregame meal. The package also includes four tickets to the game in Staples Center.

The auction, which begins Sept. 14 at www.AllCoachesCare.com, also will include a package provided by Texas Tech Coach Bob Knight.

Knight will allow the winner to travel with him and his team to Dallas for the Big 12 Conference tournament and stay at the team hotel. The winner also will receive two tickets to Texas Tech’s games.

Floyd, who coached at the University of New Orleans and considers New Orleans and Mississippi home, said he was “heartbroken” over the storm.

UCLA also was preparing items for the auction, being organized by Virginia Tech Coach Seth Greenberg, formerly the coach at Long Beach State, and coordinated by www.AllCoachNetwork.com.

Other items include an Atlantic Coast Conference tournament trip with Greenberg’s team, whose starting forward, Deron Washington, is from New Orleans and whose mother has been displaced to Houston.

Also available will be autographed jerseys from No. 1 NBA draft pick Andrew Bogut and No. 1 NFL draft pick Alex Smith, and autographed items from coaches, including Steve Alford of Iowa, Tommy Amaker of Michigan and Mike Krzyzewski of Duke.

In another relief-related development, the NCAA issued a statement praising schools and conferences for their efforts and suggesting that schools use Midnight Madness and their two basketball exhibition games to support hurricane relief by asking for voluntary contributions at those and other sports exhibitions this fall.