Three College Hoops Stories That Everyone Should Read

Rarely do I do link dumps but this past week I've read three of the better college basketball stories that I ever had and felt the need to pass them along. One is from Gary Parrish at CBS Sportsline, one from Wright Thompson at ESPN.com and the other from Gary Smith at Sports Illustrated, who is, for my money the best sports writer in the world. Thompson and Smith's are really long just so you know that going in.

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First, outstanding piece from the venerable Gary Parrish, who seems to "get" college basketball and its many untold stories better than anyone else out there, on Eastern Arizona JuCo coach Tim Parmeter, who is coaching through an unbelievably awful tragedy. In late December '06, in the midst of an ugly divorce from his estranged wife and after a particularly vicious argument, he came home to find her and their two-year-old son Ryan dead in his in the garage of a murder-suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.

Later, suicide notes were found and in one addressed to Parmeter, he was blamed for the entire ordeal:

Don't ever try to convince yourself otherwise -- this event is absolutely, completely your fault. You created it. You could have prevented it. You encouraged it. You found our pain funny. ... If I have the opportunity to haunt you, I will. ... I pray you will see our faces in your mind's eye and wonder what Ryan could have been and what we could have had if you had only chosen love.

I won't go into much further detail, I highly suggest reading the whole thing for yourself. Very well written, very well told and very powerful. Back when Lute Olson took a leave of absence to deal with his divorce I said the story put the game in a proper perspective. Not to trivialize Olson's situation, but this blows that out of the water. Although for Parmeter, who only took a week off in '06 after the events, coaching the game was therapeutic. He even held practice this year at the exact same time he found his dead ex-wife and child, 11:12 AM December 30, so he'd have something to distract him.

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Next up, I came across ESPN.com's story of former Washington State star Tony Harris' November death in Brazil. It's written by Wright Thompson, one of the better feature writers in the US, in my opinion, and while it's long, it's well worth it (the lengthiness might explain why it was only ESPN.com's lead story for a few hours yesterday, despite nothing newsworthy happening, I guess articles about the NBA All Star Game, a mere six weeks away, are more interesting).

Anyway, it's an amazingly written narrative, which is fitting because it reads more like fiction than fact. Harris, who led Kelvin Sampson's 1994 Washington State Cougars to the NCAA Tournament and was playing professionally in Brazil was experiencing some serious mental problems, specifically paranoia, resulting from a troubled adult life. The story profiles his madness, with a Heart of Darkness metaphor that is harrowing, Harris' plan to escape some unknown danger, his disappearance and the subsequent investigation by an international detective. It's a real life mystery and it's reality makes it all the more powerful. The death still hasn't yet been deemed a suicide or homicide. Like with Parrish's story on Parmeter, I'll leave it at that, but if you can handle some sadness today, it's an unbelievable read.

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Finally, Gary Smith's story on San Diego freshman Rob Jones. This story was done a month or so ago by Connelly at ESPN as a TV piece and was very well done but this article is just incredible. Jones, who is a starter and third leading scorer for San Diego, is also the grandson of notorious cult leader Jim Jones, who led the People's Temple and was responsible for a mass suicide of over 900 people. Jones' adopted son, Jim Jr. is Rob's father and avoided the mass suicide that occurred in the cult's plantation in Jonestown, Guyana because he and some other members of the Temple were playing basketball in a nearby city. Jim Jr. went through serious depression and guilt, which is ultimately being erased by Rob's interest in basketball, the game that, as Smith puts it, both ruined and saved Jim Jr.'s life.

Smith is known for his long narratives and rarely fails to deliver the goods. Even though I knew this story beforehand, to read it in his words adds a whole other dimension.

So if you've got a half hour to kill, instead of playing Solitaire, do yourself a favor and add some culture to your college hoops fandom. There will be plenty of Duke-hating, face-painting and AP poll-bashing to come.