Who is Tim Floyd? - Chicago Bulls' coach

He is the coach of the Bulls, of course, but nobody outside of the NBA knows who he is

On the day Tim Floyd became the most famous director of basketball operations ever, a Bulls fan named Marta Cerda was hanging out at Michael Jordan's restaurant wondering what the world had come to.

"I don't know anything about Tim Floyd," she said. "But I think it's disappointing. If Phil Jackson had felt wanted, he probably would have come back. I'm not surprised they hired a college coach. I think they just wanted someone to control."

News of the college coach's achievements had not made its way to Michael's place, which looms like a power forward at the downtown intersection of Illinois and LaSalle. Either that or nobody was listening.

A "lifelong Bulls fan," Marta did not know and did not care that Floyd guided Iowa State to the Big Eight Tournament title in 1996 or the NCAA Sweet 16 a year later.

In fact, Marta had heard nothing about the life and times of Timothy Fitzpatrick Floyd, whose business cards now say "Head Coach." She'd heard none of the stories that might help her understand how he found himself on the doorstep of United Center.

Most of the storytellers would give Marta the same advice: Do not underestimate this man. Give him a chance. He will not disappoint you.

"NBA fans might not know much about Timmy," Golden State coach P.J. Carlesimo says, "but the people who matter--the general managers, the players, the other coaches--they all know him and what he has done."

So why was Bulls G.M. Jerry Krause so eager to hire Floyd in the first place? What's more, if Krause was intent on going the college route, why choose a man who had been to the Final Four as a spectator only?

In 1995, Krause, who declined to be interviewed for this story, watched Floyd guide the Cyclones to a 23-11 record and NCAA Tournament berth. Not bad considering the team was 14-13 under Johnny Orr the year before.

Off-guard Fred Hoiberg was on the '95 team. As a member of the Pacers, Hoiberg went on to play for Larry Brown and Larry Bird. All three are great coaches, Hoiberg will tell you.

"Tim could be tough on players," Hoiberg says. "We found that out in our first meeting when some of the guys were a few minutes late. But he knew when to turn it on and when to turn it off. He wasn't as tough on players as Larry Brown, who was the complete opposite of Larry Bird. None of them put up with anything, but the thing I noticed was that Tim and Larry Brown echoed each other on a lot of things, especially on the defensive end."

In 1996, Krause saw Floyd put together an entirely new team, a team made up of basketball orphans and vagabonds. Before you knew it, the orphans and vagabonds were beating Kansas for the Big Eight Tournament title.

The magic took a holiday last season when Iowa State finished 12-18. By then, however, Krause had seen enough. The seniors were gone; the newcomers could not fill their Nikes. Floyd was beside himself in frustration, but Krause would not be deterred.

"It's a tremendous choice on the Bulls' part," Celtics G.M. Chris Wallace says. "I don't have any question Tim will adjust very quickly. He is a very intelligent person, a solution finder. Every place he has been, he's found solutions. Tim didn't come up in the game with a silver spoon. He had to succeed at some tough places.

"Despite the great tradition at UTEP, it's not an easy place to recruit (players). Nobody grows up dreaming of playing for you there. But he helped bring in big-time players. Idaho was a tough place. At New Orleans he inherited a team that had nobody over 6-5 and he found solutions. He found ways to get it done at Iowa State. He'll find ways to get it done on the pro level. I'm an admirer."

It's hard to find a college coach who is a salesman and bench master. Floyd, Wallace says, can do both. A relentless recruiter, Floyd often ventured onto the side roads of high school and junior college basketball, not always with politically correct results.

The big basketball controversy in Ames, Iowa, last fall was the revelation that a Floyd recruit--junior college transfer Dewayne Johns--had pleaded guilty to dealing and possessing crack cocaine in 1995, which was news to new coach Larry Eustachy. Before his first official game, Eustachy dropped Johns from the squad.

When he was a coach at New Orleans, Floyd once visited a prospect at a California correctional facility. The kid was a 6-10 center named Clifford Allen, who supposedly gave Hakeem Olajuwon fits on the court.

Naturally, Floyd was criticized for it. Ultimately, though, he didn't think Allen was worth the risk.

At the college level, he was a risk-taker. At the pro level, Wallace believes, Floyd's zeal for recruiting will not go to waste. "There's a lot of recruiting done in the NBA," he says. "Recruiting free agents, recruiting your own players to buy into your system. I think Tim could win anybody over."

Floyd couldn't win Jordan over, though. Before Floyd was hired, Jordan vowed never to play for any coach but Jackson. Jordan kept his promise once the lockout ended.

Kansas coach Roy Williams, an assistant at North Carolina from 1977 to '88, spoke to Jordan twice on Floyd's behalf. "I told Michael I thought he would like Coach Floyd," Williams says. "I did try to help Tim as best I could."

Floyd will need all the help he can get. Finding scoring punch beyond Toni Kukoc will be a challenge. For example, in an 89-83 exhibition loss to the Pacers last week, Kukoc went on a tear, scoring 25 of his 32 points in a second-half rally. But no one else on the team scored more than 13 points in the game.

"I'm encouraged," Floyd said after starting Kukoc, Brent Barry, Ron Harper, Randy Brown and Bill Wennington. "It seems like we have a bunch of guys that are competitors."

Not so encouraging was the sight of the Bulls missing their first 10 shots and the Pacers going up 10-0 with nearly half the quarter gone. "I heard a guy behind me say, `This is going to be the first shutout,'" Floyd says.

Arizona coach Lute Olson fears Floyd won't get a fair shake, and he could be right. When Floyd was introduced before a so-called fan appreciation scrimmage at United Center, the response was a mixture of applause and boos.

With a crew of NBA vagabonds and orphans filling out the Bulls' roster, patience will be more than a virtue. It will be a key to Floyd's survival.

"It's next to an impossible situation," Olson says. "It's similar to replacing Red Auerbach or John Wooden. Probably even more difficult because of the stated problems between players and management."

Wallace does not share Olson's concern.

"I can't emphasize how smart and perceptive (Floyd) is," Wallace says. "He isn't going to jam his philosophy of basketball down anybody's throat."

He'd better not. Any reformed college coach better not do all the things he did at old State U.

On the sideline, Jackson was relatively calm. Floyd, on the other hand, is very intense. That won't change, but some of his behavior must:

* He must stop living and dying with his team's every possession.

* No obsessing over every negative word written or said about him. Despite those highly acclaimed people skills, Floyd feuded with The Daily Tribune in Ames, mostly over Iowa State's high player turnover. He shut out a local all-sports radio station. Floyd chewed out a Des Moines TV anchor. If he shows as much thin skin on West Madison Street, friends tell him, he'll last about as long as Stan Albeck.

Let it go, Tim, they say. Rise above it. Put away the enemies list. Learn from Jackson's detachment. The voice in Floyd's head tells him all that, but will he listen? Floyd knows he'll have to change some of his hard-driving ways. Toning the intensity down a notch--or at least spreading it out over 82 games (50 this season)--is a must.

"There will be an adjustment," Mavericks G.M./coach Don Nelson says. "It's just a different game up here. We probably have more situations come up in one game than a college coach would see in a season. Most college guys could use some experience as an assistant. You're dealing with men, not boys. You lose a lot more games. If you lose 32, you've had a heck of a season. But there's no right or wrong in selecting a coach."

Long before the Bulls came along, UTEP's Don Haskins gave Floyd the chance of a lifetime. Fresh out of college, Floyd had written to three coaches--Haskins, Bob Knight and Ralph Miller--about a job.

"I got this letter," Haskins told The Des Moines Register, "and I figured whoever wrote it must be a real idiot, because I couldn't read any of it. Then, in about the third sentence, I saw the writer mention his father's name and it was Lee Floyd. So then I thought I'd bring Tim in to help out an old friend."

Lee Floyd was the coach at Southern Mississippi and a fine athlete at Texas Western before it became UTEP. If Tim was born to coach, the old man did his best to steer the kid away from the profession. It was about the only time Tim didn't listen to his dad.

"He made only one positive statement to me ever about becoming a coach," Floyd says. "I was 12 or 13. Texas Western and Kentucky were playing for the national championship. We were listening to the game on the living room floor. Dad said, `This guy coaching the Texas Western team. He's the best in the country. If you ever decide to coach, he would be a good guy to work for.'

"From that point on he discouraged me. But only verbally. He'd tell me I'd have to work until I'm 75, and my wife would have to work forever and it would be hard to send the kids to college. Then I'd watch him coach, and I'd see how much he enjoyed it."

Young Tim saw the joy and he saw the toughness. His father suffered from osteoarthritis. The pain was so bad, Lee Floyd's players had to carry him through the airport in their rush to catch a flight. He couldn't toss a baseball in the yard, couldn't turn his head to drive a car.

Despite Lee Floyd's misgivings, Tim had wanted to be a coach for as long as he can remember. In high school, he worked summers for the NFL Saints. He started out as a gofer, working his way up to Hank Stram's special assistant.

At training camp in Hattiesburg, Miss., Floyd followed Stram everywhere, taking notes and making observations into a tape recorder. No detail went unobserved, even in the huddle. In the journal that he still has today, Floyd dutifully recorded the fact that Stram was always humming.

"Who would remember that kind of stuff?" Stram says. "He was a very interesting young guy. A fun kid. All the players loved him. You said to yourself, `By God, this kid doesn't miss a trick.' He just anticipated things. I guarantee he'll do a good job with the Bulls. He's a make-it-happen guy."

Floyd was never much of a make-it-happen basketball player. No matter. He yearned to play anyway. He wanted to play high school basketball so badly his parents let him transfer to a smaller school his senior year just to give him that opportunity. Lee Floyd rented a trailer, and Tim lived alone during the school year.

In college, Floyd didn't play much after transferring to Louisiana Tech from Southern Mississippi.

"Tim could shoot," Louisiana coach Emmett Hendricks says, "but I'm not saying (the ball would go in the basket). Tim and I were a lot alike. He was an eat, ride and warm-up guy."

Floyd had so much savvy Hendricks made him a student coach in his final year. Floyd picked things up so fast in practice, Hendricks couldn't stand to let such intelligence go to waste.

"Tim might have been all of 22," he says, "but he went on the road and scouted for me. He coached the JV team. He recruited. He did the whole nine yards."

Floyd will have to do the whole nine yards again in Chicago. Even if Jordan returned, there was no guarantee the Bulls would win a fourth consecutive championship.

Looking at the depleted Bulls roster, this could be the least successful season of Floyd's career. Still, he forges ahead, hoping to minimize the rookie mistakes.

"I've talked to as many of those guys as I can find," says Floyd, referring to men such as Carlesimo, former college coaches now in the NBA. One of the first things I ask them is how were you better the second year?"

Chances are, Floyd already knows the answer. But can a man change who he is without sacrificing his identity?

Marta Cerda and anyone else hanging out at MJ's tearoom, please note: Those who know Floyd best are voting yes.

RELATED ARTICLE: Small men off campus

How successful are coaches who jump directly from college to the NBA? You be the judge. Here are the four who have made the big leap since 1983-84:

* Tim Floyds Bulls, 1999. Floyd is moving to Chicago from Iowa State. And it's a Bulls team without Jordan, Pippen and Rodman. This could be a long short season.

* John Calipari, Nets, 1996-97. Calipari was 26-56 in his first season after a stellar career at UMass. He cleaned house and the team still finished fifth. Last season, though, the Nets finished second in the Atlantic and made the playoffs.

* P.J. Carlesimo, Trail Blazers, 1994-95. Long before he became forever linked with Latrell Sprewell (and Spre's hands) at Golden State, P.J. led Portland to a playoff berth and 44-38 record in his first season in the NBA after a successful run at Seton Hall.

* Jerry Tarkanian, Spurs, 1992-93. It would figure that controversy would mark Tark's transition into the NBA. After a 9-11 start, Tark, complaining of a lack of a point guard, threw in the towel, ending an experiment that many thought was doomed from the start.

Marc Hansen is a columnist for The Des Moines Register in Iowa.

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