I love Nike shoes

The man who made it chic to stomp his feet during games, coach barefoot for

charity and turn his shoe drive into a global cause wants to expand his

mission.

IUPUI basketball coach Ron Hunter said he has a new partner to help collect

shoes in Colorado-based Crocs Inc. and a new proposal to get college and

prep coaches more involved in the cause.

“The Pac-10 has a proposal out to eliminate foreign tours and coaches are

trying to make sure it doesn’t pass,” Hunter said. “So I’m saying

instead of stopping the foreign tours, let’s make it educational and say

that if you go on a foreign tour, you have to do something to give back to

the children in those countries.”

Hunter gained national attention last season when more than 300 youth, prep

and college coaches joined Hunter in going barefoot to help benefit the

Samaritan’s Feet program.
The new idea would require basketball teams that travel abroad to play to do

something for the needy children in those countries. Hunter believes the

trips can be a life-changing event, as it was for him.

The proposal has not been formally sent to the NCAA, and Hunter is not

suggesting that this should only involve his pet project, shoe distribution.

It is expected to be discussed at the next National Association of

Basketball Coaches board meeting.

NABC executive director Jim Haney said he has not surveyed coaches about

Hunter’s proposal, but he believes there will be little opposition.

“I think it’s one of those things where you say, ‘Gee, that’s a really

good idea, why weren’t we doing this before?”’ Haney said. “The benefits

of taking a team on tour are multi-fold and one of those is experiencing

that country.”

Hunter has done it his own way.

Last year, he distributed shoes in Peru, and this week, he’s heading to

Costa Rica with players from Bowling Green’s women’s basketball team.

But Hunter wants to make this as easy as possible for those who want to be

involved.

With the backing of Crocs, Hunter has offered to provide shoes for other

teams. The partnership will give Hunter access to 2 million shoes over the

next two years, and Hunter wants to make sure all of them are handed out.

Some details in the measure are still being worked out, such as how much

time teams need to spend doing charity work.

“I can’t imagine anyone resisting this,” Haney said. “But is it going to

be every day or once during a trip? It probably needs to be somewhere

between what Ron and his team did, where they didn’t play basketball and

went to deliver shoes, and the other extreme, which is just going and

playing basketball.”

Hunter is not content with just getting college coaches involved.

He has spoken with the New York State Public High School Athletic

Association about having the state’s prep coaches go barefoot in January

and hopes each state athletic association will join the cause.

Hunter also is planning to add an educational component to teach children

about staying healthy.

“When I saw their feet and you see the diseases on the feet that I see, you

realize they don’t know how to care for themselves,” Hunter said.

At the Final Four in Detroit, the NCAA helped Hunter distribute shoes to

needy children in that city. Hunter plans to do the same thing throughout

Indiana when the Final Four is held at Lucas Oil Stadium, and he’s hoping

it will become an annual event.

In fact, Hunter is so committed to this mission that he would leave coaching

at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis to get it done.

“I had back surgery in May so I sat around and contemplated whether I

wanted to coach any more because I want to do this for the rest of my life,

” he said. “But I realized coaching is my vehicle to do this. Coaching is

what I do, it’s not who I am.”

We’re a little more than two months from the opening of practice, which

means it’s time to start sharpening your pencils and thinking about a

preseason top 25.

And that got us thinking about which team outside the Big Six conferences

would finish the season highest in the rankings.
We asked writers Jason King and Mike Huguenin for their opinions.

Duke guard Jon Scheyer never bothered to read what the media said about the

Blue Devils in the past, but the sense of urgency surrounding his senior

season has caused him to change his habits.

The guy who used to avoid any Duke-related newspaper articles now is

searching for clippings, as if he’s a proud mother putting together a

scrapbook. Only in this case, he’s seeking out negative articles instead of

positive reviews.

Maybe some rebranding is in order for the NIT.

The joke about the once-proud postseason tournament is that it’s nothing

more than the Not-Invited Tournament.

Certainly, the NIT, the College Basketball Invitational and the

CollegeInsider.com Tournament are consolation prizes for missing the NCAA

tournament.

But for many teams, the NIT could be called the Soon-to-Be-Invited

Tournament instead. Of the 32 teams in the 2008 NIT, 17 reached the 2009

NCAA tournament. And Washington and Utah made the NCAA field last season

after playing in the inaugural CBI in 2008. The CIT began last season and

doesn’t have a track record of producing NCAA teams.

As for the teams relegated to the “lesser” tournaments in 2009, here is our

list of teams that could parlay those appearances into an invitation to the

Big Dance this season:

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the lurid revelations about

Rick Pitino, not the least of which are that moral depravity and dishonesty

may not mean what you think and that the president of the University of

Louisville should be a little more careful in choosing his words.
Perhaps the most important, though, is this: A coach is only as great as the

assistants underneath who work for him.

Vinnie Tatum was such a good soldier that he kept guard over Pitino in the

back of a restaurant even as the coach was having drunken sex with a woman

he had met just hours earlier. Tim Sypher valued his job so much that he

gave Pitino the keys to his condominium, then kept watch as the coach gave

the same woman $3,000 so she could go across state lines and get an

abortion.

Pittsburgh has spent the past decade establishing itself as the Big East’s

most consistent program ? the type of team that continues to thrive amid

roster turnover.

The 2009-10 season represents the biggest challenge to that reputation.
After earning the first No. 1 ranking in school history and reaching the

East Region final last season, the Panthers must replace four starters,

including All-America selections DeJuan Blair and Sam Young. The team that

came achingly close to the Final Four last season could find its string of

eight consecutive NCAA tournament bids in serious jeopardy next March.

“Whenever you lose two draft picks to the NBA, you’re going to have some

doubters,” sophomore point guard Ashton Gibbs acknowledged. “We lost four

seniors ? four starters. It’s going to be tough.

“We know a lot of people think we’re going to have a down year this year,

but all of us in that locker room, we’re confident in our abilities. We’re

going to work our hardest and try our best.”

Pitt’s chances of getting back to the tournament could depend in large part

on how Gibbs handles his expanded role.

While Young played as well as any small forward in the game and Blair led

the nation in offensive rebounding last season, comparably unheralded point

guard Levance Fields could prove equally difficult to replace. Fields ranked

second in the nation and led all major conference players with a sparkling

3.8-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio.

Gibbs heads into his sophomore season as the most likely candidate to take

over Fields’ role.

“His assist-turnover ratio was phenomenal,” Gibbs said. “That’s what makes a

great point guard.”

While it’s too early to tell whether Gibbs can match the accomplishments of

his predecessor, the early returns are promising. Gibbs spent the summer

doing a solid Fields impression while leading the U.S. Under-19 team to a

gold medal in the FIBA World Championships in Auckland, New Zealand.

Gibbs, who never had left the United States before this summer, played the

most minutes of anyone on the U.S. team. He averaged 9.8 points and had 20

assists and six turnovers in nine games. The tournament represented the

ideal preparation for Gibbs’ upcoming role because Pitt coach Jamie Dixon

also was the coach of the U.S. team.

“I think I’m more prepared,” Gibbs said. “Just playing for him and being

with the U.S. team, it definitely gave me a chance to continue working in

the system and to know what to expect this season.”

Gibbs even gave his U.S. teammates pointers on what they could expect from

Dixon.

There is only so long a guy can be someone else’s right-hand man. So many

times he can receive pay raises or be mentioned as a possible successor.

Sit in that chair too long and you become a career assistant coach, which is

fine for some guys, but not for the likes of Kurt Rambis, who has had

“future head coach” written all over him since before he even traded in his

Clark Kent-glasses for a clipboard.

Rambis’ hiring wasn’t just a case of an assistant coach being tired of

waiting. It was a case of a guy waiting for the right opportunity and

jumping on it.

Although he was often mentioned as a possible successor to Phil Jackson, if

and when the Lakers coach retires, there was never any guarantee he’d get

the job.

BURBANK — Two American journalists freed by North Korea landed this morning

at Bob Hope Airport where they held a tearful and joyful reunion with their

families and expressed gratitude and relief that their 5-month-long

nightmare is over. Laura Ling and Euna Lee disembarked about 6:30 a.m.,

about a half-hour after the privately owned jet landed at the Burbank

airport, and into the waiting arms of their relatives. Lee emerged from the

jetliner first and was greeted by husband Michael Saldage and 4-year-old

daughter Hanna. She hugged the girl and picked her up before all three

embraced in a crushing hug as TV networks beamed the poignant moment live.

Photos by Gene Blevins/LA DailyNews