Living and breathing basketball

Published: Monday, December 1, 1997

Monday, December 1, 1997

FEATURE: Always consumed by his job, Steve Lavin is struggling to squeeze in some time for himself

By Mark Shapiro

Daily Bruin Staff

It's a good thing Steve Lavin slicks his hair down because, without that glaze, he would probably resemble Don King.

You see, that's what happens when you are the head man in the whirlwind that is UCLA basketball.

To say that the pace of a regular Lavin day is frenetic is like saying John Wooden was a decent coach: It's something of an understatement.

"I've been through a tough stretch," Lavin said. "There will never be a smooth season, but I don't think it will ever be as crazy as this last year."

In the tumultuous 12 months following his rise to head coach, Lavin has been thoroughly immersed in handling the unending stream of controversies surrounding his program.

He's thrust himself headlong into the recruiting wars, managing to reel in some of the nation's best talent in his first sojourn into the big time.

He's managed to lead his team to the Elite Eight in his first head coaching trial at the NCAA tournament.

And he has managed to carry on the most frantic pace imaginable, holding interviews, going on TV, engaging in the "damage control, crisis management, and putting out fires" that has become something of a prerequisite where UCLA basketball is involved.

There's an incredible energy that keeps Lavin on the go like some crazed medical student, never turning himself off, always thinking about the next recruit, the next practice, the next controversy.

"I'm definitely a Type A personality," Lavin said. "That's just the way I am; that's why I'm usually drenched with sweat. I'm very involved, very engaged."

Join him for a day, and you'll be part of the 8 o'clock radio show where an irate fan berates him for his player's conduct. You'll be part of the endless interviews with the unappeasable media. You'll get the continuous updates on a prized recruit who has absorbed hours of time and effort that will be wasted when he elects to play elsewhere.

You will sense just how much Lavin loves this game and how completely intertwined his life is with it, how he never can separate himself from his team and the spotlight that is perpetually on it.

Catch him in a Westwood movie theater or coffee shop when he's out with his girlfriend, and Lavin will stop and talk to you about basketball and the state of the program, whether his girlfriend minds or not.

"Someone will ask about the team, and you're on again, and that's your day off," Lavin said. "My personality is such that, I don't actually change. Some coaches step away - I can't really turn off."

But there is a dark side to this intensity that drives Lavin - one that is swiftly catching up with him, because in this shuffle, this mad swirl of press conferences, controversy, recruiting and winning, someone is being neglected.

Steve Lavin.

To be sure, the career dreams he set out for himself, the ones forged as a child that had him commanding his very own college basketball team, are being fulfilled.

It's his personal aspirations, his hopes of starting a family, of having some time to himself, of leading a well-rounded life, that continue to simmer on the back burner.

To be sure, every once in awhile, he catches himself thinking about what he's missing.

Waiting by the chancellor's room for the fourth of six press conferences in one day, Lavin sees Jim Farmer, a former first-round pick of the Seattle Supersonics, now a member of Magic Johnson's touring team, ride past on a bicycle.

As Lavin watches, he says:

"He's probably just worked out, he's dating some supermodel, now he's probably going to each lunch in Westwood. ..." And the wistful note in his voice is almost tangible.

But there's Lavin, going through all that running the UCLA basketball program demands, his own personal program be damned.

There have been more 14-hour days than he can count, more Nyquil nights than he cares to remember and a grand total of 11 days off in the past year.

There's the partially torn ligament in his right knee, now two years old and not yet rehabilitated, there's the cough that pestered him for six months, there's the shortage of free time that keeps him from any real relaxation.

Not that he's complaining, mind you, because Lavin is quite happy with his posting at the head of what he terms "the Yankees of college basketball," his six-figure salary, and his celebrity status.

But at a time when dinosaur coaches like Dean Smith and Bob Knight are beginning to die out, Lavin knows his career will not continue ad nauseam.

He also knows that his current pace cannot be maintained for the duration of his tenure because, now more than ever, the demands on a young college basketball coach are terrifying.

So how long can the man keep up this frenetic pace?

"I'll know in a couple more years," Lavin said. "What I don't want is the casualties of coaching to be my health, a wife and kid that I don't really know. I don't want one of those coaching horror stories."

Lavin knows what he's talking about, because he had to witness one of those downward spirals first-hand. It was his friend and mentor, Mike Krzysewski, the Duke head coach, a picture of success with a winning program who literally worked until his back gave out, his marriage nearly collapsed, and he was forced to take a yearlong sabbatical.

"I thought he had a handle on it, and he had kind of a nervous breakdown. That's one of my idols," Lavin said. "He wasn't working out, wasn't taking care of himself, spread himself too thin. Next thing you know, he's missed a year."

Now look again at Lavin, how his days end at 10 p.m. How he gets to spend a paltry number of hours with his girlfriend. How he works at a job that has had seven men in 21 years, not the greatest pattern of job stability a 33-year-old could hope for.

Look at how he's walking the same delicate path that sidelined Krzysewski and stripped the life and vigor out of so many other coaches.

Lavin certainly has looked, and he'll be the first to tell you that his lifestyle of today cannot and will not continue.

But there's the rub, because while he fights to keep the program on track amidst siege and scandal, Lavin can't squeeze himself into the equation.

"I haven't been able to make the adjustment yet in my schedule," Lavin said. "I need to get to that point, the time management where I can block out an hour and a half. Enough people are telling me that, so it must be important."

But while he keeps track of how many minutes his team spends on ball-handling in practice, and how many days away the season opener is, he simply cannot craft a schedule that will allow him to ease back.

"I think in the future that's going to happen. I'm looking forward to the day where it's relatively smooth sailing."

Until that day, you can be sure he will be pushing himself and his team forward.

But as John Wooden told him, "there can be no progress without change," and Lavin is trying to apply that statement, not just to basketball, but to his life as well.

JAMIE SCANLON-JACOBS/Daily Bruin

Coach Steve Lavin talks to J.R. Henderson.