Keidel: Logic Lacking In Chris Mullin's Expected Return To St. John's
By Jason Keidel
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Nostalgia is a powerful thing.
Sports demand it, command it, and trade on it. Whenever we watch LeBron James, and Kobe Bryant before him, we hold them against the contemporary emblem of the sport -- Michael Jordan.
We compared Barry Sanders to Jim Brown. When we see Floyd Mayweather Jr., we wonder how he'd fare against Ray Leonard or Roberto Duran.
If you were in NYC over the last few weekends, you noticed pubs stuffed with a noticeably white-collar crowd, the red wine and wind chimes kind who don't normally stroll onto the beer-soaked floors of a gin mill.
But there they were, in groups large enough to start a half-court game, swathed in sweaters bearing their alma mater, giving the old college try by osmosis.
Chris Mullin is clearly caught up in college fever. As CBS Sports reported, he's about to take the St. John's job, as head coach, entering a portal to his salad days.
But when Mullin strolls onto the once-hallowed hardwood, he won't recognize much beyond the zip code. He won't find Mark Jackson, or Walter Berry, or Willie Glass or Shelton Jones. Or even Bill Wennington. The team doesn't even have the same nickname; they were the Redmen when he was drilling jumpers in Queens.
And he surely won't find a 19-year-old Chris Mullin; just his middle-aged facsimile stalking the sidelines.
Not one of his 2,440 career collegiate points will help in 2015. There's a reason no one has trumped his all-time point total. Because St John's no longer has the cash or cachet to attract the big-time ballers.
Either New York City isn't as fertile for basketball prodigies, or St. John's has absolutely no juice among big-city players. The five boroughs were once a conveyor belt of high school basketball talent, from Earl Manigault to Lew Alcindor to Larry Brown to Billy Cunningham to Connie Hawkins.
Not too long ago, Queens produced Kenny Anderson, Coney Island spawned Stephon Marbury and Sebastian Telfair -- none of whom went to St. John's, of course.
St. John's is not a glamor job. And Mullin is surely a glamorous name. He's a Hall of Famer, a minted member of the Dream Team, the greatest group of hardwood savants ever assembled.
Now you expect Mullin to somehow summon the ghosts of the 1980s and bring the kids back to the ranch. To the Big East. Wait. There is no Big East. At least not the one Dave Gavitt magically cobbled together, which had instant gravitas behind Georgetown and Syracuse and, yes, St. John's. But that was lowered into the symbolic coffin in 2013.
Sure, some of the old salt is still there. Villanova had a top-seed in the tournament. Providence and Georgetown are still around. But gone are the monolithic men who made the conference. No more John Thompson, Jim Boeheim and Jim Calhoun. And gone are the galling sweaters of Lou Carnesecca.
Whatever cosmic karma those men created is gone, along with the requisite talent that made the Big East essential.
Sports change, evolve, relocate, hire, fire, etc. The turnover in college hoops is epic. St. John's has changed a lot, or not at all, depending on your vantage and vintage. Those of us who were alive and lucid when they were a national power are sad to see them plunge down the rungs of relevance.
Since their Final Four appearance 30 years ago they've won more than one NCAA Tournament game just twice (1991 and 1999). And while Coach K has his mail forwarded to the Final Four, St. John's isn't even assured a ticket to the Big Dance anymore, appearing in March Madness just four times this century.
This is what Chris Mullin is inheriting. Not the buzz and ball of the biggest game in the biggest city in America. But a crumbled, humbled program that is desperate just to return to relevance.
Is this what a Hall of Famer wants?
Not to mention great players often make lousy coaches. The list is too long to recount here. One thing that makes a player great is his obdurate nature, his singular refusal to accept a loss, rejection, or anything that resembles a "No way." And, of course, Mullin has never even been a head coach.
The pull of the past is epic, more than our modern sensibilities can handle. We want to go home again, to relive the mystical days of our youth. It makes otherwise logical men do illogical things, like play past their prime, or take dead-end jobs. If St. John's isn't a dead end, then it's not much better than a cul-de-sac.
Some just don't know when to quit. Some should know not to even start. Like Chris Mullin.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel