A Few Washington-Related Tidbits in Lute Olson's Book
Longtime University of Arizona basketball coach Lute Olsen wrote an autobiography, Lute! The Seasons of My Life, and if this site were for basketball fans, we'd write at length about the book's insight on recruiting, Olson's relationship with his players, and about how being a student-athlete has changed.
It also illustrates how culturally distant Olson (or his ghostwriter) is from the kids of today:
Kids ... want discipline, direction, and leadership. And if you give it to them, they'll follow you, whether they're listening to Elvis Presley on their transistor radios or Coldplay on their iPods.
Huh? We're pretty sure Salim Stoudamire doesn't listen to Coldplay. Anyway, if you are a college sports junkie, the book is fascinating.
As it is, though, this site's about Seattle, so we culled some of the best pertinent stuff.
- Olson relates a story about how George Raveling brought potential recruits in from the airport when he coached at Washington State:
The drive from Spokane to Pullman is mostly hills and farmlands, not exactly what kids from cities want to see. Coach George Raveling told me once that he solved that problem by making sure his recruits arrived at night, then he had them driven to Pullman in a van without any windows.
- About East Coast basketball poll bias:
I've always believed West Coast teams suffer in the polls because of the three-hour time time difference between coasts. Our games start too late to attract a large audience in the East and finish too late for stories to make the morning papers. That means a lot of poll voters don't see West Coast team often enough to make a fair judgement.
- On Franklin High's Jason Terry
I remember watching [Terry] at the Basketball Congress International. BCI rules mandated that every kid played a certain number of minutes. I just loved Jason Terry because when he was on the bench, he was right there in the middle of the game, standing up and cheering every good pass, every bucket ... We knew he could play the game, but it was that team attitude that made him such a desirable recruit.
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