Father hands down more than a simple resemblance
By GUERIN EMIG World Sports Writer
4/16/2006
NORMAN -- It was around one o'clock last Wednesday afternoon when Oklahoma's seven basketball players made a startling discovery.
They weren't just getting one new coach, but two.
It was then they met Jeff Capel III, the 31-year-old Virginia Commonwealth coach brought to Norman to replace Kelvin Sampson. It was then they heard him say, "We represent the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Oklahoma represents excellence. In everything we do, we're going to strive to be excellent.
"In the classroom, in our community and on the court."
Here, Capel was channeling another coach. Not Mike Krzyzewski, the Duke mastermind for whom he played point guard from 1993-97.
Rather, a coach who has had a far greater influence on his life.
A coach in whose very image Capel has been shaped -- Jeff Capel Jr.
"I'll tell you a story," said Mark Cline, the VCU assistant who has served under both Capels over the past 16 years. "One day back home in Fayetteville (N.C.), Jeffrey was out pulling weeds.
"This was summer, as hot and humid as you can imagine. And Jeffrey came in and told his dad he was finished.
"So his dad came outside, looked around, and told him to get right
back after it. He made him start over, basically.
"He told Jeffrey, 'If you're going to pull weeds, might as well do it right. Might as well be the best weed-puller anyone's ever seen.' "
"My dad is my hero. He always has been," Jeff Capel III said. "A lot of who I am as a man is because of him, just watching him through the years. I've been very fortunate."
A reasonable likeness
There is a face-value resemblance.
Capel went 79-41 in four years at Virginia Commonwealth despite doubters who scoffed at his players, his conference and the fact he was the youngest head coach in Division I when hired at 27.
He was 29 when his Rams scared the sweat out of No. 4 seed Wake Forest before losing, 79-78, in the 2004 NCAA first round.
Capel senior made similarly low profile stops in 12 years of college coaching -- four at Fayetteville State, one at North Carolina A&T and seven at Old Dominion -- before becoming a Charlotte Bobcats assistant.
The elder Capel took A&T to a conference championship, then led Old Dominion to a pair of NCAA appearances, one of which included a triple-overtime upset of No. 4-seed Villanova in 1995.
"We all love playing for him. It's almost like he's one of the guys," Old Dominion captain Mike Jones once said of the elder Capel. "He knows how to relate to players our age."
So does the Capel the younger.
The Sooners will find their new coach slides Jay-Z and Nas into the CD player, and "Scarface" and "Goodfellas" into the DVD.
"In Jeff's one year working with me at Old Dominion, I knew he was going to be a very good coach," the elder Capel said of the 2000-01 season, when his son was an assistant. "It was his ability to communicate with players. All this talk about his being 31 years old? I think it's a huge asset. Because he can relate to 18-, 19- and 20-year olds. They'll find he's a stern taskmaster, but he's also a players' coach."
Just as Capel went right back in after those weeds, under strict orders from a father who once served in the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division, but ultimately seeking the respect of a man he respected more than any other.
Finding his own way
Capel won't be duplicating his dad's offense at OU, or Krzyzewski's. He'll be making his own way. In that sense, he'll be duplicating his dad's character.
Jeff Capel Jr. is the son of the man who once integrated his hometown's movie theater by sitting in the middle of the front row beside a white friend. He enlisted in the Army to be both a paratrooper and a basketball player. He coached his high school alma mater's basketball team, but after paying dues as wrestling coach.
At Jacksonville State, the elder Capel ran practice, then washed jerseys or swept the floor. At Duke one fall, where he had been invited to watch his son play an intrasquad scrimmage, Capel hid out in Krzyzewski's office. Old Dominion was scheduled to play Duke later that season, and he didn't think it right to get a free scouting report.
Jeff Capel III took it all in, and modeling the behavior put him on a path toward doing things well, or at the very least right.
The new Sooners coach had the game and the grades to make it to Duke, where he went from the national championship game as a freshman to last place in the Atlantic Coast Conference the very next season.
He made it to the Phoenix Suns' training camp in 1998, when he developed ulcerative colitis.
Recovered from the colitis, he underwent back surgery that ended his playing career. He turned to coaching and joined his dad in 2000, moving to Virginia Commonwealth in '01, and taking over the program in '02.
"Jeffrey is a complete young man," said Capel's mother, Jerry. "His spirituality. His work ethic. He's a man of his word. He's someone that the people (at OU) are really going to enjoy. Put the basketball bouncing aside, he's just a good young man.
"He's so much like his father."
Demanding excellence
Capel's parents were there on the stage when OU president David Boren hosted the introduction of the Sooners' new basketball coach.
Boren introduced athletic director Joe Castiglione, who introduced Jeff Capel III, and Capel waited for quiet to return to say his first words as OU coach.
"The bottom line is that I'm here for one thing," he said. "President Boren talked about excellence, and that's something that I've been a part of since I can remember. . . . When I was younger growing up in North Carolina, my father taught me a lot about having pride in everything you do.
"A few years ago for my dad's birthday, I told him, 'Thank you for teaching me to never lower my standards,' " Capel told the crowd. " 'Thank you for making me pull weeds when I was younger.' That's something I talked to the players about earlier today."
Guerin Emig 581-8355
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Originally Posted by SicEmBaylor
will be tough next year no doubt but I think when you see how good Reynolds and James are there will be a lot more confidence.
