Catching up on the wild world of sports

The last time we talked the Marshall basketball coach's seat was still empty, the Herd football team was still solid with a pair of starting corners ready to come back, Tiger Woods had yet to return to cursing and driver-throwing his way around golf courses and Donovan McNabb was still a Philadelphia Eagle.

 I think it's time to get caught up. In the words of Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire, "Who's coming with me?"

— Keeping with the Maguire theme, it's safe to say new Marshall hoops coach Tom Herrion "had me at hello."

To be honest as I made way to the Cam Henderson Center last Saturday for the introduction of the 28th head basketball coach in Marshall history, I knew two trivial things about Herrion.

One, he was an alum of mighty Merrimack College — the same school that produced my father, Gerry Ramspacher, a basketball advocate and former CYO coaching legend. 

And two, Herrion was the Pittsburgh assistant coach who was treated with warm and fuzzy Morgantown hospitality last February when he got pelted with a coin during a timeout of the Panthers' game at West Virginia.

But then I heard him speak — and I was immediately intrigued.

Sure, it was neat that he called Marshall a place of "great basketball tradition" and that he views this basketball program as a whole as a "sleeping giant."

That's pure optimism — that's what new coaches are supposed to say.

But what I liked was the way he talked. The way his deep, East Coast accent carried over the crowd.

Herrion's a New England guy, probably a Red Sox fan, who has deep roots all along the northeastern seaboard. He's coached at Merrimack, in North Andover, Mass., and at Providence, in Rhode Island. His father, the late Jim Herrion, was a successful high school coach in the famed New City Catholic League. His brother, Bill, mans the coaching sideline at the University of New Hampshire and is a former head man at Philadelphia's Drexel University.

Whoop-dee-do, what does it all mean, Basil?

It means Herrion will probably soon decorate the Herd's roster with tough, East Coast guys who know how to win. 

That's starting to become a trendy (and successful) thing to do in this state. Bob Huggins has turned West Virginia into a pick-up version of the Jersey Shore. From this years' Final Four WVU squad, 11 of the 16 players on the roster were from  New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island or Maryland.

— What's funny about the dirty waters DeQuan Bembry and T.J. Drakeford plunged themselves into stemming from an incident outside a Huntington bar a few Saturdays ago, was what I heard the other day.

  I was going through interviews after the first spring practice and came across a one-on-one I had with stud linebacker Mario Harvey. When it was asked about the biggest difference in the football program since new coach Doc Holliday arrived, Harvey immediately responded with "discipline, a lot more discipline. People are really starting to clean up their act now."

  A few days later Bembry and Drakeford dirtied that act. Drakeford has since been dismissed from the team and Bembry, I'm sure, is skating on ice thinner than Jeff Van Gundy's hair.

  Maybe this was a good thing.

  Holliday came to Marshall in December and, like Harvey said, immediately stressed discipline from his players.

  Maybe all of them didn't get that message the first time. Maybe now they will.

  Mark Snyder used to give, what seemed like, warnings or slaps on his player's wrists after they got in trouble. Holliday, it seems like, will simply give the boot.

-OK, so Tiger came back last week at the Masters and he did what Tiger does.

  He hit towering drives, made crazy, tree line-flirting iron shots that had your mouth open in awe and he cursed — out loud.

  Oh my gosh!

  CBS' Jim Nantz didn't like it and the networks' Peter Kostis asked him about it.
  And Woods, like his swing, delivered with the perfect answer.

 "I think people are making way too much of a big deal out of this thing," Tiger said. "I hit a big snipe off the first hole and I don't know how people should think I should be happy about that."

  Exactly.

  You hit a drive three area codes to the left an then pop up an approach shot and try to do handstands about it.

  You can't. Emotions take over and you become upset.

  This is, and always will be, how Tiger deals with poor play.

  Get over it.

-Finally, to the trade head ‘round the NFC East.

  As a lifelong Eagle fan, you'd think I'd be making a punching bag out of my wall by now over the fact that the Birds dumped McNabb, a 6-time Pro Bowler, to the division rival Washington Redskins.

  Think again.

  Put it this way: On the night he was traded, I made several hefty bets (in college terms — we're talking two cases of Natural Light) with roommates and friends that No. 5 would never win a Super Bowl with the Skins.

I think I'm safe.

Goodbye warm-killing throws, annoying sideline dance moves and up-chucks in Super Bowls.

Hello Kevin Kolb.

Andrew Ramspacher can be contacted at ramspacher@marshall.edu.