FloridaMan88
01-17-2008, 04:05 PM
The fat guy is wack! This is from a lengthy SI article about him this week...
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/basketball/ncaa/01/16/majerus0121/3.html
http://i.a.cnn.net/si/2008/basketball/ncaa/01/16/majerus0121/p1_majerus4.jpg
Something about the body: Is it a weapon? A shield? Or is it just that Majerus, unlike so many in our fit-versus-fat culture, simply doesn't care about the impact of his physique? He may be the least self-conscious man alive. How else to explain his propensity to get naked -- in practice, watching film, at meetings, during interviews? Nearly every former player of Majerus's has a can-you-believe-it anecdote.
"The first time, [Utah was] recruiting me, and after the game I went down to the [Utes'] locker room," says Jeff Johnsen, who signed with Utah in 1996. "His hair's everywhere and his sweater's off and he's just drenched, and he's eating a whole pizza in front of me and he's like, 'You want any?' I grab a piece, and then he starts undressing and gets in the shower and is still talking to me. It was funny. It was weird. How many grown, fat, naked men do you see when you're a high school kid?"
Another player remembers Majerus calling him up to his hotel room on various occasions, and "he'd answer the door in his towel and I'd come in and the towel would fall off and it was like nothing had happened. He'd just be standing there buck naked. One year he had this lower-back injury, and he would have the trainer massage it with ultrasound. But instead of just lowering his pants a little bit, Majerus would pull his pants down to his ankles and sit in a chair and coach us. Sometimes he'd be like, 'Guys, bring it in, take a knee.' We'd come in, and we're just like, No way this is happening."
None of these players believes that his habit of dropping trou was sexual. In a sense, the players look upon it as their coach's greatest sight gag, made even loonier by his deadpan expression. "He's oblivious," Burgess says. "He just doesn't care."
Indeed, Majerus doesn't see why anyone would look at his casual nudity as odd. "I mean, we all have foibles," he says. "Talk to my two secretaries [at Utah]; I'm very close to them. [One time] I had to get a colonoscopy. Kelly [Miller] took me down for it and then took me back to the hotel, because you can't drive [after the procedure], and she undressed me and got me on the bed. I didn't ask her to; she took care of me. My last secretary, Whitney [Lindgren]? People used to walk in my room or the coaches' room, and Whitney would be walking on my back. She was about 100 pounds, and I told her, 'Here's the vertebrae and here's what we're trying to align.' Or she'd sit on my back with her butt facing my feet, because it flattened out whatever those things are. I used to look at film while she'd do it."
Yet there have been instances, with even his favorite players, in which Majerus's behavior was decidedly odd. Doleac spent his first three years at Utah shell-shocked by Majerus's tirades, his knack for calling his players "c----." It didn't help that once during the 1995-96 season Majerus got so desperate -- to make a point, to lighten the mood -- that he flashed his team. It was during a morning shootaround. Majerus kept telling Doleac that he needed to keep six inches between himself and his opponent in the post. When Doleac was caught shortly after leaning on his man, the coach erupted. " 'Jesus f------ Christ, Doleac! When a guy catches the ball in the post, you gap him six inches!' " Doleac recalls Majerus yelling. "Then he turns to the guys sitting on the baseline and says, 'Six f------ inches,' and he says, 'the size of the average white d---!' and pulls it out. That story spread like wildfire, but at the time it's not funny. At the time you're terrified."
Yet in retrospect Doleac considers that stunt harmless. What galls him is that Majerus's four-hour practices drained all fun out of the game, that Majerus abruptly decided that backup Jordie McTavish couldn't play and ran him out of the program. "I love Majerus to death; he's a friend to this day," Doleac says. "That doesn't mean I think he's done everything right."
Doleac describes the huddle during a Sweet 16 struggle with Stanford in the 1997 NCAA tournament in which Majerus grabbed Mottola's testicles and said, "Have some f------ balls, Hanno!" That, Doleac says, "did cross the line." Majerus, he adds, "hit me in the chest once. Whoom!" But Doleac can't help defending his old coach. "It's not like he was swinging at me. He was mad, and he just popped me in the chest hard. Could you say that crossed the line? Of course. Did it really? Was he trying to molest Hanno? No, he was mad and he did something impulsively and it got the point across and we wound up winning. He didn't choke a guy."
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/basketball/ncaa/01/16/majerus0121/3.html
http://i.a.cnn.net/si/2008/basketball/ncaa/01/16/majerus0121/p1_majerus4.jpg
Something about the body: Is it a weapon? A shield? Or is it just that Majerus, unlike so many in our fit-versus-fat culture, simply doesn't care about the impact of his physique? He may be the least self-conscious man alive. How else to explain his propensity to get naked -- in practice, watching film, at meetings, during interviews? Nearly every former player of Majerus's has a can-you-believe-it anecdote.
"The first time, [Utah was] recruiting me, and after the game I went down to the [Utes'] locker room," says Jeff Johnsen, who signed with Utah in 1996. "His hair's everywhere and his sweater's off and he's just drenched, and he's eating a whole pizza in front of me and he's like, 'You want any?' I grab a piece, and then he starts undressing and gets in the shower and is still talking to me. It was funny. It was weird. How many grown, fat, naked men do you see when you're a high school kid?"
Another player remembers Majerus calling him up to his hotel room on various occasions, and "he'd answer the door in his towel and I'd come in and the towel would fall off and it was like nothing had happened. He'd just be standing there buck naked. One year he had this lower-back injury, and he would have the trainer massage it with ultrasound. But instead of just lowering his pants a little bit, Majerus would pull his pants down to his ankles and sit in a chair and coach us. Sometimes he'd be like, 'Guys, bring it in, take a knee.' We'd come in, and we're just like, No way this is happening."
None of these players believes that his habit of dropping trou was sexual. In a sense, the players look upon it as their coach's greatest sight gag, made even loonier by his deadpan expression. "He's oblivious," Burgess says. "He just doesn't care."
Indeed, Majerus doesn't see why anyone would look at his casual nudity as odd. "I mean, we all have foibles," he says. "Talk to my two secretaries [at Utah]; I'm very close to them. [One time] I had to get a colonoscopy. Kelly [Miller] took me down for it and then took me back to the hotel, because you can't drive [after the procedure], and she undressed me and got me on the bed. I didn't ask her to; she took care of me. My last secretary, Whitney [Lindgren]? People used to walk in my room or the coaches' room, and Whitney would be walking on my back. She was about 100 pounds, and I told her, 'Here's the vertebrae and here's what we're trying to align.' Or she'd sit on my back with her butt facing my feet, because it flattened out whatever those things are. I used to look at film while she'd do it."
Yet there have been instances, with even his favorite players, in which Majerus's behavior was decidedly odd. Doleac spent his first three years at Utah shell-shocked by Majerus's tirades, his knack for calling his players "c----." It didn't help that once during the 1995-96 season Majerus got so desperate -- to make a point, to lighten the mood -- that he flashed his team. It was during a morning shootaround. Majerus kept telling Doleac that he needed to keep six inches between himself and his opponent in the post. When Doleac was caught shortly after leaning on his man, the coach erupted. " 'Jesus f------ Christ, Doleac! When a guy catches the ball in the post, you gap him six inches!' " Doleac recalls Majerus yelling. "Then he turns to the guys sitting on the baseline and says, 'Six f------ inches,' and he says, 'the size of the average white d---!' and pulls it out. That story spread like wildfire, but at the time it's not funny. At the time you're terrified."
Yet in retrospect Doleac considers that stunt harmless. What galls him is that Majerus's four-hour practices drained all fun out of the game, that Majerus abruptly decided that backup Jordie McTavish couldn't play and ran him out of the program. "I love Majerus to death; he's a friend to this day," Doleac says. "That doesn't mean I think he's done everything right."
Doleac describes the huddle during a Sweet 16 struggle with Stanford in the 1997 NCAA tournament in which Majerus grabbed Mottola's testicles and said, "Have some f------ balls, Hanno!" That, Doleac says, "did cross the line." Majerus, he adds, "hit me in the chest once. Whoom!" But Doleac can't help defending his old coach. "It's not like he was swinging at me. He was mad, and he just popped me in the chest hard. Could you say that crossed the line? Of course. Did it really? Was he trying to molest Hanno? No, he was mad and he did something impulsively and it got the point across and we wound up winning. He didn't choke a guy."