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08/28/2010 -
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -Quin Snyder was in a basketball nowhere land. He rode the bus on those three-movie road trips on the NBDL circuit where everyone in a uniform believed they were one big break away from a look at the big time.
He was several years and 800 miles removed from his days as the next bona fide coaching wonderboy at Missouri. Stripped of all the first-class amenities of a major D-I program, Snyder says he was happy in the minors.
``Pure basketball,'' Snyder said.
No recruiting trips, no late-night phone calls that a star player was in trouble. There was scant media attention, no announcers delivering bad news, and definitely no NCAA investigation into every nook of the organization.
``Everybody wants to get out of there,'' Snyder said. ``But unless you can be there body, mind and spirit, it's tough to get out.''
Snyder is out and back on a national stage. The coach who led the Tigers on a trip to the final eight before a precipitous fall knocked him out of the game, then into Austin, Texas, was hired this summer by the Philadelphia 76ers. He's part of a revamped coaching staff led by Doug Collins trying to mold a young nucleus into a playoff contender.
If his path toward the NBA was long and winding, Snyder's actual hire was like a breakneck bucket off the fastbreak.
``He said, 'Hey Q, do you want to come?''' Snyder said, laughing, of Collins' pitch.
``I know him and I trust him. He said, 'Be a coach.' I think I've got a pretty good idea what that means. If I'm screwing up, I'll get it right.''
He gets his shot at the NBA because of a longstanding friendship with the Collins family.
Snyder and Chris Collins, Doug's son, became close at Duke. Snyder was an assistant under Mike Krzyzewski and Collins a 3-point shooting guard. At the time, Doug Collins enjoyed talking basketball and player development with Snyder on frequent trips to watch games in Durham, N.C.
When Snyder was hired at only 32 to replace Tigers legend Norm Stewart at Missouri, Doug Collins was invited to practice and offered advice and input. When Snyder went through a messy divorce with the school, it was Collins who offered moral support and a place to crash.
Collins and his wife invited Snyder to spend some time with the family in Phoenix. ``That was a very important time for me and I'll always be grateful to him for that,'' Snyder said.
Collins called it the right thing to do for a friend getting ripped in the national spotlight. ``Quin is like a son to me,'' Collins said. ``My wife and I, we sort of put our arms around him. We love Quin.''
Snyder's career had imploded only four years after his NCAA tournament success. His program was plagued by off-the-court problems that began with the 2003 arrest of point guard Ricky Clemons on domestic assault charges. Clemons subsequently accused a Tigers assistant coach of paying him cash, charges that an NCAA investigation failed to substantiate.
The NCAA did identify 42 violations, from improper meal purchases for amateur coaches to improper contact with recruits by Snyder and two assistants.
Missouri was placed on three years of probation, lost three scholarships and was barred from off-campus recruiting for one year. His defense wasn't helped by the only thing worse than NCAA sanctions: losing. Snyder was 42-42 and missed the NCAA tournament his final two-plus seasons
Snyder resigned in a two-sentence statement 21 games into the 2005-06 season, although he still claims that he was fired.
``Those are semantics in my mind. Technically, I resigned. In my mind, I was fired,'' Snyder said. ``Any time you're asked to resign, it's the same thing.''
Snyder had a compensation package of over $1 million a year and went 126-91 with six postseason appearances. He passed on other marquee jobs because he loved his players and is proud of his team's high graduation rate.
``I felt like we were building something that was pretty special. That ended,'' Snyder said. ``It put me through some things that made me really ask myself tough questions about whether I wanted to coach.''
An academic All-American with Duke law and business degrees, Snyder considered all types of jobs during his yearlong sabbatical, like investment banking or entrepreneurial endeavors. He just couldn't shake the coaching bug.
David Kahn was a friend of Snyder since the early 1990s. Now the GM for the Minnesota Timberwolves, Kahn owned the Austin Toros in 2007 and offered Snyder a second shot at coaching far from the spotlight of March Madness.
He took over in a pinch after coach Dennis Johnson's sudden death and led the Toros to the D-League finals in his first season. Snyder insists he never wanted to use the Toros as a steppingstone job and was content in the NBDL.
The Toros were affiliated with the San Antonio Spurs, allowing Snyder a rare and welcomed opportunity to work with an NBA staff. He traveled with coach Gregg Popovich and the Spurs during the postseason. He sat in on team meetings, participated in coach retreats, and stayed involved in San Antonio's summer league and preseason games.
``I had a great opportunity with people who were very supportive,'' Snyder said. ``I had the opportunity to work in the NBA. It was one that was pretty unique.''
Snyder sidestepped a question about how much longer he was willing to coach in the developmental league. It's not his worry anymore.
He moved into a house with his wife and two dogs this week and joked that he is only looking for a good cheesesteak. Snyder, who successfully recruited 76ers forward Elton Brand at Duke, knows he can make a difference on a team that hasn't won a playoff series since 2003.
``There's no fear of failure,'' he said. ``That's empowering in my mind.''Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
<< Francesco leads Edoardo in battle of Molinaris
Perthshire, Scotland (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Francesco Molinari shot a four-under
68 on Saturday to take a one-stroke lead over his older brother Edoardo after
the third round of the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles.
Francesco Molinari f
<< 2010 World Basketball Championship update - August 28th
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) -
Group C: Greece vs. China, 9 a.m. (Ankara)
Final: Greece 89 China 81
Group D: New Zealand vs. Lithuania, 9 a.m. (Izmir)
Final: Lithuania 92 New Zealand 79
Group A: Australia vs. Jordan, 9:30 a.m. (Kayseri)
Gro
<< Cards try to make it two straight wins in Washington
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The St. Louis Cardinals will try move closer towards a
playoff berth tonight in the third test of a four-game series against the
homestanding Washington Nationals.
The Cardinals are one game off the wild card l
<< First-place Reds aim to continue mastery of Cubs
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The first-place Cincinnati Reds can make it 12 wins in 15
games with the Chicago Cubs tonight, when the clubs meet for the second of
three weekend games at Great American Ball Park.
On Friday, Jay Bruce slammed a c
Nebraska's Pelini mum on starting quarterback >>
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -Nebraska coach Bo Pelini has hinted he's picked a starting quarterback, but he isn't saying who got the nod.Pelini said after Saturday's practice that the coaching staff has a plan for the position. But everyone else will have to
Devils submit new Kovalchuk contract >>
Hackensack, NJ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The New Jersey Devils have reportedly
submitted a new contract with Ilya Kovalchuk to the NHL.
The Bergen Record reported that NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed
Friday that the league is
Miller continues hot start for Rangers >>
Glasgow, Scotland (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kenny Miller continued his fast start to
the new Scottish Premier League season on Saturday, scoring the decisive goal
11 minutes from time in a 2-1 Rangers win over St Johnstone at the Ibrox
Stadium
No perfect way to split a conference >>
A conference was expanding and splitting into divisions, and nobody knew what would happen to its two most bitter football rivals. Would they stay in the same division or be split apart?No, this isn't a tale about Michigan and Ohio State. It's about
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Terrell Owens will address the media at a 3:15 p.m. ET news conference outside the Cowboys' practice facility after an internal police report indicated he tried to kill himself by overdosing on prescription pain medication, even putting two more pills into his mouth after a friend intervened.
The Dallas police report said Owens was asked by rescue workers "if he was attempting to harm himself, at which time [he] stated, 'Yes.'"
Owens left the hospital late Wednesday morning, giving reporters a "thumbs up" but making no comment as he was driven away in an SUV.
Michael Irvin said that Owens denied he attempted suicide and said he was rushed to the hospital as a result of an adverse reaction to medication. And a source close to Owens told Michael A. Smith that Owens wasn't attempting suicide.
NFL Network analyst Deion Sanders said he spoke with Owens shortly before his release from the hospital and that Owens was in good spirits.
"The fact that it has been reported a suicide attempt, he's laughed at that notion. It was a case that medication that was taken wasn't accepted well in his system with the other vitamins he's on," Sanders said.
The series of events began a little before 8 p.m. Tuesday.
Owens' publicist, Kim Etheredge, said she was at Owens' home when he took pain medicine for his broken right hand. Concerned by how he began acting, Etheredge said in various interviews Wednesday with Dallas-area media that she called 911. Owens was taken to a hospital, with Etheredge saying it was an allergic reaction to the medicine.
But early Wednesday, several media outlets received a police report -- that had yet to be released by the authorities -- saying Owens had attempted suicide by overdosing on the painkillers, even putting two more pills into his mouth after an unidentified friend intervened.
The police document, first reported by WFAA-TV, said Owens was asked by rescue workers "if he was attempting to harm himself, at which time [he] stated, 'Yes.'"
When officially released by police, about half the document was blacked out, including the phrases "attempting suicide by prescription pain medication" and "a drug overdose," as well as the details of Owens having two pills pried from his mouth and Owens saying "Yes" when asked if he intended to harm himself.
Etheredge, who said she was the friend cited in the police document, told Dallas-area media Wednesday that the police got the story wrong.
The tape of the 911 call could help clear things up. The Associated Press filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act to get its contents, but fire department officials said it would not be available before late Wednesday.
The police report said the 32-year-old Owens told his friend "that he was depressed." Details of the police report were first reported by WFAA-TV.
The friend, who is not identified in the report, "noticed that [his] prescription pain medication was empty and observed [Owens] putting two pills in his mouth," the police report said.
Using her fingers, the friend attempted to pry them out of Owens' mouth. Owens told police he had taken only five of the 40 pain pills in the bottle he'd emptied before the incident.
Etheredge told the Star-Telegram that Owens was "fine."
Etheredge said she called 911 because Owens was groggy and lethargic. After taking some supplements "it kicked in a reaction" with the painkillers, she told the Star-Telegram.
"Here's a person whose body is so clean, it really had a negative reaction to the medication and supplements he was taking," Etheridge told The Morning News. "Thank goodness someone was there to call an ambulance."
Police Lt. Rick Watson said he could only confirm that paramedics called police to say they were taking Owens to the hospital. He said no more details would come from the police because no laws were broken.
It is not a crime in Texas for a person to attempt suicide.
"This is a high-profile person. We looked into it and we determined it is not a criminal offense," Watson said. "This a medical type of situation that occurred."
Watson and fire department spokesman Joel Lavender cited privacy laws for the lack of information they could provide. Lavender said more details could come from the 911 call. The Associated Press filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act to get the contents of the call.
"Let's just look at the tape, review the tape," Lavender said. "I'll give you an honest answer once I know something."
At the police news conference, Watson released a version of the police narrative with certain sections blacked out. The full report was obtained by several news outlets and reported first by WFAA. The AP received the full version from WFAA.
According to the police report, Dallas Fire and Rescue was called regarding someone "attempting suicide by prescription pain medication." Officers arrived to find Owens being stabilized by ambulance workers, who then took him to Baylor University Medical Center.
Owens was hospitalized late Tuesday because of what his publicist said was an allergic reaction to pain medicine he was taking for a broken hand. Doctors reportedly tried to induce vomiting.
Owens, one of the league's top receivers during his 11-year NFL career, is best known for wild stunts on the field and other publicity-seeking antics off it.
When the Cowboys signed him to a $25 million, three-year deal in March, they said their background checks indicated no red flags. In fact, team consultant Calvin Hill -- who mostly deals with troubled players -- said during training camp that his department was not involved with Owens because he didn't have a history of those kinds of problems.
He missed most of training camp, and three of four preseason games, because of a hamstring injury. He was late for work during his recovery and was fined for it, but Owens laughed it off, saying he overslept. He said it had happened before, though not with Dallas, and would probably happen again.
Owens broke the bone leading to his right ring finger during a game a week ago Sunday. The next day, doctors screwed in a plate so the bone could heal without fear of further damage. Cowboys coach Bill Parcells said last week that the pain medicine made Owens ill.
Owens had not practiced since the injury, but because Dallas had a bye this past weekend he did not miss a game. He was expected to practice Wednesday, and Parcells had said there was a chance Owens could play Sunday against Tennessee.
Owens had been especially looking forward to the Cowboys' game after that -- Oct. 8, in Philadelphia, against the team that dumped him midway through last season only months after he helped them nearly win the Super Bowl.
Owens was seen laughing and joking on the practice field Tuesday morning. He chatted briefly with reporters in the locker room in the afternoon and seemed fine. A 2-inch scar on the top of his hand was puffy but not wrapped, and he said the swelling was doing down.
While in the locker room, he took a pill from a white paper bag and looked at another medicine bottle that was in the bag. He also called a business partner about a towel-wrap venture they're starting and joked to TV cameras that he wasn't talking until Wednesday and it was only Tuesday.
"My little boy knows better than that," he said, laughing, as he plopped onto a sofa in the middle of the locker room.
Also Tuesday, Owens was involved in launching a national campaign for the National Alliance to End Abuse, an organization aimed at helping at-risk youngsters. He appeared at a high school Tuesday morning and was scheduled to visit others but had to cancel because of changes in the team's practice schedule.
Owens has played two games for the Cowboys, catching nine passes for 99 yards and a touchdown. For updated football betting lines and Dallas Cowboy Superbowl odds visit online sportsbook MySportsbook.com
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