dwane casey

[smazza]

thrown out of college basketball lands on his feet with timberwolves

[KnightsRule]

thrown out of college basketball lands on his feet with timberwolves

I never heard of him. He must be white and never made the news when he was thrown out of college basketball?

[bullwark]

Dwane Casey was an assistant coach at UK when they went on probation under Coach Eddie Sutton's regime, Coach Casey was responsible for sending the package of money to a recruit that "broke" open at the shipping terminal causing the investigation into UK's basketball program.  Following the firing of the entire basketball staff Casey got a job in the NBA as a scout and has worked his way up to now Head Coach of the T-Wolves.

[smazza]

kr- you really should read a newspaper or two to start your day

[Velcro]

kr- you really should read a newspaper or two to start your day

whahahahahah,

its ironic how ironic irony can be, eh KR  

[___ Eats It]

Smazza, the only newspaper you ever read is the Final Call that you buy from the guys in bowties on the street corner...

[KnightsRule]

kr- you really should read a newspaper or two to start your day

I read the local rag, the usa today, the Boston Herald and the The Journal every day.  It is kind of funny you telling me to read a paper when last year you didnt even know MLB season was starting in Japan with Yanks and Devil rays.

[smazza]

uei- i hear you like the sauce yourself

kr- 4 papers? haha

[KnightsRule]

uei- i hear you like the sauce yourself

kr- 4 papers? haha

You said read a paper or two. Why laugh at 4? I actually read my old hometown paper everyday also so that makes 5.  I also have a bloomberg in front of me everyday with up to date news as it happens. There is not a media outlet with news quicker then bloomberg. Dwayne Casey is a much smaller story then opening day of MLB.

[bullwark]

Respect for Casey at end of long road

'EMERY PACKAGE' FAILED TO DERAIL NEW NBA HEAD MAN

By Mark Story

HERALD-LEADER SPORTS COLUMNIST

It wasn't a scarlet letter on Dwane Casey; more like scarlet letters.

From that April day in 1988 when the Los Angeles Daily News broke the story that an air-freight envelope sent from the University of Kentucky basketball office had mysteriously "popped open" in Los Angeles with one grand inside, the name Dwane Casey was haunted by letters:

E-M-E-R-Y P-A-C-K-A-G-E.

"We're not going back through that again, are we?" the new head coach of the Minnesota Timberwolves said over the phone late Wednesday night.

Well, no, not in the sense of rehashing the $1,000 that was allegedly in that package mailed to the father of then-UK recruit, Chris Mills.

Not in the sense of recounting that it was the then-UK-assistant Casey's name listed above the return address of that envelope.

Nor reliving the resulting NCAA scandal that sank Eddie Sutton's regime at Kentucky, put the Wildcats on probation, and got Casey, in effect, banned from college coaching for five years.

No rehash for the sake of rehash here.

But we do need to go back to the incident that wrecked the once-promising college coaching career of Casey. We need to go there to fully appreciate the inspirational magnitude of what he's done since.

A relentless defensive specialist off Joe B. Hall's bench as a UK player in the mid-1970s, Casey cut his coaching teeth as a recruiter, first for Clem Haskins at Western Kentucky, then for Sutton at UK.

The best salesmen have one skill above all: They can make other people like them. Polite and personable, Casey had that times 10.

He seemed destined to be a college head coach on the positive side of 35.

Instead, after those words "Emery Package," he wound up a college sports pariah.

Casey could've hung his head, turned bitter, withdrawn, let his life become defined by the scandal that engulfed his name.

He didn't. "You can draw from adversity," he says. "It really can make you stronger. And it gives you a chance to really find out who your real friends are."

The road from UK ruin to NBA head man began in Kenya and ran through Germany and Japan.

Joe Hall's foreign contacts -- "Coach Hall was one who stuck by me," Casey says -- helped his former player land clinics across the oceans.

Soon enough, Casey was signed to coach a pro team for a Japanese chemical company.

He lived in a Kyoto hotel. He didn't speak much Japanese; most people he encountered spoke little English. "It did get lonely," he says.

Eventually, he wound up coaching the Japanese National Team.

In 1994, the Union County native got a lifeline back into American basketball. It came in the form of an assistant's job offered by an acquaintance, George Karl, who happened to be head coach of the Seattle SuperSonics.

Just like that, Dwane Casey was in the NBA.

And just like that, he was back in a basketball culture that associated his name with those letters, 'E-M-E-R-Y P-A-C-K-A-G-E.'

He heard every crack imaginable. But, internally, Casey never accepted that linkage.

To this day, he says he was not the person who put $1,000 into that air-freight envelope. He regards Emery agreeing to settle the multi-million-dollar lawsuit he brought against that company as vindication of his name.

"I knew Dwane Casey didn't put any money in an envelope," Dwane Casey says. "I knew I was innocent. So it wasn't hard for me to keep my head up and keep working on my craft."

Over the years, Casey built a name in NBA circles for his ability to work with young players and to communicate at a one-on-one level.

When his patron, Karl, was fired, the Sonics retained Casey.

When Karl's successor, Paul Westphal was fired, the Sonics retained Casey.

Still, even as he thrived in the pro ranks, the siren's call of college coaching was hard to resist for a man with Kentucky in his veins.

In 1998 -- freed of the "show-cause" restriction from the UK NCAA probation -- Casey interviewed to be head coach at Western.

"Every other question (in the interview) was 'Emery Package,'" he says.

It was then Casey decided once and for all his future was in the pros. "A lot less hypocrisy," he says.

When Nate McMillan became Seattle's leader, the Sonics made Casey the associate head coach.

By 2003, a story in USA Today was touting the former Kentucky guard as a prime NBA head coaching candidate.

Last year, Casey got interviews for top jobs with both Toronto and Atlanta. "But it just wasn't the right time or the right relationships weren't in place," he says.

But after Seattle's surprising run to the second round of this year's Western Conference playoffs, Casey, 48, found himself on a three-hour conference call with Timberwolves officials.

That led to a trip to Minneapolis and five more hours of interviews.

Soon after, T-Wolves honcho and former Celtics great Kevin McHale was on the other end of Dwane Casey's phone: "We were really impressed with you; do you want to be our head coach?"

Now, Casey has three years of guaranteed money in his contract. And one of the more delightful prospects in all of basketball coaching in his sight:

Kevin Garnett on his roster.

"The guy's not a building block; he's a franchise," Casey says.

As for himself, Casey says he's pumped but far from ga-ga.

"I am excited, but I'm not carried away," he says. "I know the NBA. I know what this is about. This is business. I know what happens if you don't do the job."

Casey expects to do the job.

The ultimate challenge of an NBA coach -- earning respect from jaded, millionaire ballplayers -- will be met "through preparation," Casey says. "If the players see you are paying the price and you show them you know what you are doing, you win respect."

For those of us in Kentucky who know just how far Dwane Casey has traveled -- and the fortitude he showed in surmounting the Mount Everest of career adversity -- he already has respect.

In bunches.

Casey