At Harvard, Scalise Gets his Man
by Jay Pearlman
He was in the most difficult of situations, a no-win situation, and one not of his own making. Not one basketball championship in the entire history of the Ivy League, no positive tradition, and an oft-empty gym. He had a good basketball man and better person in the job for sixteen years, but one who lost eight straight conference games last season, with consensus second-place talent. Over forty men’s and women’s teams on campus, and nary an African-American coaching anything. A coaching search entering its sixth week.
All that faced Harvard Athletic Director Bob Scalise late last week when, after consulting with his committee, he resolved to offer Tommy Amaker the men’s basketball job.
Then the recruiting process began, and by a combination of doubling the salary, mobilizing and showing the “team behind the team” Amaker will have, parading a “community of people interested in [the] success [of Harvard basketball],” convincing (and offering) his talented wife, and mostly by good old-fashioned personal persuasion, by yesterday afternoon Amaker said yes, and Scalise had his man. Somehow, without a single game being played or player recruited, all those difficulties melted away. And in the process, just maybe Harvard basketball was transformed forever.
While characteristically understated, Scalise was excited as I entered his office Thursday afternoon, even proud. Not the kind of pride that goeth before the fall, not beating his chest pride, not a taking the credit and seeking the spotlight pride, just a personal pride in the certainty that he’d done what he had to do, what he was supposed to do, and done it well. Regrettably this reporter – and alum – couldn’t be at the press conference today at which Scalise will introduce Amaker, but Scalise knows (and I suspect will tell Amaker) that that’s circumstantial. What is important is that somewhere in our conversation, in the first few minutes in fact, I came to believe that everything really is different now; that with all due respect to Coach Frank Sullivan and his predecessors, maybe now Harvard can win an Ivy championship in basketball.
You know, they always say (whoever “they” are) that the next coach gets everything the prior coach couldn’t get to win, and Scalise didn’t hide the university’s enlarged commitment. It was as if Amaker had recognized his energy, taken it in, and then reflected it in kind, making Scalise’ commitment all the stronger. To begin our interview, Scalise repeated something he’d told SID Kurt Svoboda yesterday: it is his, the athletic department’s and the university’s “goal to win the Ivy League in men’s basketball.” It’s a simple statement, at some institutions ordinary, but not at Harvard. I’ve been around this old university on and off since the ’70’s, and I had never before heard or read those words.
Then I asked about other changes I thought were needed: a Director of Basketball Operations, more money for assistant coaches, a basketball secretary. In global response, Scalise told me that he’d investigated the resources expended by Penn in winning the conference year after year, and that Harvard is prepared to match those resources. “We’ll do things the way Coach Amaker asks us to do them, but we’ll match the resources spent to win the conference.” Then, admitting that Lavietes Pavilion is not the Palestra (and at least acknowledging the possibility of college doubleheaders again some day in the Garden), Scalise smiled, may even have winked, and whispered that “in the right circumstance (presumably if the team is a little better), Lavietes can be a pit of a home court to play in.”
I asked about admissions, and particularly about the all-important January 1 application cut-off. Actually, I prefaced like the former Division III and mid-major assistant that I am by pointing out that all of recruiting is a “drop-down process,” that as a junior every single high school player is Duke material, that doubt creeps in over the summer and when one goes unsigned in the fall, and that even the most academic of high school players don’t think Ivy League until the second half of their senior seasons. Acknowledging the process, Scalise told me that the January 1 date is (or at least will be) flexible, and when I asked how flexible he spoke the date March 15 as a real application deadline. Not perfect in a “drop-down world,” but a key 2 1/2 months better than advertised. (Yes, I just might send a copy of this article to Coach Amaker).
I asked about scheduling more local rivals (Northeastern, UMass, BC) more often, and Scalise deferred to his prize new coach. Likewise, when I suggested more national academic powers, such as Duke, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Stanford and Northwestern (Michigan actually comes to Cambridge next winter), Scalise again deferred. And when I asked about getting some games on television, he answered conservatively that “TV most often follows a team’s success, rather than preceding it.”
I asked him to confirm a forthcoming calendar change at Harvard (likely at Princeton too), moving exams to just before Christmas like everywhere else, and without 100 percent confirmation or timing, Scalise assured me that was coming. (This is notable because Harvard has historically fared poorly upon returning from exams in late January.) When I asked about a post-season Ivy basketball tournament, Scalise was unequivocal in his support and thought the league members to be close to agreement “philosophically,” but less close on the physical and procedural details of such a tournament. When I pressed, he nodded agreement with my suggestion that “less close” might be measured in years, not months.
Finally, I asked about level of play in the conference, about Princeton’s fall from basketball grace, about academic admissions getting tougher each year than the year before, about tuition of $45k and no scholarships, about whether Princeton’s Joe Scott leaving the alma mater he’d come home to three years earlier implied a conclusion that he couldn’t recruit Division I caliber players under these conditions. Fortified by the impending arrival of Duke player and Michigan coach Amaker, Scalise wasn’t buying the premise of the question.
“How many good players do we need to win in this league,” he asked. When I said three in most leagues but two in this one, he told me he thought we could “bring in two a year, not just two every four years.” He speculated that the hard-nosed militaristic style Bob Knight started using at Army likely no longer works with Harvard, Yale and Princeton kids, suggested that a new leadership style may again bring quality players to Jadwin, even questioned whether or not Pete Carril’s crusty, biting, condescending style would work today, at least when delivered by a coach without twenty-five years of success behind him.
“That’s why we brought in Tommy Amaker,” he said as we wound down the interview.
Ok, I agree. Not a game has been won, nor a player recruited, but I agree. The landscape of Harvard basketball may well have been changed forever this past week, when Scalise got his man. Now, Scalise may be heard mouthing to Amaker those famous words of a tough old boss of coaches on that other coast: “Just Win, Baby”. Maybe now he can.
