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Lindsey Willhite is a college sports writer for the Daily Herald and writes a blog. This entry is about Chris Lowery and SIU as they went through a practice last night at Northern Illinois University. SIU plays at NIU tonight.--
A couple interesting bits- When asked several questions about his team and their performance, he always answered with something about having a lot of freshmen. A couple of those answers are funny--
JC: How are your freshmen coming along?
CL: ...Now we're at a baby stage. It's like Romper Room teaching all the young ones. We've got to say our ABCs every day in practice so they understand what they need to do.
JC: How's everything else otherwise?
CL: It's good. I've never had a team this young as a head coach and it's tough because you want them to understand everything immediately, but deep down you know they're not. With eight minutes to go against Duke, we were down 6. Then they go on a 21-2 run the next three minutes like they're capable of doing against anybody. But they don't know. They were playing high school games. They get to 32 minutes and say, 'All right, coach, I'm done."
The next night against UCLA, we were down 4 with eight-and-a-half minutes to play. And they go on like an 18-5 run. Those things, they don't know how to withstand them. They don't know how to make a run be short. "Oh, they're on a 10-0 run. So let's hurry up and shoot a 3 and catch up in two plays!' And I'm like, 'No, that's not what you do.' That's the teaching process of it. If I was impatient, we'd all be screwed up mentally right now after 8 games.
By the way, does anyone else remember Romper Room? I don't know how Chris Lowery knows about Romper Room (a kid's TV program from the 1950's and 1960's), but I watched it when I was a kid about 50 years ago!
One more bit from the Lowery interview- He was asked if he might be interested in leaving SIU for a job like DePaul.
Most coaches would do the polite thing (since he's under a lucrative contract at SIU and the DePaul job is not even open, yet) and decline to answer, or say he is happy where he's at, but Lowery sounds almost like he is promoting himself for the job to me.
--
JC: OK, I have to ask this only because I see this on the DePaul message boards: They seem to think (Jerry) Wainwright's on his way out and they think somebody like you could come in and save them. You're not going anywhere to save people, are you?
(Note: Lowery's in the second year of a seven-year extension that pays him $750K per year).
CL: The biggest thing for me is, I want to win. That's No. 1. The only way I would leave Southern is if I thought I could go and win somewhere. I make great money. So I don't have to take a job where I feel is going to be detrimental to my career. I don't think I'm going to go anywhere that's detrimental to winning. And that's the thing: I've always been a part of winning, from high school to college to assistant (coach). Every step of the way, I've had some success. At this point, I don't need to go anywhere just for money.
A couple interesting bits- When asked several questions about his team and their performance, he always answered with something about having a lot of freshmen. A couple of those answers are funny--
JC: How are your freshmen coming along?
CL: ...Now we're at a baby stage. It's like Romper Room teaching all the young ones. We've got to say our ABCs every day in practice so they understand what they need to do.
JC: How's everything else otherwise?
CL: It's good. I've never had a team this young as a head coach and it's tough because you want them to understand everything immediately, but deep down you know they're not. With eight minutes to go against Duke, we were down 6. Then they go on a 21-2 run the next three minutes like they're capable of doing against anybody. But they don't know. They were playing high school games. They get to 32 minutes and say, 'All right, coach, I'm done."
The next night against UCLA, we were down 4 with eight-and-a-half minutes to play. And they go on like an 18-5 run. Those things, they don't know how to withstand them. They don't know how to make a run be short. "Oh, they're on a 10-0 run. So let's hurry up and shoot a 3 and catch up in two plays!' And I'm like, 'No, that's not what you do.' That's the teaching process of it. If I was impatient, we'd all be screwed up mentally right now after 8 games.
By the way, does anyone else remember Romper Room? I don't know how Chris Lowery knows about Romper Room (a kid's TV program from the 1950's and 1960's), but I watched it when I was a kid about 50 years ago!
One more bit from the Lowery interview- He was asked if he might be interested in leaving SIU for a job like DePaul.
Most coaches would do the polite thing (since he's under a lucrative contract at SIU and the DePaul job is not even open, yet) and decline to answer, or say he is happy where he's at, but Lowery sounds almost like he is promoting himself for the job to me.
--JC: OK, I have to ask this only because I see this on the DePaul message boards: They seem to think (Jerry) Wainwright's on his way out and they think somebody like you could come in and save them. You're not going anywhere to save people, are you?
(Note: Lowery's in the second year of a seven-year extension that pays him $750K per year).
CL: The biggest thing for me is, I want to win. That's No. 1. The only way I would leave Southern is if I thought I could go and win somewhere. I make great money. So I don't have to take a job where I feel is going to be detrimental to my career. I don't think I'm going to go anywhere that's detrimental to winning. And that's the thing: I've always been a part of winning, from high school to college to assistant (coach). Every step of the way, I've had some success. At this point, I don't need to go anywhere just for money.
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