News Scrapbook 1984

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THE TRIBUNE

LOS ANGELES TIMES

HE TRIBUNE

198-f

MAY l

1984

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ormer Air Force Coach Is Leading Candidate at USD lly DA VE DISTEL, Times ~taff Writer SAN DIEGO-Form r Air Force Academy Coach Hank Fgan is a leading candidate, if not the le..dmg candidate, for the vacant U111vers1ty of San Diego Lasketllall pos1t1on. r gan, 46, was rel ea ed recently after 13 years as the Falcons' <.'Oach. His teams were 148-185. Father Patrick Cahill, USD"s athleuc d1r ctor, said a field of 90 applicants has been narrowed to approxi- mately 15, Lutconceded Egan 1s a front-runnPr. "I think, In all fairness, you'd have to saj y s, he 1s a li>admg candidate," Cahill said. "Nationally, he is a very well- known and well-respected guy Cahill would not hst any of the other cand1dat s. 'Tm not saying many of them are hou ehold name ," he said. "We have several head coaches from Div1 ·on II or Ill schools and a number of as 1stants from Oiv1s1on I schools.'' ln either ca e, USD would bed almg with a ct rtam amount of risk-a 01v1 10n II or lll head coach st •pping up or a D1v1s1<1n I assistant calhng the hots for th first time. Egan ehmmat a bit of the uncertamty I l, u f h1 expcr1rnc at Air Force, which 1s comp rable to USU in terms ofacademic standards and ph1lo ophy. "We nrrd a coach who fits what USO repri'sents In terms of cadcmlcs," Cahill said. "We don't intend to change our po,1c1es." Egan has hved with rather strict policies at Air Force. "An institution 1s in bu mess to educate kids," he said Monday, "not to run a basketball program " E an, who said he was at Air Force so long a ch.inge was needed, aid he 1s not a candidate for any po ition other than the one at USO. He said he also 1s considering opportumties outside basketball in the Colorado Springs area. •·J've been m this area a long time," he said, "and rve got a lot of ties. If It comes time to make a dec1s1on, that will be one of the factors. Dut I hked what I saw out 'here.'" USD will be commg off its best se son at the Division I Iev It w 18-10 and won the W st Coast Athletic Conf e cli mp on hp b f re 1 ng to Princeton m th f1 t rou d of the CAA pta offs Co 11 d from Pa 1 In the aft rm th, Coac Jim Brovelh elected to return to U F, his Ima mater, to take over a u pended prdgram that will resume play m 1985-86. John Co entmo, his top ass! ·tant, is going wtth him to USF. · Egan thinks the USO program can be sustained at the champion. hip level. "From my experience with the academy," he said, "I know the school system of Southern Califorma turns out good numbers of athletes who can fit entrance require- ments at USO.'' If anythmg, It might be easier to recruit to USO becau~e 1!.s exit requirements are not the same as those at the Air Force Academy graduates are commllted to five years in the service. Cahill had arbitrarily set May 15 as a "deadline" for htrmg a new coach, but the date 1s not cast m stone.

TORERO TRAIL - The University of San FranclSCO holds a 17-stroke lead over USD In the West Coast Athletic Conference golf championships at Half Moon Bay. The Dons piled up seven and 10-stroke advantag- on the first two days of the event, which conclud today. The Toreros, led by Tim Barber and Jam Brett, were seven strokes ahead of third-place Portland and 14 up on Gonzaga. Barber and Brett, each at 153, were tied for third individually with Paul Boggini of Santa Clara.

SAN DIEGO UNION

1984

IIAY 2

Aztecs romp; Toreros lose 2 San Diego State scored seven runs in the ~U"St innl~g and used eight pitchers to limit U.S. International to six hits m a 10-0 college baseball romp last night at Smith Field.

Carlsbad, CA (S n Diego Co) Carl bad Journal (Cir, 2xW. 14,000) y

Chris Gwynn and Rob Knowles each went 3-for-4 with a double and a run batted to pace a 15-hit attack by the Aztecs, now 56-18. The eight Aztec pitchers struck out a total of eight in blanking the Gulls, now 21-32-2. UC-Santa Barbara 5-4, USD '-3 - Santa Barbara man- ufactured a run in the 13th inning of the first game and was handed one in the seventh inning of the nightcap as the visitors swept a Southern California Baseball Associa- tion doubleheader at USD. UCSB's Bob Gray singled to lead off the 13th, stole second and scored on Dave Stewart's double to win the first game. Gray singled home the game-winner in the second game after Dan Clark had singled and reached third on a USD error. UCSB is 43-17-3 overall and 12-7-2 in the SCBA; USD is 18-31-2 and 4-16-1.

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san Diego, CA (San Diego Co.) Evening Tribune (0 . 127,454)

1984

MAY

,Jl llt11'•

p C 8

I 8X

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Smiles replace sadness for USD's Egan By T;R. Reinman Tr1bUM Sports,mter

doing something worth doing." Yesterday Henry "Hank" Egan became USD's ninth basketball coach, succeeding Jim Brovelli who, after 10 years and, finally winning an NCAA berth, returned lo coach at his alma mater, the University of San Francisco. "We assured our players when we began the search for a new coach that 'There is a real feeling of family here (at USD). That's one reason they won' -Hank Egan

in his way; a no-quit guy, a part of something, not something else himself. Sounds like Egan's kind of program. Not much to look at, but effective and no quit. Remember, Air Force Academy basketball players have to be short enough to be ejected from the cockpit of a fighter plane. For 13 years Hank Egan has sent out some fine fighter pilots but not many fine big men. Yester- day be was asked what he thought when he first laid eyes on Scott Thompson, USD's 6-foot-11 freshman, its first bona fide big man. "Where have you been all my life?" said Egan. There are other similarities between the two schools, more reasons to believe Egan when he says "What Jim Brovelli did was set a standard here, but it's not going to be added pressure. I think most pressure on coaches is self-created." Remember that neither Air Force nor USD is the kind of school that sends

It was a raw nd wmdy day, as late February days can be at the Air Force Academy north of Colorado Springs The mountain winds there seem to try to hove lb whole campus east onto Interstate 25. What the ill wind of Feb. 28 blew was Hank Egan's world slightly askew. Tw nly years after he moved to Colorado Springs, 18 after he moved to the Acad my, 13 after he became the varsity's head coach, he was out the door with a 148-185 record Id Egan yesterday, remembering that day. "Thal (coaching n a ig part of my life I wanted very much to make the ful I thought if at any time it wa starting to turn it was at d that 1t wa endmg. I still wanted to coach" That wa what Hank Eg n f It Feb. 28 Y terday he fell "very fortunate. You alw ys nt to f I you're dong mething worth doing with your life. If you can part of t th Air Force Academy or USD is all about, you're y that time I wa

USO would get the best man we could find for the job," said USD athletic director Rev. Patrick Cahill yesterday. "We found him and we got him." Junior College for a few quick credits. "This is gomg to be great for this place," said John Prunty, who for four Remember that there are bench Jockeys at both schools that have higher years typified the USD player: not much to look at on the floor, but effective, Please see EGAN. E-G - , decided to come, you can imagine bow much this Diego State coach Smokey Gaines, who has yet tJ means to us." lose to USO, but who lost to Egan at Air Force You can imagine how much it means to USD, this year in one of their two annual Western too. One of the problems Egan feared most when Athletic Conference games. "And now I only Air Force jettisoned him was finding another have to play him once a year. But he is class Division I bead job at his age, 46. One of the personified. Any time you get Bobby Knight call- Egan says he likes to run "a motion offense get the ball in everyone's bands and then have them ma~e good decisions." Well respected in the pro- fession, Egan's fears of not coaching again were unfounded. His friends saw to that. its starting guard out to Pod

grade-point averages than scoring averages. Re- m mber that the Air Force, in fact, if not law, is big family. And realize that yesterday Egan said "I did a lot of checking. There is a real f ling of family here. That's one reason they won. We're all going to be in this together." Hank Egan has been m the game together with a lot of people for a long time. He started out in Brooklyn - "I talk like this all the time," be explained y terday - and went to Niagara as a fr hman. A. year later, his appointment to the Naval Acad my came through, and be went there and played until the year before Doug Sco- vil and Roger taubach arrived in Annapolis. Egan transferred to he Air f'orce, and made major. He went to the Academy or1ginally as a phys d instructor and facilities officer, took over th vacated freshman coaching job, and fi- nally becam the econd head coach th Falcons e er had m 1971. On F b 28, be cned V terd y, b 1d 'That wa home for 20 years. We ag nizcd over tbls decision. But if we

"We'd get coaches calling to boost candidates of their own," said Rev. Cahill, "and when we'd mention Hank being a candidate they'd get com- pletely off onto boosting him. When one sort of big-name coach dropped out of the running, on the bottom of his application he wrote some very positive things about Hank. That kind of unsoli- cited support was very impressive. I think this is a real coup for USD.'' "That remains to be seen," said Hank Egan smiling easily now in the breeze that rolled in off the Pacific Ocean. "Of course we were sad when coach Brovelli said he was leaving," said Thompson. "He was a big reason, the reason, I came here. But Mr. Egan :-eems like a fine man and he's supposed to be a fme coach. I think this is going to work out all right.'' L.

things USD was looking for was stability; tt wasn't interested in helping some hotshot assist- ant coach make a name for himself with a couple of winning years and then move on to the next stop on the checkered-sport-coat and phony-pat- ent-leather-loafer circuit. The only thing Egan wants to do is coach col- lege basketball, and only in surroundings such as these. He had turned down Larry Brown when he offered the top assistant's job with the Denver Nuggets several years ago, and there had been other college coaching offers. But as two differ- ent Colorado sources close to Egan said yester- day, "If there's one thing Hank is, it's loyal to a fault." So much for USD's concern about finding continued stability. "I think it's a great move for USD," said San

ing f~r a guy, you know you've got the right guy." . Kmght is one of Egan's biggest boosters. Egan JS an ~lternate c~cb on Knight's Olympic staff and will be scoutmg South American Olympic teams in Brazil lat~r this month. Long recog- nized as a defense-oriented coach with his teams perenially ranked among the national leaders,