Former Moc plays hoops with Obama
Mark Wiedmer Commentary
Larry Stewart eyed the basketball goal. The pickup game to end all pickup games was knotted at 10 points each. The next made basket would end it. So the former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga player rose and fired from 19 feet away. The ball headed toward the goal in a perfect arc. But would it swish or miss? “We beat the president’s team by one basket,” Stewart said Tuesday night by phone. That’s the president, by the way. Barack Obama. Or as he may now be known on Chicago’s South Side, Stewart’s stepchild. (Just kidding, Mr. President.) But on that Feb. 15 morning, Obama’s team did fall to Stewart’s crew in a topsecret pickup game inside the University of Chicago’s high school gym. Many more details than that are apparently forbidden, though Stewart says the Prez was remarkably gracious in defeat. “He was one of the first people to congratulate me,” Stewart said. “He called me the ‘bionic man’ because of my knee brace. Of course, he also asked one of his teammates, ‘How did you let him make that shot?’” Not coincidentally, Stewart has asked himself more than once the past 11 days, “Should I have made that shot? But I didn’t think about it then. The adrenaline of playing ball just makes you do what you do. I was just trying to win a basketball game.” Like most Chicagoans, Stewart has known about Obama for much of his adult life. For the past 15 years — ever since his brief CBA career ended — the 1992 UTC grad has played in an elite men’s rec league that has occasionally included Craig Robinson, the president’s brother-in-law. College hoops junkies also know Robinson as the Oregon State head coach. But he was a hero of Stewart’s long before he became the boss of the Beavers. “He was one of the first guys on the South Side to play for an Ivy League school (Princeton),” said the 38-year-old Stewart. “Craig was a guy anybody could look up to.” Stewart has become that same kind of guy. He’ll celebrate his 14th wedding anniversary to Angela on June 29. They have three healthy, happy children in daughter Lauren (9) and 7-year-old
Ole Miss guard Terrico White summed up Georgia’s basketball season in two simple sentences after last Saturday’s game in Oxford. “We took Georgia too lightly,” he said. “Like in the film room, we were just joking, not paying attention to what they were doing.” The Rebels won by 22. And this may sum up the state of SEC basketball this year: Even at 1-11, Georgia’s Bulldogs aren’t alone at the bottom of the conference. The Arkansas Razorbacks also are 1-11, and the two teams will meet Sunday (not in the CBS-televised game, thankfully) possibly hoping to avoid a dubious distinction. No team since expansion has won fewer than two games in the SEC. The winner of the Georgia-Arkansas pillow fight will clinch at least two league wins and avoid being grouped with some of the worst teams in SEC history. Who are those teams? Let’s take a look back at some of the teams who set back Dr. James Naismith’s great game. Sewanee (1932-40) Overall record: 13-104 SEC record: 3-76 And to think, Sewanee’s football team probably revered the basketball squad. The basketball team at least got to experience victory in the SEC. Sewanee, which lost back-to-back games to LSU by a combined score of 140-29 in the 1933-34 season, got its first conference win in its third year, beating Auburn 19-18. Sewanee finished its last season in the SEC with a 31-25 win over Chattanooga. The school finally left the SEC in 1940 to concentrate more on academics. I can’t imagine why. But let’s be fair and note one of Sewanee’s more distinctive marks. In 1958, Sewanee’s Jim Roberts grabbed 53 rebounds against Lambuth. It’s an NCAA record. Georgia (2004-05) Overall record: 8-20 SEC record: 2-14 Looking back, winning eight games (two in overtime) with that roster following the Jim Harrick fallout was a pretty impressive feat. Georgia had a frontcourt of Dave Bliss and Steve Newman, not exactly reminiscent of the 1985 Philadelphia 76ers frontcourt. Jay McAuley, a walk-on who was not even a star in high school, averaged 9.5 minutes per game off the bench. The lowlights: Georgia scored 37 and 38 points in back-to-back games against Vanderbilt and Florida and lost by 38 at Georgia Tech. Tennessee (1993-94) Overall record: 5-22 SEC record: 2-14 Allan Houston would later defend his father, coach Wade Houston, and claim he didn’t think the school fully supported the basketball program during this era.You knew the Vols were in trouble when they lost back-to-back games to Arkansas-Little Rock and Western Carolina. Coach Houston would resign at the end of the season. His replacement, Kevin O’Neill, booted nine of Houston’s players by the middle of his first season. Tennessee’s starting lineup that year: Ed Gray, Steve Hamer, Shun Sheffield, LaMarcus Golden and Cortez Barnes. Alabama (1968-69) Overall record: 4-20 SEC record: 1-17 This team tied for the most conference losses in SEC history. Bear Bryant hired C.M. Newton to revive the program in 1968, and not even a legend such as Newton could compete with this bunch. The Crimson Tide started 4-5 but lost 15 consecutive games to end the season, including three overtime games in a row. A frustrated Newton integrated the program by signing Wendell Hudson in 1969, not a popular move at the time, and finished with a 211-123 record at Alabama. Georgia Tech (1953-54) Overall record: 2-22 SEC record: 0-14 The worst SEC record in league history. Before playing No. 1 Kentucky, coach Whack Hyder (who eventually became Georgia Tech’s winningest coach) told his team to run with the Wildcats and see what happened. This happened: Kentucky 105, Georgia Tech 53. The Yellow Jackets lost by 51 in their next meeting with Kentucky, lost by 21 to the Georgia Teachers College and dropped a 114-67 decision to Furman. The Yellow Jackets were 0-20 before beating South Carolina and then Georgia nine days later. Amazingly, the very next season, Georgia Tech beat Kentucky to end the Wildcats’ 130-game home winning streak.
The Associated Press From left, Georgia’s Zac Swansey, Albert Jackson, Jeremy Price and Troy Brewer watch from the bench late in the second half of a home loss to Auburn. Georgia is 1-11 in the SEC.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Arkansas coach John Pelphrey has watched his Razorbacks lose 11 of 12 SEC games.
