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PrintJune 15, 2006
By Bryan Armen Graham
Assistant Editor, CSTV.com
 |  |
BRYAN GRAHAM
Bryan is a basketball editor for CSTV.com and contributes on a regular weekly basis. |
Richard Cheeks promises you: He's not certifiable.
The University of Kentucky adjunct professor, who has made national headlines in recent weeks with a grassroots effort to remove Tubby Smith as the school's basketball coach, has forgotten more about Wildcats basketball than a lot of people know.
As the spokesperson for a group known as Concerned Fans for UK Basketball, Cheeks knows that Smith has averaged 25 wins a year since assuming the reins from Rick Pitino in 1997. He knows that Smith has taken the Wildcats to the NCAA Tournament in each of those seasons. He knows that Smith has led the program to a national championship, and that
But Cheeks eschews these resume bullets, and insists that there's more than meets the eye when it comes to a question that has caused an immeasurable rift among hardwood fans in the Bluegrass State.
"You have to dig deeper into the numbers than sheer winning percentage," said Cheeks, an engineer who holds three degrees from the Lexington university. "It's not just the wins and losses. And we don't look at SEC championships as fans as any great shake -- we look for Final Fours and national championships here. We don't hang SEC banners."
The Internet-based assemblage has garnered national attention since last Thursday, when the Associated Press ran a story reporting that the school's student newspaper refused to print a $1,700 ad pressing the university president and the athletics director for Smith's immediate dismissal.
The ad, which can be viewed on the group's website, is a detailed, 900-word philippic which catalogs the group's reasoning -- including the program's decline in recruiting, player retention rate and the so-called "public aura" of the program under Smith.
"I've been a University of Kentucky basketball fan for 40 years, maybe a little longer than that," said Cheeks, whose allegiance to the Wildcats was forged when his family moved to the state in the mid-1960s. "I've never seen the fan base as divided as it is right now, and it's divided on this one issue. It's not divided on any other issue that I can discern."
It's worth mentioning that Cheeks was an ardent Smith supporter until this past season. On Feb. 6, 2005, he penned a story for CollegeHoopsNet.com that said Smith had "established himself as arguably the best coach at Kentucky since Rupp" and was "in the process of writing his own chapter of Kentucky basketball history".
The piece offered an elaborate statistical analysis, using his beloved possession-based efficiency numbers, in support of Smith. So what's happened over the past 16 months that has so dramatically changed his stance?
Cheeks can trace his change of heart to this past winter, when the Wildcats suffered a pair of humbling losses at Rupp Arena before national television audiences.
"That's the first time in my life I've ever seen a Kentucky team quit in a game," Cheeks said.
The group's newfound publicity hasn't made Cheeks a popular figure in the basketball-crazy commonwealth. He says that he's received a half-dozen "very serious" threats since the press release was made public, and has become the regular recipient of hate mail and phone calls.
"Most of them are just venting and that doesn't concern me," Cheeks said. "But some of them are more direct and more personal."
But don't think for one second that the self-proclaimed "raving fan" is going to let a little hate mail silence him.
"I have broad shoulders," Cheeks said. "I can handle it."
Circle The Date
Dec. 9: George Mason vs. Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium (
This imagination-capturing matchup, first put forward in a recent USA Today story, isn't a slam dunk just yet. (Duke SID Jon Jackson has deferred comment until August when all ACC schools release their schedules en masse.) But sources have indicated that a Dec. 9 meeting between the media darlings of last March and college basketball's Biggest Fish is looking like a go. Both sides have suffered considerable losses to graduation -- Duke loses twin All-Americans J.J. Redick and Shelden Williams, while Mason said goodbye to Lamar Butler, Jai Lewis and Tony Skinn. But Mason landed prized juco transfer Andre Smith to supplement its strong class in the wake of its Final Four run, while Duke welcomes its usual Who's Who of prep talent: Gerald Henderson, Jon Scheyer, Lance Thomas and seven-footer Brian Zoubek.
Milli-Grahams
· Incoming Duquesne coach Ron Everhart has announced a signing that has fans of the
· The Bobby Gonzalez fallout at
· Speaking of transfers, Pepperdine coach Vance Walberg registered his first major score at the helm of the Waves with the signing of
