Krzyzewski salutes ‘America’s point guard’ in fight against coronavirus
Anthony Fauci, the medical expert who frequently speaks at President Donald Trump’s daily updates on the coronavirus pandemic, was a guest on Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s Sirius XM radio show last week.
Huh?
Fauci, 79, played point guard on his high school team. Since 1984, he’s been director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a job that now includes being a voice of authority in this country’s handling of the coronavirus.
In other words, Fauci has been a leader on and off the court, which inspired Krzyzewski to tell him, “You know, you’ve been a point guard your whole life. I want to give you a new title: America’s point guard. That’s who you’ve become.”
On the basketball court, Fauci played for Regis High School in New York. He averaged 10.2 points in his senior season of 1957-58. The Wall Street Journal reported that Fauci keeps a miniature basketball hoop in his office. The newspaper described Fauci, the high school basketball player, as a “classic point guard, excellent ball handler, pesky defender.”
Fauci and Krzyzewski repeatedly used a basketball analogy to explain the challenge presented by the coronavirus pandemic.
Fauci described the illness as “a very powerful team” that presented an “unprecedented challenge” for the world.
“I don’t want to scare the American public,” Fauci said, “but this is the real deal. … What we’ve got to do is play a full-court press. … We just have got to be all over them.”
Krzyzewski called the daily briefings “a team meeting with the United States.”
As a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Fauci adds medical insight to Trump’s news conferences. That he seems to speak candidly, and most notably reacted to something Trump said by putting a hand to his face perhaps as if to signal disapproval, has made Fauci a target of criticism from the president’s supporters. It has been reported that Fauci will receive increased personal security protection after receiving threats.
Krzyzewski saluted Fauci’s willingness to speak truth to power.
“You have courage to tell the truth at the moment it needs to be said …,” the Duke coach said. “The more you speak, the more strength you give all of us.”
As for dealing with the coronavirus, Fauci told Krzyzewski that the country is not even at halftime of that life-and-death competition. Victory might not come for another year to 18 months, he said.
“It’s very likely there will be a second seasonal wave of this,” Fauci said. “This is not going to disappear, coach.”
COVID-19 hits home
The coronavirus hit home for Kentucky Coach John Calipari when he learned that it had claimed the life of retired UMass employee Fred Harris. Harris died March 25.
When Calipari started his coaching career at UMass in 1988, Harris worked for the school. According to MassLive.com, one of Harris’ duties was delivering mail. That job took him regularly to the basketball offices.
“He always had a big smile,” Calipari told the website. “He loved sports and loved Massachusetts basketball. UMass basketball was his deal. He would come in and go to practice and be at games. It was a different time. Ours wasn’t a closed ship. It took thousands of people to make that thing go. Fred was one of them. He was a great supporter and great to the kids.”
The two had stayed in touch.
“He was just a good person,” Calipari said of Harris. “You just like to be around those types of people. When I went back up there, I would always see him. Always give him a hug. I’m going to miss him.”
Medical connections
During an SEC teleconference on March 9, the coaches deferred to medical experts when asked about coronavirus. An exception was Mississippi State Coach Ben Howland.
He spoke of how he’d canceled a planned team trip to Spain this coming summer. He also questioned how South Korea could be testing many more people than the U.S.
“It’s ridiculous for the richest country in the world to not be better prepared to test people,” he said.
To explain how he spoke with an authoritative voice, Howland said he had connections to the medical field. A cousin, Jacob Roth, is a leader in the psychiatry department of Kaiser Permanente, a hospital in the San Jose, Calif., area.
And the coach’s daughter, Meredith Howland, is a pediatric oncology nurse at Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA, which is one of the nation’s top five pediatric cancer centers.
Howland said then that he believed that life would begin returning toward normal in June.
Message from God?
In a recent email, former LSU coach Dale Brown likened the ongoing coronavirus pandemic to how God communicated with people in the Old Testament.
“In a few short months, just like God did with the plagues of Egypt, He has taken away everything we worship,” Brown wrote in the email. “God said, ‘You want to worship athletes, I will shut down the stadiums. You want to worship musicians, I will shut down the civic centers. You want to worship actors, I will shut down the theaters. You want to worship money, I will shut down the economy and collapse the stock market.’”
Then, Brown concluded, “Maybe we don’t need a vaccine. Maybe we need to take this time of isolation from the distractions of the world and have a personal revival on the only thing in the world that really matters. And that is to please God.”
Stay tuned
According to consultant Ryan Blake, the NBA closed its offices. Like many other people in the world, league officials are limiting social contact by working from home.
There are conference calls once a week to discuss any number of possible paths forward.
Resume the 2019-20 season in the fall?
Postpone or cancel the NBA Combine that is an annual part of the pre-draft process?
Begin next season on Christmas Day, thus pleasing television and avoiding direct competition with the NFL? Then, end next season in late summer or early fall of 2021, thus avoiding a conflict with the World Series?
Stay tuned.
Holes in one
Let’s borrow from basketball to describe the two holes in one made by Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government councilman Richard Moloney. He has experienced the shocking thrill of a half-court heave that — as if directed by divine intervention — banks off the glass, spins around the rim and then falls into the basket. He’s also enjoyed the satisfaction that comes from defying the odds by executing a heavily contested jump shot.
Moloney’s second hole in one was more like the latter. It came on No. 2 at Golf Club of the Bluegrass on Monday.
“Over water and into the wind,” he said of the 7-iron that he stroked.
Incidentally, Moloney’s cousin, John Mangione, made a hole in one four days earlier on No. 17 at the University Club of Kentucky Big Blue Course.
Former UK basketball coach Joe B. Hall witnessed Moloney’s first hole in one. He said it was in stark contrast to the second.
“The first one was a real fluke,” Hall said. “A worm burner. Rolled up and trickled in. Never left the ground.”
It came on No. 12 at what’s now called Gay Brewer Jr. Golf Course at Picadome in 1991. Hall has been teasing Moloney about this literal stroke of luck ever since.
Moloney and Hall became friends decades ago when the councilman drove the coach to Sewanee to attend a funeral.
Moloney, who saluted the Golf Club of the Bluegrass for enforcing social distancing (only one person at a time in the pro shop), had a good-hearted message for Hall about the second hole in one.
“I want Joe to know I actually hit a real nice one this time,” he said. “So, he can’t make fun of it.”
Happy birthday
To Brian Long. He turned 28 on Thursday. … To Jarred Vanderbilt. He turned 21 on Friday.
