The Rehabilitation of Isiah

Isiah Thomas introduced as FIU head basketball coach.

Heeeeee's baaacccck!!!

And this, folks, is a good return. In today's media world where we blog, twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and text our way to up to the second news bulletins and all the current reality biz information, you find yourself immersed in so many devious and shady characters that it can make your head spin. We know so much about people in the public sector that our opinions of people usually of a first impression. These snap judgements of certain people grow into a national perception that often leads to said people into negative role models for our youth to follow. You shun your kids away from television sets when certain people are flashed on the local news before dinner, saying to your kids, "this is not how you are supposed to act".

We live in a more greed infested, morally corrupt, sexually deviant society. Our counterbalance is to believe in the worst in people because the best in people is often not mentioned merely because it is expected of human beings to act good. But what defines being good today? Does it involve being honest? Subservient to a religion? Loyal to friends and family? Looking to give back when in harsh financial times, it is necessary to help those in need? Or is it being successful? Success deems you to win, to have power, to have a strong voice, to have money, to use your voice in any manner possible, whether or not it is of an honest nature. As long as you are successful, who cares about being good?

We seem to forget Isiah Thomas is a good man...just an awful executive of a professional sports team. He is no longer considered a success but a failure: a failure in the CBA; a failure with the Toronto Raptors; a failure with the Indiana Pacers; a national punch line with the New York Knicks in his tenure. Failure...joke...loser...disgrace...bum...those are the words in recent years to describe Thomas' post-NBA career. As usual, we tend to remember the recent past of a person's public life as being his entire life.

Let's go back however to Isiah Thomas, the player, and DAMN! what a player he was. Easily, the man who truly revolutionized the point guard position in the 80's with the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons and at his size a 6 feet tall, was a giant amongst big men. Big, physical men. Big, physical, tough men...there was one voice on the floor for those back-to-back champion teams: Isiah. He brought us the last undefeated college hoops men's team in the Indiana Hoosiers under Bobby Knight as the sophomore point guard. One young voice was heard on the court win after win after win after win: Isiah.

We don't remember the past because it was the past. It means little to our generation. It is all about what have you done for me lately? Lately Isiah Thomas' life has been a mess: miserable in New York running the Knicks, a feud with troubled Knick guard Stephon Marbury, a sordid sexual harassment lawsuit against Madison Square Garden, and of course, bad basketball under his leadership as both team president and head coach. The lasting stigma was prevalent.

Now Isiah Thomas has moved on. He has moved from the turbulent world of professional sports to college basketball, named head coach at Florida International University. He has moved back to where he can become Isiah Thomas, the legend, again. How can he regain his status as an all-time great basketball name, you say? He is now coaching in the Sun Belt Conference, far removed from McDonalds high school all-americans, or top prep school stars, or international sharpshooters. He is no longer dealing with the financially extravagant and open check book policy of the Dolan family and MSG or any other NBA team, but of a mid-major program stuck in a mid-level conference in Division I-A located perilously in South Beach, Miami. You begin to wonder if this is another stop on the Isiah Thomas Misery Tour.

Well, for one, I hope this is step one onto the Rehabilitation of Isiah. He has been through enough bad news (most of it, his own doing) and it is time for fans to remember just how great a basketball mind Isiah Thomas was as a player and can be as a coach. He no longer has to deal with multi-million dollar egos and grown men who know of Isiah, the great player. In college, he can shape young minds on how to play the game the way he played it at the highest level. He can walk into houses of single moms talking about he grew up in the streets of Chicago and how he needed a place with a father figure and found one under Coach Knight and the Hoosiers. He can walk into their houses and be that same father figure to young kids coming out of high school looking for hope and promise in a world that has let them down so far. Thomas can relate to kids on a level for which he could not with NBA players. If there is one thing Isiah Thomas did do well in his tumultuous time in the NBA as an executive is that he knew talent in the draft. Now all he is doing is drafting and he will draft talent, it is all a matter of putting it all together to work, where he truly did fail as a coach in the NBA.

But that is of no concern now. He is willing to "pay the price" to make this program successful. Define successful...it is winning? Not really in the SunBelt Conference. It is all about getting an education, a good job, a proud profession for their parents to be proud of. The winning now is secondary as much to making kids adults which I think is right up Isiah's alley.

This folks, is Step One.