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| Title | Division I Men's Basketball Championship First & Second Rounds |
| Creator (LCNAF) |
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| Publisher | National Collegiate Athletic Association |
| Date | March 15, 1990 - March 17, 1990 |
| Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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| Subject.Name (LCNAF) |
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| Subject.Geographic (TGN) |
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| Genre (AAT) |
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| Language | English |
| Type (DCMI) |
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| Original Item Location | ID 2009-006, Box 7, Folder 7 |
| Original Collection | Athletics Department Records |
| Digital Collection | University of Houston Sports Championship Publications |
| Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/champ |
| Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
| Repository URL | http://info.lib.uh.edu/about/campus-libraries-collections/special-collections |
| Use and Reproduction | Educational use only, no other permissions given. Copyright to this resource is held by the content creator, author, artist or other entity, and is provided here for educational purposes only. It may not be reproduced or distributed in any format without written permission of the copyright owner. For more information please see UH Digital Library Fair Use policy on the UH Digital Library About page. |
| File Name | index.cpd |
| Title | Page 57 |
| Format (IMT) |
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| File Name | champ_201306_035_056.jpg |
| Transcript | Kids' Games Basketball Keeps van Breda Kolff, Armstrong Young At Heart By JOHN BARTIMOLE One has coached at every conceivable level of basketball — high school, college and pro, men's and women's — over his 38-year career. The other had never been a college basketball head coach before this season. In fact, he is not yet old enough to attend his five-year college reunion. One has success written all over him, with the record to back him up; the other has potential written all over him, with the fiery optimism of youth to back him up. One is a senior citizen, trying to mold a group of men more than four decades his junior into a winning team; the other is barely past his mid-20s, trying to lead players less than five years younger than him. One is Hofstra's Butch van Breda Kolff, at 67 the oldest Division I college basketball head coach; the other is Niagara's Jack Armstrong, the nation's youngest Division I college basketball coach at the tender age of 26. If they were books, van Breda Kolffs pages would be dog-eared and well-read, their message one of winning; Armstrong's pages would be crisp and clean and, for the most part, yet unturned. At 26, Niagra's Jack Armstrong is the nation's youngest Division I coach. Certainly, van Breda Kolff's book has more chapters. He has coached collegiately at Hofstra (twice), Lafayette (twice), Princeton and New Orleans. In the NBA, he has handled the Los Angeles Lakers, the Detroit Pistons, the Phoenix Suns and the New Orleans Jazz, with another stint in the ABA as coach of the Memphis Tarns. He Armstrong works with his Niagra team during a practice session. has also headed the New Orleans Pride of the defunct Women's Professional Basketball League, and coached prep school ball at Picayune High School in Mississippi. In contrast, Armstrong has coached high school ball at Nazareth High in Brooklyn before being a four-year assistant coach at Fordham under Tom Penders and Nick Ma- carchuk. His next stop was Niagara, where he was an assistant coach before being named the Purple Eagles' head coach on October 2, 1989. For van Breda Kolff, the level of coaching has made no difference to him. "If it's important to the players, it's important to me," he said. "I've enjoyed coaching at every level. I do the job as well as I can and I try to get the most out of every player. "Level makes no difference except for money," he said. "But if you're in coaching for the money, you don't enjoy it. And if you don't enjoy it, get out of it." Van Breda Kolff has seen a multitude of changes in his nearly-40 years of coaching, but the one that nags him the most is the effect of money on the college game. "Money and all the offshoots from that have changed the game," he said. "Recruiting is a prime example. Kids often don't select a school based on academics — which should be their major criteria — but based on whether or not the team plays the kind of game they like, or if they need a point guard next year. "As a result, the game has become too individualistic, and not a team effort. This makes the kids tougher to coach," he says. Armstrong, in his brief career as a head coach, has noted the same problem. "Recruiting is a dangerous situation right now," he says. "Young kids start out playing for the love of the game, but as they get older — sometimes even at the age of 14 when they're recruited for summer leagues — they become desensitized to basketball and begin playing for individual, not team, goals. Too many players become more interested in minutes played and points scored than games won, and that's unhealthy." Van Breda Kolff says the role of the defensive player is becoming less emphasized in college basketball. "There are no statistics that indicate how 56 |