How was your summer?
Hey, eyes down here. It’s syllabus day. You don’t have to pay attention. There, now you’re getting it. I think we’re going to be friends.
My summer was pretty extreme. I didn’t shave for over a month and grew a really sweet beard. Then one day I shaved.  Moving on.
Marquette athletics had a much more interesting summer than I did. It ended last Saturday, holding its annual M Club Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Bradley Center. Among the newly enshrined were track and cross country coach Jim Allen, Athletic Director Bill Cords, basketball player Lisa Kanning (maiden name Oldenburg), and soccer player Kate McGeeney (Gordon).
Oh yeah, they also inducted Dwyane Wade and the 2002-’03 Final Four men’s basketball team, where Wade and most of his team members made it. Guess who else showed up?
Making his first public Marquette appearance since the day he just up and left the university was Indiana coach Tom Crean. He received cheers from the several hundreds of fans in attendance along with the other team members.
“The most important thing for me was to go back and be with my team and see my athletic director go in the Hall of Fame as well and just be a part of that,” Crean said via e-mail.
At face value, Crean’s return was just a public relations event in an effort to rebuild some lost favor with Marquette fans and receive an award. But in reality, it was much more. It was his sending off. The induction of the Final Four team is important in that it is the symbolic conclusion of Crean’s tenure at Marquette. Like Al McGuire, Bo Ellis, and the 1977 National Champions, he is now just a memory — another pillar of Marquette history. The Tom Crean era is officially finished.
Now begins the true reign of Buzz, who, after being handed the keys to Crean’s company Jaguar last year, finally has his own wheels. The core of the team he inherited is gone – namely, the three senior leaders from last year, Jerel McNeal, Wesley Matthews and Dominic James. Replacing them is a Top-20 recruitment class. But these young players will take time to grow and develop.
“With a younger team, we’re going to have to do more teaching than last year,” assistant coach Tony Benford said. “He’s very detailed and organized in his approach, and the players respect that. He makes sure the players are prepared when they step on the court. Most guys want to play for a coach that’s passionate about what he does, and I think that these young guys are going to love Buzz’s passion.”
But it’s not all gravy. The first year honeymoon is over and the building of a new era has to begin. And there have been losses along the way. Besides the subtraction of the four seniors from last year, the Golden Eagles lost incoming freshman Brett Roseboro over the summer. Basically, he wasn’t going to get any playing time, so he left.
A new coach and a new season is always exciting, and so is a new school year — until you have to actually read things and do homework. So is this new era, with a coach who had a bunch of early success and recruits well and works hard.
Crean has left his mark, a mark that doesn’t go away. And as upset as I was when Thomas A. Crean left, in the long run it will probably be for the best. My mom always tells me, leave things in better condition than you found them. Well, the building blocks to success have been left behind. And tradition never graduates or truly leaves.
Yes, the past has passed, but it is not forgotten.