Isiah Goes Small Time for Last Chance

Isiah Thomas once cornered me in a hallway and issued a warning, mob-boss-like. "If you squeeze me again, you'll be sorry," he said. I'm not certain what warranted the threat -- and it's nice to know I haven't awakened to a horse's head in my bed -- but it was a classic snapshot of what King Isiah was like when he ruled the world, when he was a two-time NBA champion, when he was the best little man who ever played the game.

Now, years later, he is humbled, deleting the mountains of scandalous cache in his personal hard drive and rebooting himself amid the smallest of templates. He is escaping New York, where his dreadful tenure as boss and coach of the Knicks was exacerbated by a sexual-harassment case against him, and attempting to salvage his career and life at Florida International University, where a basketball team that hasn't had a winning season in 10 years played to average crowds of 693 fans last season.

Six hundred ninety-three fans? He used to pass that many walking from his car into Madison Square Garden, all chanting, "Fire Isiah! Fire Isiah!''

Some people are decrying this hire as lunacy, wondering if the coeds have reason to worry at the Miami school and if the job is so beneath Thomas that he'll fade from sight. I happen to like the move. Accepting such a low-profile position reveals that the man isn't in denial about his numerous crises, most self-inflicted, and is willing to rebuild his name and reputation from square one. From his teen years in Chicago, when he dueled a fellow playground legend named Doc Rivers, Isiah has been a mega-name in American sports. Imagine how difficult it is to stoop to a modest level when so many of his contemporaries -- Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan -- remain in high-management NBA positions, even though a longtime arch-rival like Jordan has been an executive bust. FIU? Oh, will the enemy punmeisters have fun with Isiah and those three initials.

This is his last lifeline in the sport. The fact he's willing to take his massive, tainted name to an obscure program suggests he still has a measure of good character and might put it to positive use: coaching young people, teaching them about life and using his own experiences as a how-to -- and how-not-to -- handbook. He never has been a college coach, of course. But if he can turn around the program and win the school's first NCAA tournament berth since 1995, who knows? Maybe Thomas will find prosperity in the college game and live happily ever after.

"I think we can get good players from across Florida and around the country to buy into our plan and make this a top-tier basketball program," Thomas said in a statement released by the school, which will introduce him today at a news conference. "I'm committed to growing something here and strongly believe that, over time, we'll put a team on the floor that everyone at FIU can be proud of."

It's hard to say he doesn't deserve a dramatic career comeuppance. From the day he refused to shake hands with Jordan and the Chicago Bulls after a 1991 sweep, which ended the two-year title run of Thomas and the Detroit Pistons, Thomas has created nothing but turbulence and ill will. He was ready to be anointed as basketball major domo of the Pistons, but at the last minute, he angered the franchise owner, the late Bill Davidson, and didn't get the position; it ultimately went to his backcourt mate, Joe Dumars, who became one of the league's best general managers. Thomas was named an executive vice-president and part-owner of the Toronto Raptors, but left after four years in a dispute with ownership. He slipped off to the NBC halfway house, then took over the Continental Basketball Association and drove it straight into the ground. His most successful post-career job was coaching the Indiana Pacers, where he made the playoffs all three seasons, then was fired when his new boss, Bird, preferred Rick Carlisle.

Somehow, Thomas landed in the league's highest-profile perch as kingpin of the Knickerbockers. Rarely has an executive and coach, in any sport, been so disastrously inept. Never mind that he never won a postseason game and spun a record of 56-108 while spending hideously large sums, as enabled by the equally clueless owner, James Dolan. Off the court, Thomas mangled the franchise's image when former team executive Anucha Browne Sanders accused him of sexual harassment -- and a jury ordered Dolan and the Garden to pay her $11.6 million. Last October, Thomas seemed to hit rock-bottom when a 911 call from his home reported that someone in the house had overdosed on sleeping pills and was taken to a hospital. Reportedly, Thomas said the person involved was his daughter, denying it was an overdose but saying, "My daughter is very down right now. None of us are OK.'' But police reports identified the subject as a man who was passed out on the floor when the ambulance arrived. And the police chief in Harrison, N.Y., David Hall, told the New York Times that Thomas was lying -- and intimated that he indeed was the health victim in question.

"I understand that this person claims it was his daughter; he is lying," Hall told the paper. "It was definitely not his daughter, it was a male. We know the difference between a 47-year-old black male and a young black female."

At that very instant, Thomas became completely unhireable in the NBA. A lot of us had a hearty laugh when the bedraggled Los Angeles Clippers spoke to him last month, yet even the league's most infamous franchise passed on Zeke. And no serious major college program was going to give him a shot when the time frame was so close to a sexual harassment case and 911 call. To earn gainful employment in a sport where he has a place in the Hall of Fame, Thomas needed a friend to know a mutual friend at, of all places, FIU, where the mandate is to build a quality basketball program to accompany a growing football program.

"Coming back to the college game has always been a dream of mine, and I didn't want to pass up an opportunity to go somewhere where we can build a basketball legacy together," Thomas said.

The way the school fathers see it, sure, he has baggage. But Thomas' name value brings national attention, which, at this point, is more important in the larger picture. "This is bigger than basketball and bigger than athletics," school president Modesto A. Maidique said. "Having a nationally recognized coach like Isiah at FIU will have a positive impact on our university as a whole, helping us achieve additional national exposure."

Said athletic director Pete Garcia, who hatched the idea and gave Thomas a five-year contract: "I know he is a good person. Isiah is going to give our fans and alumni a lot of reasons to be excited ... There is no doubt that Isiah will give FIU a tremendous opportunity to take the basketball program to the highest level."

The highest level? Whoa, there. Let's remember that FIU plays in the Sun Belt Conference, ranked 17th nationally in strength, and that Thomas inherits a team that was ranked 217th in the RPI and 151st in schedule strength. This isn't exactly John Calipari going to Kentucky. Thomas' former boss in New York and Indiana, Donnie Walsh, put it best when he told the Associated Press, "I think it's a great thing for him and it's kind of what I wanted for him from the day I let him go. If you really think about it, some of these kids that are coming out of AAU that are going to go to college for one year -- that's a pretty good sell. 'Come down to Miami, spend a year with me.' ''

The thing about Isiah Thomas is, he'll always smile in your face. It's what he might do when your back is turned that bothers you. Is he a horrible person, as some insist? I don't think so. He was a tough kid from the west side of Chicago who didn't trust people growing up, and that chip always stayed intact and left him with a public perception of aloofness. When assessing the sexual harassment case, keep in mind that Thomas never was ruled to be personally liable. Trouble has a way of finding him, and his relationships with people seem to sour all too easily.

In the Florida sun, he has been given what might be his final chance for self-redemption. Away from the tabloid glare in New York, maybe he can reclaim his heart. It's there, somewhere.