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ME AC Coach Of Th<
Joe Purzycki, third-year mentor at 1
Athletic Conference's football Co<
DelState, traditionally an MEAC d
INSTANT REPLAYS ~
Black Colle
failure after suffering for years
from chronic kidney and heart trouble.
Merritt was known as a man who
put his teams through a Spartan
regimen that demanded their^best -.
and usually got it.
1 hough his tenure was sometimes
clouded by controversy, most
notably accusations of recruiting
and player-eligiblity violations,
Merritt was a winnei.
In 31 years of coaching, the first
10 at Jackson State, Merritt was
298-100-15.
An era ended with his death. ?
-m<-' -t <li.. - j
Difference
How's this for an essay question
on a final exam about basketball?
Name and explain the major difference
between black-college
basketball and the so-called bigname
teams.
Coaching? Please. If you've read
this column carefully up to now,
you know better than to mention
that to me.
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WKKtm *m^^^lK9 ? H
s Year
Delaware State, is the Mid-Eastern
ach of the Year. Purzycki made
oormat, a 7-3-1 contender in '83,
orjtinued wm, .sW v::?:::v:-:i-::::v
ge Sports N
Big men, or the lack thereof?
Well, yes, to an extent. But I've
seen a fair number of big-time clubs
that were weak in the middle, or
mediocre at best. Heck, it used to be
a tradition at North Carolina and
North Carolina State, which built
many of their earlier teams on
guards and slowdown offenses.
Better players?
Granted, the bigger schools have
nearly a monopoly on bluechippers.
But that leads to a
chicken-or-egg question that I'll explain
later.
The correct answer, class, is
television. Just like about
everything else, college teams are
legitimized by TV exposure. A
player wants to go to DePaul to
follow in the footsteps of Mark
Aguirre and Terry Cummings
because he saw them play on television.
He wants to grimace and dunk
and wag his tongue at North
Carolina 'cause he sees Jordan
grimace and dunk and wag his
tongue on the tube at least one time
a week, sometimes several.
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A(t ((41rffs
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Ill i
becoming the first white to be name
ing the Hornets, Purzycki compiled
eeds TV De
Stars are created by television exposure.
North Carolina A&T's Joe
Binion might be very good, but he
isn't given star treatment because he
might be on television twice in a
season if he's lucky.
And, though he's 6-11 and
smooth as silk, UDC's Earl Jones
has a fraction of the notoriety of someone
like UNC's Matt Doherty,
who in turn has a fraction of Jones'
talent. ?
The solutionSomeway,
somehow, the black conferences
need to wrangle a television contract
out of somebody. It's a shame that
the drama of events like the CIAA
Tournament are witnessed only by
those fortunate enough to get tickets
(thousands of fans were turned
* away last year).
If it's necessary, the black conferences
should nool then* re<snnree^
and at least get a college football
and basketball game of the week.
With the advent of cable, there
certainly are enough available channels
and, though the Black Eintcrtainment
Television package is nice,
the fact that the games are tape
\ . " V \ o * |i
ijcVicw
j
d the league's top coach. Before joinar33-2
record as a high school coach.
?sperately
delayed by an entire week hurts.
Moreover, the alumni and fans of
black schools need to be organized.
If it takes a letter-writing artel
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fjiiv/iiw'vuiiiiig v.a111 iji11 iu LOT ,
the networks and individual stations,
fine.
But something has to be done.
Soon.
The Oops Dept.
We goofed again.
Due to a production error Gust as
the TV people like to blame Ma
Bell, we like to blame our production
staff, since they don't have a
column to tell their side of the
story), the cover of our SWAC edi
tion last month bore the title
"MEAC-CIAA Edition."
Sorry. Though we normally
change the label for the cover of the
special SWAC edition, which we
publish three times a year and contains
some different articles and
photos, we just plain forgot.
We promise to do better in the
future, SWAC fans.
January. 1984-Page 19