Herrmann: Lavin's ESPN exposure a major plus

St. John's did not need an X's and O's basketball coach, which is why Steve Lavin is a great fit. He is not a technocrat famous for diagramming intricate strategy with letters or symbols. He is famously connected to the parts of the alphabet that really count to young players these days: E-S-P-N.

We're not saying that he is famous for being famous. Lavin is sharp, witty and has paid his coaching dues in eight years as an assistant and seven rugged seasons as a head coach. But there is no denying that having spent seven years in front of the camera on the sports network that all the kids watch is going to help. Let's face it, in this generation of basketball, ESPN is bigger than UCLA.

"I'd like to think that it is a positive because of the visibility, and the visibility to the most important targeted audience or constituency to a university," he said at his news conference on campus Wednesday. "That group has an interest in college basketball and has been watching for the past seven years."

That is a major plus for a program that has been unable to get things to add up for a long time.

Basketball is huge to St. John's. It is how the overwhelming majority of people know about the college. Rev. Donald Harrington, the university president, Wednesday called it "a treasured asset" that "helps tell the St. John's story." Problem is, the St. John's story hasn't been huge to basketball for about a quarter-century. It needs a big-name coach.

Lavin is that. Not to say he is perfect. He left UCLA under a torrent of criticism that he wasn't a great tactician or all that studious about the graduation rate. But he has made five trips to the Sweet 16. He says he learned a lot from covering games, mostly Big Ten games, on TV. He was insightful, funny and credible.

So he was ready to follow a trafficked route. Fired or retired coaches go on television. They relax away from the fray and become respected pundits. They look mature and sound profound. And then they get new jobs.

Results have been mixed: Bill Parcells, Dick Vermeil, Mike Milbury, Barry Melrose. Fran Fraschilla is said to be on the verge of jumping back into coaching. It might be that coaching does pay better than announcing. It might be that coaching just gets in the blood.

Few, though, wait seven years, as Lavin did. His mentor and soon-to-be adviser Gene Keady said he was surprised Lavin left ESPN because he was so good at the job.

Lavin explained it this way Wednesday: "I was enjoying my work to the point where the idea of finishing my professional life as a broadcaster was very appealing. There wouldn't have been any regrets, there wouldn't have been any Brando 'On the Waterfront' 'I coulda been a contender' type of scene. I look at Bill Raftery and Dick Vitale and Digger Phelps, all my esteemed colleagues, and I look at their end game, how they're playing the back nine of their lives as broadcasters. It's very appealing.

"But at the same time, because of the passion I have for teaching and coaching and competition, and being on a college campus, I knew that if a good fit came along, I would strongly consider that return."

Good for him and St. John's that he did. There is more to him than his Q rating. He inherited his father's love of literature. His wife, Mary Ann Jarou, is an actress, happy to be near Broadway ("We have theater in L.A., but it's not like New York," she said). Also, you have to love a 45-year-old guy who tosses in references to Billy Paultz, who played at St. John's in the 1960s, and George Fenneman, Groucho Marx's sidekick in the 1950s.

It will be good to get to know Lavin. But as one East Coast coach said recently of his players, "If our guys know anything, they know ESPN."