Pictures: one of my favorite things. They make the sports page great, for one, but I’m not really talking about those action photos. No, we’re talking about the personal memories, the time you went to Europe, the family vacation and the backyard cookout that you had freshman year. Those are the fun photos.
Then again, we’ve all had one of those rolls where we go to the store and pick it up with high hopes, only to find that of the 24 exposures six of them are of nothing, three are of your finger, three are of your roommates playing video games (you wanted to finish the roll) and the remainder are the randoms. By randoms, I mean that they are of you at a party, stupidly drunk, sweating, looking horrible, acting stupid, falling down, doing God only knows what and if the picture could capture it, we all know that you’d be slurring your words. What a disappointing roll of film.
Well you’re out a few bucks, but it’s all right, no harm done. These things happen to all of us because we aren’t necessarily responsible adults, and we certainly don’t all hold jobs where we are supposed to be role models. At some point, we will grow up and stop acting that way, because if we don’t, then we won’t ever get beyond the maturity level of a 19-year-old.
Enter Larry Eustachy, Iowa State’s head basketball coach. Recently photos of Eustachy attending a house party, drinking, embracing and kissing women on the cheek were published in the Des Moines Register. John Deveraux, a junior at Missouri who lives in the apartment where the incident took place, took the photos at a Jan. 22 house party after the Cyclones lost to Missouri.
Apparently Eustachy missed the memo explaining that 47-year-old men at house parties are not thought of as welcome veteran party-goers but rather are as creepy old men that are hitting on women that could have grown up playing dolls with his own daughter.
That is how Devereaux felt and is apparently why he sent in the photos, but he also noted somewhat strangely that coach Eustachy hung in there longer than expected. “He was here and acted very uncoachlike. I didn’t think — personally — he could hang that long, being an old man.”
But all jokes about Eustachy’s high tolerance aside, what the hell is a head basketball coach doing at a house party drinking with students? Especially when the coach has two small children and a wife.
When a school hires a head coach, part of what they are looking for is someone that will be a symbol of the school. Outside of the Ivy League, most institutions are known for their sports figures before the strength of their schools. If students conduct a poll on the street in Madison today, they will find that nobody knows if the Iowa State marketing program is any good but that quite a few people can probably tell you their basketball coach, the school’s most notable official, was just caught out boozing with undergrads.
Eustachy’s stance on the subject.
“I want the people of Iowa and the fans of our program throughout the nation to know how sorry I am to have disappointed them with some poor decisions I have made,” Eustachy said in his statement. “I am certainly aware of the role drinking has played in my behavior. I am addressing this matter.”
Eustachy acknowledges that alcohol played a roll in his behavior. That’s really saying a lot considering most of the photos show Eustachy holding beers in one hand and girls in the other. Eustachy says that he’s addressing the issue. What is that supposed to mean? I’m addressing the issue of alcohol in my life by heading to the Mifflin Street Block Party Saturday, and in an effort to cut back, I’m going at one instead of noon. Perhaps Eustachy means that from this point on he will only attend parties on his home campus and stay in the hotel at away contests.
Bob Knight got canned for being hard on his players at Indiana, Steve Lavine lost his job at UCLA because he hadn’t produced a national championship and Matt Doherty lost his job at North Carolina and no one knows why. However, Eustachy, at least for now, appears to be holding onto his head-coaching position. I can’t understand why a school would keep a prominent figure that was caught red-handed in this manner.
College coaches should never put themselves in a position to be drinking in a college dorm or house party. Iowa State will need to discipline Eustachy for this incident and ensure that it won’t happen in the future. Whether or not he retains his job is yet to be seen, but college basketball is forgiving. If Jim Harrick can repeatedly get head-coaching jobs, something little like a house party shouldn’t keep Eustachy from another top position. Heck, Eustachy might like a move; its not like Iowa State is really noted for being much more then a sub-par to average party school.
