Marquette Basketball Alumni: Class Acts

We don’t cover sports very much, but on occasion we like to point out that the Marquette basketball program has included some very fine young men whose later lives have been a credit to the school.

Two turned up in newspaper columns in the past few days. First, a reminiscence about Glenn (Doc) Rivers, from a sportswriter at the Cleveland Plain-Dealer:

Doc Rivers was a winner in my book long before he hoisted the NBA championship trophy late Tuesday night as the coach of the victorious Boston Celtics.

He was 20 and going by his given name of Glenn when I first met him. He was born Oct. 13, two days before the official opening of the college basketball season. I always thought that was perfect, as if he couldn’t wait to start playing the game he loved.

I wasn’t much older than he was - 26 - and although I wasn’t exactly a cub reporter with The Milwaukee Journal, I was the new beat reporter covering my alma mater, Marquette University. He was the first big star I ever covered.

Only he never acted that way - not from the first day we were introduced to the last time I saw him - after the Celtics beat the Cavaliers in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals earlier this spring. He is one of the most genuine individuals I’ve ever known. He comes from a great family, has a good heart and a great sense of humor.

And then there is a much more recent alumnus, Dwyane Wade:

Barring a last-moment change of plans, Dwyane Wade is heading to Beijing.

Wade, the Miami Heat guard who led his team to the 2006 NBA championship and has been battling injuries for much of the two years since, will be named to the U.S. Olympic basketball team Monday, according to a person familiar with the decision. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because USA Basketball won’t announce the team until Monday.

It would be Wade’s second Olympics; he was part of the bronze-medal winning squad in Athens in 2004. And his workouts in Chicago over the past few weeks have been going on with a gold medal at the forefront of his mind.

“It would mean everything to me,” Wade told The Associated Press last month. “It’s what we talked about after getting the bronze, right after getting that medal, and I really want to be part of the team that puts the USA back on top.”

Wade missed 31 games last season because of injuries, and the Heat suffered mightily, finishing 15-67 the worst record in the NBA.

U.S. professional basketball players have sometimes been accused of taking a jaded and lackadaisical attitude toward the Olympics. We won’t see that from Wade.

Crean Leaves Marquette!

Stunning news.

While we don’t cover sports much, the independent student newspaper The Warrior does, and is a good place to check for news and discussion.

Former Marquette Basketball Player: Rough Road, Good End

From The Winona Daily News, an inspiring account of how Marquette player Jarrod Lovette has finally emerged from a very rocky stretch of his life. Speaking at a church in Atlanta:

He told his audience about the mistakes he had made during his time at Marquette, and the years after he graduated. The way he had dabbled in drugs, including marijuana and cocaine. For the first time, he shared that he had attempted suicide in December 1998, leading to his departure from Marquette. He returned for one game in January 1999, but a panic attack during a game against DePaul ended his college career. He graduated in 1999, but since then he had drifted from job to job — substitute teacher, bartender, disc jockey, counselor for troubled juveniles.

And what is his situation today?

Most of all, Lovette will share his belief that he wouldn’t be where his today without his faith. How his relationship with God has blessed him with many riches. A beautiful wife. A home in Winona Lake, Ind., home of Grace College, and a job as the men’s basketball team’s strength and conditioning coach. An opportunity to attend the school’s seminary and pursue his dream of being a missionary.

It doesn’t matter if Lovette is speaking to people he knows, as he was that December day when he preached to members of the Grace men’s and women’s basketball teams in Atlanta, or complete strangers. He believes in what he says.

Read the whole article. And consider how he can be an inspiration for other troubled young men.

Marquette Can’t Stifle “Warriors”

Marquette, which ignored student and alumni opinion (and at least half of the faculty) to drop the “Warriors” sports nickname, can’t seem to shake the fact that “Warriors” continues to be vastly more popular than the tepid but politically correct “Golden Eagles.”

At the halftime ceremonies of the game Saturday night, the 1977 Warriors team was honored.

The public address announcer did contortions to avoid saying “1977 Warriors,” using terms like “1977 championship team.” But Bo Ellis blew the plan all to hell when he took the floor and said “We are true Warriors, and we are Warriors Forever.” The crowd went wild.

Cracked Sidewalks has the video.

And at the warm-up for the game, ESPN’s Digger Phelps (former coaching rival of Al McGuire) led a chant of “Let’s go, Warriors.”

And of course, we have blogged on the student who was ordered not to wear a headdress to the game, under the threat of having it confiscated and being thrown out of the Bradley Center.

Even the Marquette Tribune, which has a history of siding with the University when conservative students are shut up, objected, noting:

College of Arts & Sciences freshman Dan O’Connell was told by Jim McMahon, dean of Residence Life, he might be kicked out of the game if he wore his headdress. O’Connell said he wore the “Warrior” emblazoned headdress at each home men’s game this season.

Yet halftime’s commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the program’s 1977 national championship found Bo Ellis saying “Warriors forever” to raucous cheering and chanting. To our knowledge, Bo Ellis wasn’t asked to leave the Bradley Center. But then again, he’s not a student and has benefited the university over the years. Still, it’s an unfair double standard.

Bo Ellis: senior on the 1977 national championship team, team MVP, three-time All-American and former Marquette men’s basketball assistant coach for a total of 12 years. Dan O’Connell: paid $55 for Fanatic season tickets and pays tens of thousands of dollars to attend his parent’s alma mater.

No one hushed Ellis, and rightly so. He was celebrating the 30th anniversary of his team’s championship. And though too many at this university overhype the importance of what we call ourselves, Marquette is wrong to keep a student (legacy, no less) from wearing a homemade headdress to cheer on his team. What’s next Marquette? Making students remove their “Warriors Forever” T-shirts?

Given the arrogance of the administration, the answer is simple: yes, that’s probably next.

Headdress Issue: Marquette Bureaucrat Exceeded His Authority

It’s now all over the Milwaukee media, how Assistant Vice President James McMahon summoned Marquette student Dan O’Connell into his office and ordered him not to wear an Indian headdress to tonight’s game at the Bradley Center, on pain of being tossed out of the place and having his headdress confiscated.

One naturally wonders: just what gives McMahon the authority to threaten a student with such an action?

We got McMahon on the phone earlier today, and he refused to discuss the issue at all, referring us to Brigid Miller. But Miller has failed to respond to either an e-mail of ours, or a voice mail we left her.

But she talked to WTMJ Radio. A story on that station’s web site quotes her.

University spokeswoman Brigid O’Brien-Miller says the University doesn’t specifically ban Indian clothing from games. But she says the school wants to make sure that everyone is educated about Native American imagery. “As a University we have a policy that says we will educate fans about our views about wearing that type of thing in the context of athletics. That’s exactly what this conversation was, educating and discussing and we regularly do that,” O’Brien-Miller said.

A bizarre statement.

McMahon didn’t try to “educate” O’Connell. He threatened the student.

And given the lack of any rule against what the student was doing, he was exceeding his authority.

Thus does political correctness on Marquette’s campus increasingly resemble fascism. It’s not just that arbitrary and unfair rules are being laid down. It’s that University bureaucrats don’t feel they need to bother with rules when they are enforcing the politically correct orthodoxy.

Headdress Issue: Student’s Mom Responds

From Patty O’Connell, the mom of Dan O’Connell, the student who was called in and threatened by Assistant Vice President James McMahon. McMahon told O’Connell that if he wore an Indian headdress to the Marquette game tonight, it would be confiscated and O’Connell would be ejected from the Bradley Center.

I heard you already talked to Dan. Just a bit of a background. Our family are lifelong MU fans. My kids have been brought up since infancy loving MU hoops. Contrary to some opinions on the message board he didn’t do it to get on the jumbotron or to get attention for himself.

He believes we should be Warriors. He meant no disrespect to Native Americans. We even researched some head dresses to make it. I made it for him.

He won’t wear it to the game Saturday because he doesn’t want to create a scene or make a statement. He has worn it since the Rutgers game and no one ever said anything until the national spotlight was coming to MU.

McMahon told me it wasn’t a Warriors thing it was disrespectful to Native Americans.

I am an alum as is my husband.

Alas, it doesn’t appear that Marquette bureaucrats in places like the Office of Student Development have any respect for alumni -- nor students for that matter. They worship the Great God Political Correctness.

Indian Headdresses at Tomorrow’s Marquette Game

We blogged just this afternoon about how a Marquette bureaucrat, Assistant Vice President James McMahon, called a Marquette student into his office and threatened that if he wore an Indian headdress to tomorrow’s game at the Bradley Center, the headdress would be confiscated and the student ejected from the game.

Unfortunately the student, Dan O’Connell (who left us voice mail a few minutes ago), has decided he will not wear the Indian garb, since he does “not want to make a scene.”

In reality, it’s doubtful that even Marquette bureaucrats would challenge his headdress, since doing so during a game would indeed create a massive scene, with a huge chorus of boos from the crowd. And a video (or three) of the confrontation would be seen by the whole wide world on YouTube.

But there is good news.

A Facebook group has been started LETS WEAR HEADDRESSES!!! has been started.

(To access the Facebook page, you will have to create an account if you don’t already have one.)

The founder of the group, John Johannes, explains:

In response to the banning of Dan O’Connell’s headdress, lets all wear Indian Headdresses to the PITT Game. They can’t kick us all out, and if they try they will make the university look like an ass! Hell I don’t even know Dan but im on his side! So get all your friends and wear a headdress! Get some construction paper contruction paper and some safety scissors and make your own!

13 people have joined the group.

The project is also promoted on the MARQUETTE VS PITT Facebook page. The group has 35 confirmed guests, but it’s not clear they are committed to wear headdresses, as opposed to merely coming to the game.

On any college campuse, one of the problems with conservative students is that they are . . . well . . . conservative. Respectful of authority. Wanting to live their own lives and not meddle in other people’s business.

But unfortunately, the politically correct administrators at Marquette don’t deserve the respect that a (say) old-style priest or one’s parents deserve.

They deserve to be confronted on their abuse of power, and their intolerance of free expression.

Marquette Basketball Photo Coup

In the Marquette Tribune story on last night’s Villanova game, we couldn’t help being impressed with a splendid photo by Trib photographer Shirley Knowles.

The photo is of freshman guard David Cubillan. It says “I love this game.” It says “I’m a competitor.”

Indeed, it says “I am a Warrior.”

The Tribune showed good judgment featuring it on the front page.

“Marquette Warriors:” Down the Memory Hole

In the novel 1984, protagonist Winston Smith had the job of revising history.

Facts that were inconvenient for the Party were scrubbed out of the historical record.

It wasn’t just that there were “reinterpreted” to serve the interests of the party. They were entirely wiped out, just as though they never happened. They were discarded down a literal “memory hole.”

It seems that in this age of political correctness, 1984 is with us. From the web page “Final Four 2007,” the following historical blurb:

The 2007 NCAA Tournament will mark the 30th anniversary of Atlanta’s first NCAA Men’s Final Four in 1977. Atlanta has a rich tradition is hosting great sports events and we are thrilled to welcome the NCAA, its fan, players and coaches back to Atlanta and to the great Georgia Dome.

A great deal has changed since 1977, when Al McGuire led the Marquette Golden Eagles to their first National Championship against North Carolina in the old Omni.

Of course (for readers who are very young) it was not the “Marquette Golden Eagles.” It was the Marquette Warriors.

This, of course, may well be the result of ignorance on the part of the person who wrote the copy, and not of political correctness. But it never would have happened had Marquette not decided to abandon a proud history as Warriors because of the political correctness of the administration.