I walked into Bob Dobbs Bar and Grill - a classic neighborhood tavern in Tucson, about four blocks east of the Arizona campus - and explained to the bartender why I was there: to talk to some die-hards about Kevin O’Neill.
“He’s my boyfriend’s father,” she replied.
I should have known. Despite its 500,000 or so residents, Tucson is an amazingly small town, where everybody knows everybody.
The bartender was a little too close to O’Neill to discuss him objectively, so she pointed me to the patio, where a group consisting mostly of middle-aged men was enjoying after-work drinks and smokes. A brown awning blocked the late-afternoon sun and made it tolerable to sit outside in the 100-degree heat.
They were all big Arizona basketball fans, of course, and they all expressed the same sentiment about O’Neill:
That USC just hired a very good coach and a great guy who will work tirelessly to build a winning program.
“It couldn’t have happened to a neater guy,” said one of the patrons, Dave LaCompte. “It’s poetic justice. And we love Arizona.”
“We can’t hate the USC basketball team anymore,” added another, Bob Lince.
The lone female in the group, Janet Hare, said people were wearing USC hats at Bob Dobbs on Sunday, the day after O’Neill was hired. She said she and some of her friends were planning a trip to Los Angeles for the Dec. 19 game against Tennessee, another of O’Neill’s former coaching stops.
Nothing was like Arizona, though. O’Neill’s second stint there, starting in spring 2007, began normally enough: He was the top lieutenant to Lute Olson. By the fall, Olson was on an indefinite leave of absence for somewhat mysterious reasons, making O’Neill the interim coach. In December, Arizona athletic director Jim Livengood dubbed O’Neill the successor to Olson. The following spring, after Olson announced he would return, he surprisingly dismissed O’Neill from the staff.
Whether Olson was of sound mind at the time is up for debate. Before this past season began, he retired. A few days later, a doctor revealed that Olson had suffered a small stroke sometime in the previous year.
Regardless, O’Neill was out of a job, and a sequence of events had begun that eventually would lead to where we are today.
Russ Pennell served as Arizona’s interim coach for 2008-09. Livengood interviewed USC’s Tim Floyd for the job in Tucson this spring. Floyd turned it down, but his public flirtation with the Wildcats soured several recruits who later would renege on their commitments after a Yahoo! Sports story implicated Floyd in an ongoing NCAA investigation.
Arizona hired Sean Miller. Floyd resigned. USC hired O’Neill. And the regulars at Bob Dobbs Bar and Grill couldn’t be happier for someone they consider a regular guy.
“Everybody (in the basketball program) undercut Kevin while he was here,” Lince said. “Never once did he comment publicly about getting a rotten deal.”
Hare said O’Neill is different from any coach she has been around. At the team banquet after the 2007-08 season, O’Neill stood at the exit and shook everybody’s hand.
“Every fan, every kid,” Hare said. “I’ve been to a lot of banquets. No coach has ever been that gracious.”
The same could be said of the patrons at Bob Dobbs, who wished me well as I left the bar about 6 p.m. I knew the O’Neill supporters I had just spoken to represented only a small sample size. But I got the same vibe about him from my wife’s family members at a get-together the previous day.
Doubts will linger until O’Neill starts winning. Hare, for one, had none.
“Give him time to build his program and do it his way,” she said, “and it’ll be a standout.”
More from the USC blog:
- An Oregon Ducks uniform upgrade?
- Poll: Is it wrong to move the Rose Bowl?
- NBA draft: DeMar DeRozan in NYC
- USC basketball: Leonard Washington uncensored
- Garrett says NCAA investigation has USC ‘in limbo’
- USC basketball: Garrett says Floyd ‘was not forced out’
- USC basketball: O’Neill excited to bear Trojans’ burdens
- USC basketball: O’Neill and Garrett MFEO
- USC basketball poll: Do you like the O’Neill hiring?
- USC basketball: Trojans hire Kevin O’Neill
This is excellent. In such stark contrast to the piling on negativity of most MSM sports reporting. I think KO is in a perfect position here. Underestimated, underappreciated, chip on his shoulder, and extremely smart. KO will surprise the naysayers. I can’t wait.
I’m in Tucson and when I heard SC hired O’Neill, I laughed. So did everyone I knew. Most of us are U of A Alum and all of us are fans. If he stayed last year, we would not have made the Tournament. He’s a good coach, but nobody wants to play for him. He has a lot of college coaching years and is below .500 lifetime despite being at good programs. I pick Oregon State to finish #9 in the Pac-10 next year, followed by USC. Go Cats.
kevin o’neill is a perfect fit here!!!!! i saw him at arizona and in the nba
Kevin O’Neill should buy that Tucson bar … oh wait, USC doesn’t pay basketball coaches that much …
Seriously, though, Michael I love this story.
DJV, you are an idiot. Northwestern is a good program? Tenn, which had 5 wins prior to KO, was a good program. You do not knoweth what you speaketh. Cats suck!