Isiah Thomas Just Wants to Rub His Dog

At least he's not crying all the time.

By JANIE CAMPBELL

Updated 2:03 PM EDT, Thu, Nov 19, 2009

Print Email Share TWITTER FACEBOOK

Getty Images

If you watched "Project Runway" this season, you're familiar with Christopher, the hapless designer from Shakopee, Minnesota who wanted to win perhaps more than all other contests in the history of the show combined (and kept crying about it). Neither bad designs nor judges' horror nor common sense could keep Christopher from continuing on -- he just kept believing in his "vision," plugging away, and turning out crappy dresses in the face of immense odds and Michael Kors' formidably orange façade.

Isiah Thomas's coaching career has gone sorta like that. Disaster upon disaster, and yet he continues both to coach and to want to coach. It's sort of admirable in its way, and, like Christopher, one wonders if eventually something will click and we'll find out there was talent there to begin with.

It certainly won't happen this year (for either of them). The best you can say about Thomas' first week of basketball at Florida International is that it's had all the flair of fashion and as many faux pas: the first game was a respectable loss at North Carolina, and what followed during a weekend on the road was the equivalent of Lindsay Lohan leggings: fans at Monmouth (and of the Knicks) greeted Isiah with chants of "Magic hates you!" and rushed the court when the Golden Panthers lost by 30 points. Thomas then topped that off by begging for mercy from a team with only 8 scholarship players:

Midway through the second half of Florida International’s 81-49 loss at Tulsa on Sunday, Thomas motioned toward his counterpart as if to ask when he’d take his starters out.

A few minutes later, he got vocal with his request, shouting a few words in the direction of Golden Hurricane coach Doug Wojcik. FIU (0-3) was down 63-25 with 8:59 to play after being outscored 27-5 to start the second half.

“It’s a 40-minute game. If you want the truth of it, go back to the (North) Carolina game Monday night, when Carolina was pressing them with 3 minutes left,” Wojcik said, referring to FIU’s 88-72 loss at North Carolina. “I don’t press, and I don’t embarrass anybody. But it’s a 40-minute game, and I’m in this game to get better.

“I’ve never seen anything like that. It was very bizarre.”

Wojcik...looked back at Thomas and shrugged his shoulders....He had emptied his entire bench with 3 minutes left.

Wojcik explained that he had only eight scholarship players available.

“There’s 10 minutes left in the game and, to be honest with you, I only have so many guys,” Wojcik said.

Yeah, so...there was that. But it hasn't been all bad: in between North Carolina and The Monmouth Incident, Thomas reeled in three recruits including FIU's first Rivals Top 50 signee, 6'8" forward Dominique Ferguson. Tuesday night he nabbed his first college victory, an 88-82 squeaker over Florida Memorial.

“It feels great,” Thomas said. “Every coach, when he or she starts, especially after you’ve lost three games, you start wondering if you’re ever going to win a game. I told the guys at halftime, ‘I don’t care how we win. I just want to win the game, go home, rub my dog, wake up in the morning and see the sun.”’

So did Christopher, of course -- and though we suspect they end up in the same boat after all's said and done, we'll keep checking on them every now and then with a teeny, tiny measure of hope.

Janie Campbell wonders if Isiah might sew better than he coaches. Her work has appeared in irreverent sports sites around the Internet.