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http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-h...9483491-9839069

He has 3 books listed on Amazon. One apparently has not been released yet. I have the two others and I believe two more which may not have gotten as wide scale printing as these did. I will have to search in a few boxes for them.

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You may have a skewed view of those early years.

His talent for his first 5 to 6 years was horrendous. Something that you cannot even imagine now. You know how Mizzou does not play us because they are scared to lose to their little neighbor, well we had to do the same thing back then only we had to stop playing UMSL because they were killing us. Lets just say Drew Diener would have been the MVP of many of those teams year in year out. Any coaching irregularities I have to attribute to lack of any talent on the floor.

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You have to remember that those first several years where right after the school threatened to drop hoops altogether. Instead they chose Hockey. Coming off a scare like that, its tough to get any momentum going and get any decent recruits to come in. Besides, he also had to deal with the (for lack of a better word) talent that Ekker brought in.

An aside, in a situation like that (where a program almost drops a sport), how do you recover? I can see where 20+ years ago the news of such a threat wouldn't travel as quickly as now, but how will a school like Tulane get anything going with their latest threat. (they have since decided to remain D1). I think its gonna be quite tough on them and they'll remain conference bottomfeeders in whatever conference they wind up in after the upheaval.

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jj makes a good point i managing players in games. I recall that Jeff Leuctefeld and John Duff had to deal with that a lot when they would be instantly pulled after missing a three point shot. It wasnt as if they were ill-advised shots either, just ones that missed. And how can we forget the Kevin Footes saga.

I like Grawer a lot and felt that he did get quite a bit out of some lesser talented players at times, but his recruiting was probably too local for a school that wanted to compete on a national scale with the AD at the time being Debbie Yow. (man,wish she was still here)

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The bottom line for Rich, who was a good friend of mine when he was at SLU, is that he is just like the rest of us--he is human with all of the strengths and weaknesses that are typical of a high achieving person!

He performed a miracle in bringing the Billiken program back from the dead! He did a great job in recruiting in St. Louis in the days when national recruiting was in its infancy for most teams.

He was a good but not great coach during games. His nemisis at Xavier--Pete Gillen- always seemed to pull the right strings to eliminate the Bills from NCAA contention.

Rich came from a background that did not force him to deal with talented but moody players who needed special treatment. It was not a racial thing because he loved and thrived with Bonner and Gray-- because they were self motivated players who tried to get better every day. He was frustrated by Monroe Douglas because he did not have that same attitude but he did what he could to help him get better. In fact, Monroe was little better when he left while Gray and Bonner were much improved.

In his last year Rich thought he had the potential to have a great team. I remember an early scrimmage where Melvin was dominating, skinner was cleaning the boards and everyone was shooting lights out! Rich was beaming and I thought it would be by far the best Billiken team of the modern era.

But the team imploded. Why? the answer is complex--Rich made a terrible decision in recruiting to promise the hs all american freshman (and son of asst coach Lee Winfield) julian W. that he would start at point guard in order to enhance his value for an NBA career. Rich did not understand that Claggett was a star-- and most important--Rich was not able to deal with Melvin, Skinner and Irvin effectively-- he wanted them to be just like Bonner and Gray--highly motivated and working hard all of the time. They were more complicated and needed a different approach-- an approach that Rich could not bring himself to use because it would not require that each player to be self motivated and dedicated. They were more like a lot of modern day NBA players--talented but not dedicated to their craft and in need of "special treatment" in order for them to succeed in a team setting.

Who do we blame? the answer is no one!! Rich was doing what he thought was right and he lost his job because of his intransigence. Melvin was a very young man who was hurt and bitter by the style of Grawer's coaching. Let's all remember how we were at age 18-- not all of us were intensely motivated and we would not all react well to a pushy coach. Let's let it go and wish all concerned well in their new endeavors. There is no reason to blast Grawer or Melvin at this point!!

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Great post. I think you summed up most of my thoughts on the matter quite well.

When I started this topic, I had no idea it would draw THIS much attention. It was not my intent to trump up one and put down the other. I just wanted to tell Melvin's story and ask people to back off.

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