Mike Jarvis Expresses His Love To Be Celtics Head Coach

[wayray@ix.netcom.com]

No chance Mikey Boy, if LL ends up owning
the team. Look for Bird to hire one of his cronies:
Carlisle or Buckner as head coach.

And after the Pitino disaster, I'd be verry leery
of giving someone with zero NBA experience any
type of managerial control.

And Mikester, I hate to tell you, but as BSG said:
after the Michael Smith draft, they took the keys
away from Red...

http://www.newsday.com/coverage/current/sports/thursday/nd2993.htm

Another Window to NBA?
Jarvis keeps options open and Celtics just might be calling

by Laura Price-Brown
Staff Writer

Mike Jarvis says he never will coach at another college. He has it good
here
at St. John's-a solid recruiting class, perhaps the best freshman point
guard in the country in Omar Cook, an Elite Eight appearance and a Big
East
championship. Still, the window to the NBA is open. Even though a
courtship
with the Washington Wizards ended with a good night kiss on the porch,
there
is reason to believe if the situation is right Jarvis would seek an NBA
job
to his burgeoning resume.

The fit would have to be perfect: money, control (Jarvis says he hates
that
word), and likely some connection to the city where basketball is not
the
only game in town. A possibility? Boston, where Jarvis' roots run deep.

"I haven't thought about Boston, I'm not going to think about Boston;
I'm
just going to think about St. John's," Jarvis insisted yesterday.

But recent revelations by Celtics coach and president Rick Pitino that
he
may quit as early as January have fueled speculation about the future of
the
beleaguered NBA team. Reports have linked Pitino and Indiana University,
and
the word in Boston is Pitino will leave after the season even if the
Celtics
improve.

To consider Jarvis may not be a stretch. He taught high school in
Cambridge
for 17 years, earned his undergraduate's degree at Northeastern and a
master's in education at Boston University. He coached under former
Celtic
Tom (Satch) Sanders for four years at Harvard from 1973-77, when Red
Auerbach often visited. Jarvis also coached seven years at Cambridge
Rindge
& Latin High School, and took his teams to watch Pitino run practice at
Boston University.

Pitino tried to recruit Patrick Ewing, who played for Jarvis at Rindge &
Latin.

After five years coaching at BU, Jarvis spent eight years at George
Washington, Auerbach's alma mater. The two remain close. "When I talk to
Red
I refer to him as my godfather," Jarvis said. "He's been such a good
friend
to me and a great resource." Jarvis sought out Auerbach, the Celtics'
vice
chairman of the board, during negotiations with the Wizards last summer
but
said the two never have discussed the situation in Boston.

"I would think if Rick ever did leave, then Red probably first would try
to
find somebody that maybe played for him or was in coaching, you know, a
former Celtic. That's just the way he has always operated," Jarvis said.

Why would Boston be attractive to Jarvis? Pitino has the power to make
personnel decisions, a luxury Jarvis believed he would not have enjoyed
working for Michael Jordan in Washington.

St. John's athletic director Ed Manetta said he is used to hearing
rumors
about Jarvis heading to other places but says he never worries his coach
will bolt for another university. The NBA is a different story. "Does it
blip on my radar screen? Yeah, it blips," Manetta said, "but knowing
Mike
and how he feels about St. John's he'll handle it in a first-class way.
We're going to make sure he has a viable option to always consider."
Manetta
says he would love to see Jarvis, who is in the third year of a
seven-year
deal, retire from coaching at St. John's and remain with the university.
There's always the possibility Jarvis could become the next Lou
Carnesecca,
but even he admits it's tough for coaches to stick in New York.

"This is not a place you come to retire," Jarvis said.

There's no hurry, he says, especially with a healthy 56-18 record at St.

John's. The Red Storm (3-1) start off the BB&T Classic tournament
Saturday
in Washington against Jarvis' former team, George Washington. The
difference
between coaching at St. John's and GW, Jarvis said, is he always knew he
would leave the latter. Now he's not sure.

"There's no guarantee if someone came in and laid a ton of money on the
table and said, 'We're going to give you all this and all that
control'-I
don't like to use the word control-but 'you're going to have a lot of
say
about personnel,' there's no guarantee I'll go to the NBA," Jarvis said.
"The only thing I've said is I wish the same for myself that I wish for
everybody, and that is they have options. I always want to be in the
position to make the choice, that's all." Just enough of an opening to
slip
through the window.