Temporary Like Achilles

[Wayne23]

Okay, so that's from Bob Dylan. I've been playing but doing so without writing it out as a dynasty is just not getting it. I have three coaches with personalities (Buddy Boy Blakelee, Jake Marlow, and "The Professor", the latter of whom you have not met yet). But I want to save those until the game is stable. With updates I always do a complete reinstall so I would lose their dynasties. Instead I've just put them on hold so I can resume when I feel things are likely not to change again soon (probably around 1.4). So, I guess I need to simply start a dynasty knowing it will be temporary, with a coach whose personality won't make me cry when he disappears. And so, "Temporary Like Achilles. Stay tuned.

[CoachC]

i think there's a cure for that!

[Wayne23]

Enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Hhc00hcmfU

[Wayne23]

May 1, 1971

My name is Achilles Karabinakis. I am the son of immigrants but I was born here in the United States in 1927- three days after my parents arrived. They settled in the little northeastern CT town of Willimantic and immediately went to work in the factories. I was left in the care of my grandmother who accompanied them here. I grew up speaking Greek and only learned English when I began school. I still speak both languages. As you will find with all Greeks I am very proud of my heritage. I am also very proud to be American.

My parents were short and stocky but something about the American diet or climate or whatever made me quite different. I grew to be 6’ 6”, 265 pounds. I have always been very strong.

When I entered Windham High School in 1941 the football coach saw me and wanted me on the team badly. I was not interested in American football. The school did not have a soccer team (what we in Europe have always called “football”- the REAL football) but I knew a little something about basketball and thought I would give it a try. The coach of that team was overjoyed to have me, again, due to my size, certainly not because of any ability, since I had none at that point. Coach Piotrowski was a hard man and a true task master but he was a good teacher, and over my four years with him I learned an enormous amount, enough so that the University of Connecticut, in the neighboring town of Storrs, CT, offered me a full four year basketball scholarship.

Attending university was a dream come true for me and even more so for my family, so I accepted the scholarship gratefully. From 1945-’46, through 1948-’49, I was a UConn Husky, and there was never a man who wore the uniform with more pride.

In those days there were not many players of my height and bulk and so I think it is fair to say I was an asset to my team. I was never a scorer but I learned to be a very good rebounder and an even better defender. Coach Hugh Greer, a man who has always been a god to me, taught me with great patience and endless knowledge. He gave me the great compliment of repeatedly saying that I was the best defensive player he had ever coached. If that is the case it is entirely due to his tutelage.

Upon my graduation Coach Greer helped me to secure the position of history teacher/ head basketball coach at New London High School, on the CT shoreline. I remained in that position for eight years, learning my trade and improving bit by bit. In 1957 I was offered the position of assistant coach at the University of Vermont, again, through the graces of Coach Greer. I accepted, and served there, learning from a very good head coach, until 1963, when, following the tragic sudden death of Coach Greer, new coach Fred Shabel took me on as his assistant at the University of Connecticut. I stayed at UConn, through the Shabel, Burr Carlson, and early Dee Rowe years until, just recently, I was offered the head coach job at Akron, here in Akron, Ohio. So finally, at age 44, in 1971, I am a head basketball coach at a Division I university. I will chronicle my adventures in this new position in this journal. I believe that keeping records is important.

A little bit about my personal life. I have been married to Maria Casavetes Karabinakis, since 1953. We have a son, Achilles, Jr., age 15, born in 1956, and a daughter, Maria, who is 12, born in 1959. My wife Maria is a traditional Greek housewife. She does not work but stays at home with the children. She is an excellent cook and housekeeper and the perfect partner for me. I cannot imagine life without her and am grateful to have her in my life every single day. My children are good students and they make me proud. There is never hint of trouble from either of them. Young Maria wishes to become a veterinarian, and studies very hard. Achilles is an accomplished football (soccer) player on his high school team, and is already sought after by many colleges. His academic interest is in the sciences, especially physics. He hopes to become a physics professor someday. My parents, unfortunately, both died young, but my wife’s parents are a treasured part of our lives and they make their home with us. Tradition is important and they provide us with a richness of the past from our native country, to which we return- all of us, every other year.

As I arrived at the campus to begin work I was struck by how fortunate I am to be here on this beautiful campus in this fine American community. Life has been very good to me. I will work very hard to deserve my good fortune.

All three assistant coaches chose to leave at the end of last season so my first task is replacing them. I want to spend a bit of money upon a recruiter since recruiting is vital to success. I will save money on the other two positions. I am most fortunate to hire Roy Baker as my #1. He is very highly regarded in the Midwest. He will recruit for me and I feel he will be a great asset. I have him for three years. John Lewis will be my #2, my scout. In our interview he showed me great analytical skills. I asked him to break down some film which he was seeing for the first time, and he saw everything I had hoped he would see. #3 is Pat Johnson, who will be my practice/bench coach. He is indeed a strategist. Naturally there will be some overlap of duties with the staff. We will meet formally twice each week but I intend to work very closely with my staff at all times. As a long time assistant myself, I know what good assistants have to offer and I intend to avail myself of all of it.

This is perhaps a good time to state that I have waited a very long time to become a head coach. For the past several years I have applied for positions throughout the country, and I was repeatedly disappointed by the meager response. I feel my credentials are impressive, my recommendations were of the highest, and I was mystified that opportunity so regularly passed me by. I began to wonder if there were an issue of bias due to my ethnicity, but there is no way to determine whether that is the case. I mention this only to state that I am more than ready. I enter the ranks of head coaching with a wealth of experience and knowledge, far beyond that of most first time coaches. I am very confident of success but then we Greeks are a confident, proud people.

[PointGuard]

Achilles, fortunately you and Maria had just 2 children (Achilles Junior and Maria Junioress)...if there were more they would have had to be out of wedlock so you would have been able to come up with a name for them.

[PointGuard]

Eventually Wayne is gonna get Buddy Boy, Jake, Professor, and Achilles all mixed up...now that should be a GREAT dynasty entry.

[Wayne23]

Well... they are all pretty different from each other. And they're on a couple of different time lines. Let's see what happens.

Buddy Boy, "What the hey is all these Greeks doin' in mah house!"

[Wayne23]

June 26

“Achilles, my husband.”

“Yes, Maria.”

We speak Greek in our home but I will translate.

“Your colleagues, your compatriots, at some point they will read your diary.”

“My journal yes.”

“And they are, are they not rather interested in statistics, in ratings, in things like that, is that not true?”

“It is indeed true.”

“Then perhaps you should provide them with this information here, at the beginning of your writing.”

I can never decide whether my wife is more beautiful than she is brilliant, or more brilliant than she is beautiful. I offered the journal to her and of course she immediately hit upon an area that I had neglected.

In creating my coaching profile I did what I normally do and awarded myself 205 points: 15 for Offense, 25 for both Defense and Player Development, and 70 each for both Recruiting and Scouting.

My ambition and integrity are both rated very high (no cheating, no early leaving in this dynasty), and both academics and discipline are rated as high. My temper is average.

Rating of 5 in all areas except: Player Rotation- 10, Offense Crash Boards- 8, Defense Crash Boards- 10, Full Court Press- 2, and Offensive Pace-6. The latter is an attempt to reduce turnovers, which tend to plague me.

Akron has a Team Prestige of 41 in the Mid-U.S. Conference which has a rating of 45. Facilities are at B- and academics at C+. We feel we can be competitive in conference. We have arranged a home and home series with Army as our non-conference rival. The opponent will probably change as we improve. Recruiting is set to Easy but that will go to Normal in season three or so. My dream destination school is, of course, my alma mater.

I will use the Princeton offense approximately 55% of the time, and the Triangle approximately 45%, except against man to man defense of course.

On defense we will employ man to man and 2-3 zone approximately equally. I will press rarely but will practice it enough to be ready to use the man to man press and the 1-2-1-1.

Today we begin recruiting. My staff and I have done an enormous amount of work and we are excited about possibilities. We have five scholarships to offer and hope to get two guards and three bigs or vice versa, but I always believe in going after the best athlete available. Having said that, our returning strength next year appears that it will be inside, so guards are a priority. We will look at as many recruits as possible, continuously adding to and subtracting from our list as we gain information.

“House rules” Allow me to go after any in state recruit. In region only those rated #75 or higher are eligible, and nationally and internationally only those rated #100 or higher. I am allowed to recheck and add to the list each month when the numbers change.

To begin with we look at 25 recruits.

Recruiting is a lot of tedium, calling, record keeping, gauging interest. One’s tedium must not ever show in the call or visit with the recruit of course. It is vital to remain upbeat and enthusiastic.

We whittle the 25 to 15 during July and will add new recruits at the beginning of each new month.

We are somewhat encouraged by early interest among a number of recruits.

We add 14 new recruits to the list on August 7.

[Wayne23]

August 21

“Achilles, my husband.”

“Yes, Maria?”

“You are working very, very hard, Achilles.”

“We discussed this when I took the position, Maria. I told you that during the first year I expected to work as many as sixteen hours each day.”

“Yes, I know we discussed this, but still, it is too much.”

“My health remains good, I am able to be home for dinner at 6:00 with the family almost every evening, at which time I spend at least an hour with the children. I attend most of Achilles’ games and Maria’s dance recitals. I try to find an afternoon or an evening to spend with you at the weekend. I remain aware of my duties to my family.”

“But you do not get enough sleep.”

“I have always required less sleep than you do, my wife.”

“I know this, but you have never gotten this little sleep on a regular basis.”

“Thank you for your concern, my wife, but I am fine. I will attempt to find time for a bit more sleep.”

Today we offered scholarships to three Point Guards, a Small Forward, and a Center. All are showing at least a small amount of interest in Akron.

September 18: We get our first recruit, Jon Moore, a Small Forward, currently at #43.

October 2: Al Willis, PG, and Jason Gourde, C, commit.

Today is the first day of practice.

Nov. 6: Recruiting and practice continue. We will nail down our final list of recruits today as this is the last day rating numbers will change.

I like my team. I feel that we will do well in conference. The season rapidly approaches!

We are still deciding about offers of our last two scholarships. We will decide next week. SF Moore wound up at #40, C Gourde at #114, and PG Willis at #143.

This week’s exhibition games will help us to determine our player rotation.

Exhibitions were a great help and our line up and rotation are set.

We offer to a PG, Ray Martin, #108, and SG Ryan Puckett, #177, and feel good about our prospects of signing both.

And here it is at least, the season. I feel that we’re ready but how do you know?

[Wayne23]

November 20: “You do not fool me, my husband.”

“I never do, Maria. Nor is it my aim to do so.”

“A man must sleep.”

“This is true.”

“And so?”

“And so? What?”

“And so, you must sleep and you do not. You are up and down throughout the night- I hear you every time, and you wander to your study to work, come back later, repeat the pattern throughout the night. I doubt that you sleep four hours on most nights.”

“My job is very mentally stimulating.”

“Yes… it is that…”

“I do not know how to address your concern.”

“I understand that you are overstimulated. You cannot continue in good health without proper sleep. It is my belief that you should see the doctor and ask for sleeping pills.”

“Maria, I always listen respectfully to your wise suggestions but I do not wish to use drugs to solve this, or any other problem.”

“Achilles…”

“Maria…”

“We will discuss this again.”

“I have no doubt of it, my wife.”

Our three committed recruits all signed letters of intent today. Unfortunately, PG Ray Martin made it clear that he has no interest in coming here. We withdraw the scholarship and offer it instead to Wesley Jackson, PG, #104.

He has us at #7 on his list and has told us he will come to campus for a visit and is interested in our school. Ryan Puckett has us at #3 and we are hopeful that we will eventually land him.

We continue on the road, journeying to Florida Gulf Coast. They are 1-1, winning their only home game.

November 21: We began the game in a fog and before we knew it we were down 8 points. I needed two time outs to solve the problem. We began to play somewhat better but at the half we were still down by six points. At the half we emphasized getting out on the three (They hit 5 in the 1st), and going in then out on O to free up our big men for lay ups, as well as Des for outside shots.

It all worked really well and we quickly took the lead. In the end we won 62-52. Des had 19, Rahm Park 15 and 7 at PF, and Kal Napp 12, 6, 2 at C. Alas, for the third straight game we had 21 turnovers. Still, we saw some good things. We’ll simply keep working on ball handling.

I must say that 2-1 is a step up for Akron. The team had fallen upon hard times in recent years, winning no more than nine games in any of the last four seasons.

We have decided to give Lan Sawk more playing time at SF. He is playing better than our starter, Jay Moody but the latter will continue to start… for now.

We continue on the road journeying to CT to play Hamden. They are 0-3 against weak competition but road games are always dangerous. We will finally begin to play some home games following this one.

November 24: The first half was close throughout, with seven leads changes and five ties. At the end we trailed by a single point. The Hamden C dominated in the first half and we put in a plan to contain him, or to try to do so. Sadly, it did not work and he was even more of a force in the 2nd, leading Hamden to a 78-69 victory over us. Kal Napp had a very good game at C in many respects, getting 15 and 11, but his opponent had 28 points.

The difference in this game was the bench. Their nonstarters had 24, 7, 8, while ours accounted for only 9, 6, 6. The good sign was that we had 15 turnovers. But we allowed Hamden to shoot 55.8%. We are indeed a work in progress but work we shall!

The staff meetings focus upon game play and practice issues more than recruiting, but we remain actively in pursuit of our last two recruits and are optimistic.

John Lewis’ scouting reports have been very accurate, and they have helped enormously with our preparation. Sadly, our players do not always possess the talent to implement the things we practice. Again, we shall continue to work hard, and our players are learning and improving.