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Basketball coach Lemons dead at 79
The Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY — Abe Lemons, the folksy college basketball coach who won 599 games and seemed to have a one-liner for any occasion, died at 79.
He died Monday at his home after a long illness, said his wife, Betty. Lemons had Parkinson's disease for several years and his health worsened after he fell and broke his hip in July.
Lemons was as well known for his humor as his coaching. He coached for 34 years in stops at Texas, Oklahoma City (twice) and Pan American. He retired in 1990, slowed by health problems
"It wasn't the same," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I don't know whether you
change or the game changes. They all want to play, but they don't want to put the effort into what you want to do."
Oklahoma coach Kelvin Sampson said his respect for Lemons grew as he watched him battle Parkinson's the last three or four years.
"I've never met anybody with a sense of humor like his," he said. "And I hate to sound like a cliche here, but as great a coach as he was, he was even a better person."
Texas Tech's Bob Knight remembered Lemons for his innovations and said Lemons was always worth listening to.
"All he said was, 'You got to give them the corner.' That was it," Knight recalled. "But if you think about it, there are numerous implications to that. The corner is the most difficult spot on the floor to escape. It's the most difficult shot on the floor, and it's the easiest place to trap the ball. He wasn't saying, 'Let them shoot it from the corner.' He was saying, 'Force the ball to the corner.' In just a few words, he made a very telling observation."
Lemons grew up in the southwestern Oklahoma town of Walters and was never at a loss for a wise crack. After his center grabbed only one rebound in the first half of a game, Lemons told him "That's one more rebound than a dead guy."
While at Oklahoma City, Lemons tried to recruit Johnny Bench, who was from the Oklahoma town of Binger.
"I told Bench once, 'If you had come with me, you could be the principal of a high school by now.'"
He once told broadcaster Howard Cosell, "You may be big in New York, but in Walters, Oklahoma, you're nobody."
Lemons' personality and uptempo style of play revitalized basketball at Texas in the late 1970s. As interest soared, the Longhorns went 110-63 in six seasons, winning a share of two Southwest Conference titles. His firing as Longhorns' coach in 1982 stung Lemons for many years.
Lemons is survived by his wife, Betty Jo, daughters Dana and Jan and four grandchildren. Services in Oklahoma City are pending.
18-year-old is youngest player on PGA tour
The Associated Press
Ty Tryon must be relieved the first assignment for his final year of high school doesn't include a paper on how he spent his summer.
The vacation didn't pan out the way he imagined.
"For the most part, I was at home, watching TV, playing videogames, reading, a littleclubbing, hanging out with my girlfriend, not much else." Tryon said, rattling off an agenda that sounds like a typical, carefree summer for a senior-to-be.
However, Tryon isn't a typical
teenager. No other kid his age has a PGA Tour card.
Instead of mixing it up with Tiger Woods, Tyron had his tonsils taken out a week before his 18th birthday.
"I couldn't even eat my birthday dinner," he said.
The closest he got to the PGA Tour was in front of the television. While guys like Spike McRoy and Chris Riley were winning for the first time on tour, Tryon was at home in Orlando, Fla., with a menacing case of mononucleosis.
holes one afternoon, and the next day I couldn't even get out of bed."
"Mono is weird," he said.
"Some days you feel good, some days you feel bad. I played nine
He went 21/2 months without being able to play a full round of golf.
Now that's weird.
"The longest I'd ever gone without playing was about two weeks one year when my family went on vacation," Tryon said.
That was nothing. Tryon has gone 24 weeks without playing a tournament, a forced sabbatical that finally comes to an end this week when he returns to competition at the Utah Classic on the Buy.com Tour.
Look on the bright side.
Since the PGA Tour has given Tryon a medical exemption that allows him to play at least 23 tournaments through the end of 2003, he could become the first player to win rookie of the year and comeback player of the year in the same season.
"It's a fresh start," Tryon said. "I'm real excited to be competing again."
The enthusiasm was just as high last November. At age 17, not long after starting his junior year in high school, Tryon sailed through all three stages of PGA Tour qualifying to become the youngest player to earn his card.
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