UCLA Basketball: New Sports Illustrated Expose Could Signal End of Howland Era

Most of the time the media are spectators who pose as nothing more than a necessary evil for teams and coaches. Every so often, though, a story comes out that can have far reaching implications on all parties involved. 

The March 5th issue of Sports Illustrated has one of those stories. In the issue, writer George Dohrmann has an eye-popping article on the current state of the UCLA Basketball Program. The program, after three consecutive Final Four appearances in the middle of the previous decade, has fallen on hard times. 

Until this article, most of the nation was unaware of just how far the program had fallen. Once again readers are brought into an all too familiar story line in not just athletics but in society in general, in which a lack of discipline and a leader who seemingly has no concern with anything more than the bottom line ( in this case wins and losses) easily loses control of the program he is tasked with leading.

In this case, there are the usual "red flags" including drug use and partying by UCLA players. That in and of itself probably shouldn't be a shock to anyone. College age young adults have always and will always experiment with drug and alcohol use. To think otherwise would be a denial of reality.

What sets the drug and alcohol use apart in this circumstance is that the coach made efforts to address it and the players in turn totally disregarded the rules set forth by the coaching staff. That's just the tip of the iceberg, though.

Within the UCLA basketball program, there appeared to be a lack of equal treatment, a caste system if you will.

The headlines that have promoted this article have implied that the drug use and physical fighting were the major problems at UCLA. A deeper read suggests those were merely the most visible symptoms of a program being run by a coach who seems disinterested in taking on the teaching aspect of the job that college coaching requires.

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"Howland was neither a nurturer nor a player's coach. Other than during practices and games, he had little contact with his athletes, according to players. He showed up moments before a workout began and was gone before players paired off to shoot free throws at the end." Sports Illustrated March 5th 2012

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That type of distance from his team probably made it very difficult for Howland to properly assess the severity of developing internal problems. Without the benefit of building relationships with his players, the trust that they had in him was possibly sacrificed. With that trust, Howland's ability to make decisions that were looked upon as credible by his own team may also have been compromised. 

The article goes on to detail fights and partying, but most disturbing in the article is the manner in which Howland handled Reeves Nelson, a player on UCLA who didn't just not get along with his teammates but at times seemed to have made premeditated decisions to intentionally injure his own teammates.

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"Nelson often reacted to hard fouls or calls against him in practice by committing violent acts against teammates. He did not deny to SI that he would stalk his targets, even running across the court, away from a play, to hit someone." Sports Illustrated March 5th 2012

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With UCLA experiencing bouts of inconsistent play in the 2008, 2009 and 2010 seasons, Coach Howland had to know that there would be pressure to turn the program around. After all, UCLA is one of the most storied programs in College Basketball history. The era of John Wooden punctuated by numerous NCAA titles and stars such as Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul Jabbar brought the program to the very top of the college sports landscape. 

The program once again won a title in 1995 under coach Jim Harrick. Under Coach Howland, the team experienced instant success reaching the Final Four three consecutive seasons, although they never won a title. 

The pressure to win combined with Howland's shallow relationships with his players created an atmosphere where player felt that their own physical safety could be compromised in the name of on-court performance. Following a string of physical confrontations involving Nelson one player did approach Howland. 

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"After each of the incidents, Howland looked the other way. One team member says he asked Howland after a practice why he wasn't punishing Nelson, to which he said Howland responded, "He's producing." Sports Illustrated March 5th 2012

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Possibly an even greater indictment of Howland comes from the myopic manner in which he chose to handle a sophomore team manager who had on the one hand become caught up in the some of the behind-the-scenes partying that was hurting on-court performance, but on the other hand seemed to recognize the problem and it's growing severity. 

The manager had confided in an assistant coach that there was partying going on and in the aftermath of UCLA's 2009 second round NCAA tournament loss, Howland called the team manager to his office and threatened him with termination if he did not name names of players that partied. The team manager eventually did tell the coach who was partying. Howland still fired him. In the article he won't discuss specifics, but did have this to say.

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"In my 18 years as a head basketball coach and nine years as the head basketball coach at UCLA, if I found out that a student manager was partying with some of our players, I would have told him to leave the program. In our program the managers are more closely related to the coaching staff than they are to the student-athletes. In fact, many of my former managers are now successful coaches, and I'm very proud of what they have accomplished." Sports Illustrated March 5th 2012

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The key part of Howland's above quote is when he says " if I found out." That's key because Howland did not find out. He had no clue. Clearly Howland is unable to see how crucial a difference that is. A team manager who was a sophomore in college ( probably 19 or 20 years old) had to make the decision to step forward and tell Howland the most important details of what was going on within Howland's own program. 

For that courageous action—an action which threw his peers who are among the most visible students on the entire UCLA sports scene under the bus—the manager was fired. He was fired for being part of a culture that Howland indirectly fostered. 

In addition, while the manager was fired members of the UCLA basketball team can't recall any actual players being disciplined. None of the team members from that season who spoke to SI knew of anyone else being punished as a result of the manager's revelations. That's the type of action—or lack of action—that seems to suggest that the manager wasn't just the fall guy for the players, but the coach perhaps believed that the manager was the cause of the problems. 

Further, it also suggests that Howland was more interested in creating the illusion of control over his team then actually going through the hard work to assume that control by using something other than his title as "Head Coach."

At some point the illusion wares off, though. The players who arrive at UCLA as 18-year-old young men with limited maturity regardless of the level of basketball talent they possess, do in fact learn while at UCLA. While many UCLA players may not have learned how to win over the past few seasons, they do seem to have learned what they do and don't want out of their college experience. For a fairly high number of them what they don't seem to want is to remain at UCLA and play basketball there. 

Five former UCLA players have transferred to other schools. Reeves Nelson was eventually kicked off the team for his conduct, which wasn't just restricted to not respecting his teammates but also carried over to disrespecting team managers, assistant coaches and eventually disobeying enough team rules to force Howland's hand and dismiss him from the team in early December 2011.

With the UCLA program performing under expectations on the court and the illumination of numerous problems off the court, the UCLA Basketball program finds itself in a situation it's not used to. The program will undoubtedly have plenty of alumni and fans come to its defense. They'll probably trash the author of the article for having an agenda and the players for blaming the coach for their own shortcomings.

The problem can't be just the players, though. It can't be that the kids undermined the coach because he's the coach. It's his job to make sure that doesn't happen. Most of the players transferred, leaving on their own accord. They weren't kicked off the team for disciplinary reasons ( except Nelson), they simply left.

That begs the question "why"? Even more importantly, what about the recruiting? Howland isn't forced to take these players. He's the head coach of UCLA Basketball. He's not picking from a bunch of second-rate recruits. UCLA is one of the all time college basketball programs. If the recruits are consistently bad, that's also Howland's problem.

Ben Howland doesn't have to be fired. He's a professional with an impressive track record as a college basketball coach. However, he may need to make some changes in the manner in which he handles players off the court. That may have as much to do with how they perform on the court as a high school recruiting ranking does.