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    Beyond the Boxscore

    Kevin Sumlin defends party boy Johnny Manziel and shows why recruits love Texas A&M

    Chris Baldwin
    Feb 1, 2013 | 11:30 am

    Kevin Sumlin looks much happier, lighter almost, than he did a year ago at this time. Back then he'd left the University of Houston in a lurch to head off into the uncertainty of Texas A&M in the SEC.

     

    Now, he practically bounds down a corridor of the Hyatt Regency downtown, grinning, seemingly as loose as can be in a sweatshirt and jeans.

     

    Sumlin's always loved coming to Houston for the Bear Bryant Awards, which benefit the American Heart Association. He remembers being an anonymous face in the ballroom crowd years ago, just another no-name assistant on Bob Stoops' power-packed Oklahoma staff.

     

     

      "Who's to say how [Manziel's] supposed to react?" Sumlin asks. "It's never been done before. Have you ever been in his shoes?" 

     
     

    "The first time I came here as a guest sitting at the Oklahoma table with Bobby, I couldn't ever imagine being up at the head table," Sumlin says, laughing.

     

    Now he's a perennial head table man, called back again and again to compete for Coach of the Year. Sumlin jokes that he's the Susan Lucci of the Bear Bryants, and he does watch Penn State coach Bill O'Brien walk away with a trophy Sumlin should have won.

     

    No matter. Everything is still different now. And O'Brien, and almost every other college football coach in America, only wishes he were Kevin Sumlin.

     

    Nick Saban never gets selected as a finalist for the Bear Bryant anymore, because he's unwilling to commit to attending the ceremony (a requirement to being up for the award). Ohio State coach Urban Meyer calls out sick like a kid asking to be excused from school the morning of this year's ceremony. Sumlin is clearly the biggest star in the room.

     

    The reality of this scene from earlier this month is more telling and instructive than ever with National Signing Day approaching Wednesday — with Sumlin set to haul in a top 10 recruiting class for a school too used to formerly ceding those type of distinctions to the University of Texas.

     

    Why Sumlin is such a star, why he's just been dubbed the third best recruiter in America by ESPN (behind only Saban and Meyer), becomes apparent on his Houston visit as soon as he's asked about Heisman-winning quarterback Johnny Manziel's hard partying ways. Many coaches put in such a spot would spew some stern nonsense about having talked to Manziel about the need to keep a level head.

     
     

      "You predict. I'm a football coach. I'm not a magician," Sumlin says. 

     
     

    Not Sumlin. He launches into a straight defense of his most important player. He doesn't say what he thinks an often strangely conservative sports media wants to hear. He attacks.

     

    "A lot of people are complaining, saying [Manziel's] got to this, he's got to do that," Sumlin says. "They're not 20 years old.

     

    "Who's to say how he's supposed to react? It's never been done before. How do you know how he's supposed to react? Have you ever been in his shoes?"

     

    Sumlin is talking about the surreal experience of winning the Heisman as a freshman, but mostly he's sticking up for his guy.

     

     He has the right to party.

     

    Okay, maybe not quite. You can be sure Sumlin is not going to publicly chastise Johnny Football for a few — okay, a lot — of party pics with buxom coeds and expensive Champagne either.

     

    As long as Johnny Manziel is doing everything Sumlin expects of him, everything the program needs, the coach will more than have his back. And there isn't a hotshot player in America who cannot appreciate that.

     

    "I can assure you Johnny is not thinking about winning the Heisman again," Sumlin says. "That's not what he's about. That's not his goal. That's not our goal. He's got so many other things he's got to take care of."

     

     Sumlin's social command
    If any coach seems like a perfect coach for these social media, expanded-TMZ times, it is Sumlin. He's been a Twitter natural almost from the moment he started tweeting. It's hard to imagine Sumlin going through a Manti Te'o situation with one of his players. You can't Catfish a true social media player.

     
     

      It's all part of the price of being a rock star coach. Sometimes one gets the impression that Sumlin protests too much.

     
     

    Sumlin just gets it. But, he swears, that doesn't mean he likes it.

     

    "It is what it is," he says. "My kid is 11 years old, and he's on Instagram. You have to manage it. I'm on Twitter to get the word out on our program. I don't necessarily like it. But I'm on it."

     

    It's all part of the price of being a rock star coach. Sometimes one gets the impression that Sumlin protests too much. Like when he shoots back, "What did we win exactly?" to several questions about the challenges of following up on the Aggies' virtually out-of-nowhere 11-victory SEC doubters smackdown season.

     

    Sumlin knows exactly what Texas A&M won in defying all the forecasts of doom and standing up as the only team to beat Alabama last season.

     

    Respect. And plenty of it. For a coach whose Air Raid Offense was too often dismissed as only being Conference USA worthy while he led the Cougars. For a program that is no one's second fiddle anymore. Sumlin's team has already been dubbed the preseason No. 1 team in America by one AP top 25 voter.

     

    Which only triggers another memorable line from Sumlin.

     

    "You predict," he says of the forecasts. "I'm a football coach. I'm not a magician."

     

    Plenty of big-time high school recruits would beg to disagree.

     

    And even Sumlin cannot keep up the annoyed facade for long. Soon, he's breaking into another grin. It's good to be the new king.

    Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin says he has no problem with Johnny Manziel celebrating his success.

     
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    Basketball News

    Cooper Flagg is the new Maine man for the Dallas Mavericks

    Associated Press
    Jun 26, 2025 | 8:55 am
    Cooper Flagg
    Getty Images
    Cooper Flagg, newest Dallas Mavericks pick

    Cooper Flagg is the new Maine man in Dallas. The Mavericks took the Duke forward with the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft on June 25, hoping they have found their next franchise superstar less than five months after trading one away.

    Mavericks fans were furious when Dallas traded Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers on February 1, some immediately threatening to end their support of the team.

    But the ones who stuck around may quickly love Flagg, the college player of the year who averaged 19.2 points and 7.5 rebounds while leading Duke to the Final Four. The Mavericks quickly announced that Flagg would wear No. 32 in Dallas, where fellow Duke products Kyrie Irving and Dereck Lively II are on the roster.

    “I’m really excited. I think I keep saying I’m excited to be a sponge, to get down there and just learn, be surrounded by Hall of Fame-caliber guys and just to be able to learn from them,” Flagg said. “It’s going to be an incredible experience.”

    His selection — considered likely ever since Flagg showed off his considerable game last summer after being invited to the U.S. Olympic team's training camp — was a daylong celebration in his home state for the 18-year-old forward from Newport, Maine.

    “It means a lot to me to have the support of the whole state. I know how many people showed up today and supported me at some of the draft parties back home,” Flagg said. “It feels amazing knowing I can inspire younger kids. I was in their shoes really not that long ago, so just to know I can give those kids those feelings and have the whole state behind me, it means a lot.”

     Cooper Flagg Basketball up-and-comer Cooper FlaggGetty Images

    The backstory
    Dallas Mavericks CEO Rick Welts wasn't thinking even for a second about Cooper Flagg when he started a staff meeting before the draft lottery by saying the club was entering the most important offseason in franchise history.

    The longtime NBA executive and relatively new leader on the business side of the Mavs was thinking about the lingering fallout of the widely reviled Luka Doncic trade, not the club turning a 1.8% chance into winning the rights to draft the teenaged star from Duke.

    “Never, ever did anybody in our organization ever even say what would happen if we win. That's a waste of time,” Welts told The Associated Press recently. “Like, it's unbelievable. It was hard to even get your head around.”

    The self-inflicted wounds were numerous after general manager Nico Harrison's stunning decision to send Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis in early February.

    Fans were incensed. Season-ticket holders were canceling. Potential new sponsors were telling Welts they'd have to think about it.
    Just like that, the Mavs had a vision to sell of a potential superstar who could someday be the face of the franchise — as Doncic was, and fellow European superstar Dirk Nowitzki before him. Just like that, despair turned to hope for plenty of people, including those under Welts who had spent weeks dealing with the wrath of a spurned fan base.

    Before the Doncic trade, Welts had already made a decision to raise season-ticket prices. He told the AP he had to back off on the size of the increase as he watched the visceral reaction unfold.

    Welts has seen plenty in nearly 50 years with the NBA, including time in the league office and stints with Phoenix and Golden State. That's not to say the Doncic fallout didn't have a profound impact on the 72-year-old Welts, who had come out of retirement to replace Cynt Marshall just a month and a half earlier. It just means he has weathered a few storms.

    And now the Naismith Basketball Hall of Famer isn't so sure he's ever seen the sun come back out so quickly.

    “The thing that I learned through all of this experience was what I knew was like this amazing emotional tie between this team and these fans was even stronger than I think anybody who hadn’t lived here and been a part of it could ever imagine,” Welts said. “Just the outpouring of pure joy and the idea of a generational player that could change our fortunes for the next 15 years would land with us by pure luck.”

    Part of what made the Doncic deal so hard to believe was unloading a 25-year-old superstar in his prime nine months after leading Dallas to the NBA Finals for the first time in 13 years. The Mavs lost to Boston in five games last June.

    Harrison's reasoning was prioritizing defense, and his belief that Davis and Irving were a good enough tandem to keep Dallas as a championship contender. Flagg's potential gave that notion a boost.

    “I feel like I’m a broken record, but the team that we intended to put on the floor, which you guys saw for 2 1/2 quarters, that’s a championship-caliber team,” Harrison said. “And so you might not like it, but that’s the fact, it is.”

    Welts, who believes the Mavs have work to do to bring their basketball and business sides together, will spend plenty of time during the early days of the Flagg era sharing his vision for a new arena.

    It's a big reason Welts took the job, after spending seven years with Golden State on an arena plan that moved the Warriors across the bay to San Francisco from Oakland. He says all the talks are focused on keeping the team in Dallas.

    While the casino-centered Adelson and Dumont families of Las Vegas, in the middle of their second full year as owners of the Mavs, wanted gambling to be part of the formula for a new arena, the political realities in Texas have shifted the focus away from that idea for now.

    There's a new focus for Welts in what seems certain will be the final stop in an eventful NBA career: building everything around another potentially generational star after the Mavs jettisoned the one they had.

    “Don't make this sound like I'm suggesting that everyone is forgiven,” Welts said. “Luka will always be a big part of what this organization is. But for a large number of fans, it is a pathway — it's not a pathway, it's like a four-lane highway into being able to care about the Mavericks the way they cared about the Mavericks before.”

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