Tom Izzo Spins a Genuine Tale

DETROIT -- It's the phoniness of it all that usually is so annoying.

Teams rally around their trumped-up idea that they don't get respect.

They live for respect. They've got to have their respect.

It's the most shallow of motivational tools, as if winning for winning's sake, or for reaching potential, isn't enough. What matters is that others think you're good?

Please. So I've been studying Tom Izzo the past few weeks, trying to figure out why his naked plea for respect isn't bothering me. Somehow in this case, it seems like something worth cheering for.

Maybe it's this: For Michigan State and for Izzo, it's something real.

The Spartans have been to five Final Fours in the past 11 years, and yet they're the little guy in Monday night's national championship game against North Carolina. They stand for the little guy, too. They represent him in a way that North Carolina just can't in this economy and this time.

Michigan State is coming off as Team Grit, arriving at the mountaintop by work ethic more than skill. Also, it is playing as a home team here in one of America's most depressed cities, and has come to symbolize hard work and survival.

"I do realize they have a cause,'' North Carolina coach Roy Williams said. "Well, we also have a cause. We want to win a national championship, period , the end.''

Sorry Roy. Not good enough.

"I said yesterday I love what they're doing, the positive feelings they're putting across this state,'' Williams said. "I love the people of North Carolina, and the positive feelings we can put across that state, too.''

Nope. That doesn't make it either, not here, against this team. North Carolina is here because it is North Carolina's birthright, a program and coach that come closer to perfection than any other. Tyler Hansbrough needs a title to truly be one of North Carolina's all-time greats.

In normal times, that's a fine tale. But Tom Izzo is telling a very real story here, and not just about a team's social symbolism. It's about Izzo himself.

Izzo is just now moving to the top line of the coaching hierarchy.

He'll never realize he's here.

Last week at the NCAA regional in Indianapolis, Michigan State was about to face Louisville and Rick Pitino, and it was clear how much this tournament meant to Izzo. It was a game about his own perceived shortcomings against maybe the biggest name coach. It was about the champ of the Big East, the best and most-promoted conference, against the champ of the Big Ten, which no one considers an athletic conference.

It was about Izzo's hard-feelings toward Dick Vitale and toward Digger Phelps, who he felt, rightly so, had pushed an East Coast bias for ESPN at the expense of the Midwest. They had all but ridiculed Michigan State, giving it no chance. Vitale had said that if Michigan State got a No. 1 seed, he would grow hair.

But Michigan State does not fit its Big Ten image of a hulking, slogging team. These guys are athletes and are tough, too.

"I think sometimes we anoint a league... '' Izzo said. "I'm giving my normal hurrah for the Big Ten because I think too many people, especially some on TV, have abused it.''

Well, Izzo won that game, then beat another Big East No. 1, Connecticut, to get to the title game. Imagine what it would mean to Izzo to take down North Carolina, maybe the biggest college basketball icon of all.

"I've known Roy for quite a while now, since he was an assistant for Dean (Smith) at Carolina,'' Izzo said. "When he got the Kansas job, I kind of watched his career, saw him.

"I was dreaming of, 'Could I ever get a big job?' He was going to Kansas. I was thinking of going to Northern Michigan. It was a little different because he had that pedigree behind him and everything.''


The pedigree. I don't want to play amateur psychologist here, but I wonder how long he has been trying to measure up. I mean, he claims to be 5-9, which can be true only if he's standing on a phone book. He talks about starting his career years ago at the bottom at Michigan State, with one responsibility being to unlock the gym door for Magic Johnson. They became friends. That seems like a fine pedigree, really.

But apparently, it doesn't to him.

"What keeps me at Michigan State?'' he said. "They gave me a chance.

"I have so much more to build. I love the Dukes, Carolinas, Kentuckys, Kansas. I'm not going to see that (level at Michigan State) in my lifetime because they've done it for so many years, but I love aspiring to be those.''

Each team takes on its coach's personality, and what Izzo has brought to Michigan State is a toughness, a team that seems more real world, somehow. It's a dirt-under-your-fingernails type of team playing here in a town that matches.

Izzo is known in the Midwest for his War Drill, a grueling rebounding drill that sees everyone crash the boards without rules, and sometimes with football pads.

So that's the guts of this story. When this party leaves this city, the empty storefronts will emerge again. But for a few days, Michigan State gives hurting people something to cheer for. Izzo has taken his players to see some of the downtrodden area and people, to let his players know they're real.

"We're not carrying them on our shoulders like we're trying to save the world,'' Izzo said.

"We're carrying them on our shoulders because we care, and it's our state...

"But I think it's a cause. Every coach is going to use every single motivational tool you can use. And yet, this is one cause that isn't manufactured.''

No, nothing fake here.