Dave Hyde Sun-Sentinel
The life of Riley has gaping hole
November 04, 1998
COCONUT GROVE -- The season didn't
start Tuesday for Pat Riley on the Heat
sideline as scheduled. It started instead
for him with an electrician at home. It
started with a speech in a middle-school
auditorium.
It started with Riley sounding lost on
the day he was to meet Larry Bird's Pacers,
sounding surprised that he felt so lost
without coaching, sounding like he will
coach forever when the NBA begins again. If
it begins. If this labor fight ends and he
returns to the Heat bench.
"Right after I left the Lakers there
was a time I thought I didn't want to do
this anymore," he said. "I took a year off
at NBC. I didn't like it at all (without
coaching).
"Now I miss it again. I actually,
actually miss it. I miss going out there. I
miss everything about it."
He was standing in an outside hallway
at Carver Middle School. Some students
behind him were painting a wall in tribute
of the Heat front-office team's visit
Tuesday. Other students stopped and looked
at Riley. He was looking ahead.
"I've got a song (for when the Heat
returns)," he said. "We're putting some
visuals to it."
The song is a popular Motown duet by
Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell titled Ain't
Nothing Like the Real Thing. Riley, raised
under the rhythm of Motown, starts talking
through some lyrics.
" 'I've got your picture hanging on
the wall, but it can't see or come to me
when I call your name.' "
Riley, making sure you know, said,
"It's a song about missing someone."
It is hard finding a pro basketball
name worth rooting for these days. It is a
time when San Antonio center David Robinson
somehow likens the players' cause to the
civil-rights movement and owners keep
negotiating but saying little.
Fans are naturally immune to it all.
If baseball, hockey and football labor
fights have done any good, it's to
condition fans into realizing there's no
reason to get upset over rich men around
the bargaining table. They'll get done
soon. Then we'll watch their games again.
But here was Riley, caught in the
middle of these two sides, reminding
everyone exactly what we're missing. It's
not so much basketball. It's one of the
great shows in sport. We're missing as
compelling a figure as games have today
doing what he does best and, he now sees,
misses most.
"Every one of you can have anything
you want in life one day if you decide to
have the dedication and discipline and
determination to be good at one thing,"
Riley told several hundred students from
the auditorium stage. "You don't have to be
good at everything. Just one thing."
Here was this big New York kid with
the biggest ideas standing in this school
and talking really about himself. Because
for all his substance and style -- GQ names
him "Most Stylish Man" in its November
issue -- he does one thing great.
He's really what he told a ninth-grade
TV interviewer when she asked about his
dual title of Heat president and coach.
"I'm a coach," he said. "The other
title is just that. A title."
There are no roster moves capable
during the lockout. Riley can't talk with
his players, much less train them. The
league can slap a $1 million fine on any
coach who so much as refers to a player by
name.
Riley is 53, and said last year during
a picture with veteran coaches Bill Fitch
and Jack Ramsay that, "I'm not a lifer like
these guys." Now he doesn't sound so sure.
Missing this season's start has made him
realize just what he's missing.
"You get to a point where you get
comfortable with everything," he said.
"I've been doing it 17 years. I don't have
any anxiety about (coaching) anymore. I
don't feel anxious. I'm not cluttered."
He is ready even if the season isn't.
"There will be another opening night,"
he said.
Everyone will pay attention to that
one, pay attention to Riley most of all.
Copyright 1998, Sun-Sentinel Co. and South Florida
Interactive, Inc.