In light of Saint Louis University's recent firing of head men's basketball coach Brad Sodberg, I thought it would be relevant to tell of the time I met former men's basketball coach and current University of Washington head coach, Lorenzo Romar.
On Saturday mornings, while a senior in high school, I checked ID's at a local gym. The job was pretty easy: pick up towels, change the water cooler, sweep the floor, make sure nobody blew out their knee, etc. Most of the time I read or studied biology (Probably the reason I remember that Mitochondria = powerhouse of the cell).
Anyway, from 9-12 the gym was reserved for pick-up basketball games. The demographic of this gym was mostly middle age doctors and business man, some local celebrities that your parents would be excited about meeting, and every now and then a former collegiate player--Troy Robertson, Scott Highmark, even Anthony Bonner showed up, until my buddy gave him a hard foul and jeopardized his ten day contract with the Knicks.
On the particular Saturday in question, Highmark showed up accompanied by Romar. For those of you who don't know, Highmark played basketball at SLU in the mid 90s and with Erwin Clagget, H. Waldman, Donnie Dobbs, led SLU to back to back NCAA tournaments.
Now I didn't know much about Lorenzo Romar, but I knew he had played in the NBA. A quick look at Wikipedia confirms that he did indeed play five years for the Warriors. So the field of participants was an All-Conference USA forward, a former NBA player, and a bunch of doctors who had no cartilege in their knees. Bone on bone.
Romar started the game being very defferential. Doing the little things that made him the perfect teammate. Fighting down low for rebounds, solid entry passes and off-the-ball screens. Soon though, his team started to fall behind and that's when Romar morphed into Teen Wolf. Not Jason Bateman Teen Wolf II either. No, we're talking Michael J. Fox, i'm taking this game over Teen Wolf. I mean he was grabbing rebounds at one end, dribbling down the court, pulling up and sinking the shots in another guy's face. Romar was putting on a clinic and brought his team back within one.
But much like the premise of Teen Wolf, the other players became disenchanted with just winning, they wanted to share in the glory. Next time down the court, the ball made its way into the hands of another player. The guy, I believe he was a dentist, was wearing a brace for every appendage, and decided to take a three, which clanked off the rim. Romar was not pleased with the shot selection and decided to let him know about. Romar goes off on this guy at half court explaining the situation, how he has the hot hand, and basically the shot wasn't needed. The dentist tried to defend himself, but Romar would have none of it, telling him next time down the ball had to go through Romar's hands.
Lorenzo Romar: In it to win it
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