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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2008 > May > 20 > Entry
BLOG: Sports Bosses — Wright State, Odell, LeBron
Here are insights on three sports bosses — Wright State’s new athletics director, Odell’s old grandma and LeBron’s volatile mom, who, by the way, came after me far more fiercely than she did Boston’s Paul Pierce.
— Wright State is in the midst of interviewing its four candidates to fill the job of retiring athletics director Mike Cusack.
Today, Brian Teter, now the AD at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and formerly the sports information director at Miami University, is on campus. Steve Downing, senior associate director of athletics at Texas Tech was there Monday.
On Wednesday, Kevin McNamee, the deputy associate AD at George Mason, is up. Next Friday, May 30, in-house candidate Bob Grant, WSU’s associate AD, makes his pitch.
If I had to handicap the four, I’d say McNamee and Grant are the front-runners. On paper, McNamee seems like the top choice, but Grant has been associated with WSU a long time. He has big donor Fred Setzer behind him, but familiarity also breeds detractors and there are some in the WSU community.
Downing made a decent impression Monday, but word is he didn’t especially “wow” anyone.
— Odell Thurman’s grandma, the late Betty Thurman, was his boss in the early days. The woman raised him from birth, so it’s too bad that the straw that broke the camel’s back may have been the troubled linebacker’s most legitimate absence from the Cincinnati Bengals.
Thurman was cut loose by the Bengals on Monday for missing three voluntary workouts last week while he was home attending his 84-year-old grandma’s funeral and taking care of affairs.
That would have been acceptable had he not missed so much other time — the last two years under NFL suspension — because of violations of the league’s substance abuse policy.
Betty took Odell in at birth and had sole sway on him when his mom died when he was 10. She raised him in her little house in the Frog Town section of Monticello, Ga.
As he once told me: “She done raised three generation of kids on her own. She raised me in her little house right alongside aunts and uncles, cousins and probably some that wasn’t no kin at all. At one time there were 16 of us living there at once. ‘Til I was 12, I slept right there in the bed next to my grandma. Four more cousins slept on the floor next to the bed. She didn’t turn no one away.”
When Thurman left for college, the townsfolk pooled $700 so he would have a suit, some everyday clothes and new shoes. When he left, he promised them all he’d make good in their investment.
Sadly, that has not worked out.
— As for that third sports boss, Gloria James, LeBron’s mom — the woman he described to me a few years ago as “my mother, my father, my sister and my brother” — well everyone knows about her short fuse, especially since she stood at the edge of the court and teed off on Paul Pierce after what she felt was an excessive foul on her Cleveland Cavaliers son by the Celts’ star during game four of their just completed playoff series.
In what’s become a YouTube hit, LeBron backed her off with a very public rebuke: “Sit your (%&#) down!”
I wish he’d done that for me five years ago.
LeBron’s senior year at Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary high school, I was at one of his games at the University of Akron. Afterward, once the crowd left, he was going to be interviewed on court for CBS-TV by Deion Sanders.
His mom wanted the gym cleared of all press, too, but I felt I had a right to at least see what was going on, so I sat far up in stands and just watched.
Suddenly, Glo spotted me. “What the &%#& you think you doing?” she screamed. I didn’t budge and next thing I know she’s marching across the floor, is over a railing and tromping up the stairs toward me, cussin’ with every step.
One of LeBron’s followers finally ran after her, but by then I’d fled.
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Steve Downing is an exceptional leader. Everywhere he has been, teams have been successful and those around him would run through a wall to get things done for him. He knows how to motivate people and has great judgement. His leadership and personality will wow everyone at Wright State.By King James LeBron
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Well, someone had to tell her off. He wanted to keep her from getting hurt. But I know she had to be embarrassed.