I looked at the calendar, planned carefully and booked a flight for a family vacation to Disney World. By my calculations, May 31 (Thursday) to June 7 (Thursday) would be a slow time in college basketball. So I packed bags and hopped a plane, and man my timing could not have been worse.
Before I even checked into my hotel, Billy Donovan was checking out of Florida. I wrote about it from a McDonald's somewhere between Orlando International Airport and Lake Buena Vista. Meanwhile, on its way was something called Tropical Storm Barry, which was just like any other tropical storm, only performance enhanced. Consequently, I believe the Weather Channel put an asterisk beside its name, and Hank Aaron refused to acknowledge it.
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| Billy Donovan can only wonder if his NBA career might have mirrored that of mentor Rick Pitino. (AP) |
It rained.
Billy waffled.
So I spent much of my time wet and/or monitoring Donovan's about-face that took him from Florida to the Magic and back to Florida quicker than a family of three can navigate the line at Space Mountain. Then, just before I boarded a flight home, I got Donovan on the phone for a few moments. He had already apologized to the Magic, to the fans and to damn-near everybody in the world. But I figured I deserved an apology, too.
"I do apologize for screwing up your vacation," he said. "I really do."
Donovan was just playing along, of course. But it was hard not to notice he sounded like a man refreshed, unburdened, happy and humbled. He seemed at peace, and that's wonderful. But I still can't tell you I would have made the same decision, or that I agree with how he handled the situation. It was, by any standard, nutty in every aspect, a jumbled mess that put many people in bad positions, not the least of whom was his good friend Anthony Grant.
Donovan has said many times he made a "mistake," and that's certainly true. But regardless of how complex the process became, his 180-degree turn can be explained easily, because what Donovan ultimately did was choose two weeks of bad press -- some writer suggested Florida's O'Connell Center be renamed The Waffle House -- over five years of regret.
Or did he?
By the time I spoke with Donovan, he had answered pretty much every question, the ones about how it happened and why it happened and whether he ever imagined something like this could happen to him. He explained in great detail how he simply didn't feel at ease with his jump to the NBA, that less than 24 hours after being formally introduced by the Magic he realized his heart remained in Gainesville and that Florida is the place he now believes he wants to forever coach.
I don't doubt that's true.
But I still see an issue here.
flbball23 
