‘Beating the shit out of them’ — figuratively

Back when I was a college sportswriter, I covered Temple several times, interviewed John Chaney on a number of occasions and, being a city native, generally liked the man. Sure, he lost his temper a bit too much, and Temple never made the Final Four — although they would have in ‘93 had Chaney not been hit with that technical foul — but, hey, you can’t have everything.

Chaney treated the media well, and was always honest with them so you could say that the adoration he’s received in the past two days is kind of a sham, but I don’t think that explains it all.

Like him or not, Chaney was brutally honest. Looking at an old column I wrote, I found this quote from the grizzled veteran:

“My kids’ confidence may have been destroyed because of me. But, guess what: tomorrow I’m going to beat the shit out of them, and I’m going to keep beating the shit out of them until a light goes off.”

I think that’s why people liked him even when he did wild things like threaten to kill John Calipari or even send in a player for hard fouls (and end up having said “goon” break a St. Joe’s player’s arm). He did things his way (and, well, St. Joe’s does get away with illegal screens).

Whoever Temple hires to coach the basketball team next may not make embarassing headlines like Chaney occasionally did — unless it’s ex-Cincy coach Bob Huggins — but he sure won’t be as interesting. And I doubt the new coach’ll do as good of a job getting disadvantaged kids to graduate college. He might even be really boring. And, in a sports world sometimes devoid of honest, hard-working, interesting people, that’s kind of a shame.

Palestra hosts a Classic [Daily Pennsylvanian]