GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Billy Donovan knows what’s coming from the student sections this winter in Knoxville and Athens and Tuscaloosa. He can picture fans waving waffles, flinging flip-flops, maybe yanking out a yo-yo or two. The days of those tame “Ed-die Mun-ster” (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap) chants are gone.
Two championship years made Donovan a legend-in-the-making in college basketball. One crazy week, when he left Florida for the Orlando Magic, then changed course and returned to the Gators, turned him into a punch line. The world is ready to laugh at him. And Billy D says he now can laugh a little, too.
“Sometimes, I think back,” he says, “and I can’t believe everything that happened.”
His mind doesn’t often drift to the days he considered flipping his life upside down and ended up turning a 360. His focus now has returned to Florida, where he’s making $3.5 million to lead one of the nation’s youngest teams toward what would be the program’s 10th straight NCAA Tournament appearance.
Yet he knows he’ll always be defined in part by The Flop Heard ’Round the Basketball World.
Time, and more championships might make the world forget. But the days will remain a turning point for him, will always live in his mind, his heart and his gut. The choices he faced tested him like nothing else in his life, he says. They made him examine the closest to him and question just what he wanted.
“He had to decide what was important to him,” UF freshman Chandler Parsons says. “He decided it was keeping his family here, the University of Florida and us.”
For those who need a refresher, here’s the crash course on Donovan’s dilly-dally. Things started with a Memorial Day call he took from his agent, Lonnie Cooper, letting him know the Magic wanted to speak with him about their vacant head-coaching job. He asked Cooper to schedule a meeting with Magic officials for Wednesday, May 30 – in-between, he’d attend the Southeastern Conference spring meetings.
Word had leaked about the coming negotiations, and Donovan, trying to keep them quiet, lied to reporters about contact he or his representatives had with Orlando (he’d later apologize). The meeting went forward Wednesday, and Magic’s presentation seemed ideal – a playoff team with a star post player, salary-cap flexibility, the ability to hire his entire staff and the franchise just 100 miles south of his home. Then there was the aspect that always attracted him to NBA – no recruiting, just hoops. By suppertime Thursday, he had agreed to become the ninth coach in the Magic’s 18-year history.
The wavering, we know now, began almost immediately. When Donovan gathered his team and staff to break the news Thursday night, he kept asking the players to let him know if they wanted him to stay. Donovan repeated the request several times, players said, a hint to them that he didn’t want to go.
“We thought so,” UF forward Jonathan Mitchell says. “But no one was going to tell him not to pursue your dream for your family. To this date, no one’s said anything to him about it.”
The four returning scholarship players were confused and frustrated, too. Sophomore Dan Werner said at least one of them challenged Donovan during the meeting, saying the coach was letting down the players who signed with him. The tension would grow that night at Donovan’s house, when he called his five incoming freshmen and their families with the news.
Then came Friday’s trip to Orlando to sign the contract and be officially introduced. He flew back to Gainesville on Friday night, taped an interview for ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption,” then spent a few hours on campus for another press conference and to speak to more than 100 parent-son tandems attending an overnight camp.
“Being back (on campus), it kind of hit me,” Donovan says. “That’s when I said, ‘Wait a minute. Maybe something’s not right here.’”
Late Friday night, as he dined on Chinese food and drinks (beer for Donovan, red wine for the guests), Donovan first thought of calling off the whole deal. Saturday morning, the feeling was stronger. He called the Magic, then some of his mentors – ex-bosses Jeff Van Gundy and Rick Pitino; his father, William; and trusted assistant Larry Shyatt, who drove to Donovan’s house right away.
“Pretty much you looked at his face,” Shyatt said after a Donovan press conference in June, “and you knew something drastic was wrong.”
The dilemma, Donovan soon realized, was simple. Donovan felt bad about turning his back on the Magic, a commitment he had made. He felt worse about the idea of sitting in Orlando with heart and mind in Gainesville.
“I wouldn’t say I was scared. I just didn’t want to have any regret,” Donovan says. “Someone was going to be disappointed in what I decided. I had to do what was I felt was right for right now and for the future.
By noon Saturday, Donovan notified the Magic of his plans – he was out in Orlando and back at the UF, where athletic director Jeremy Foley said he could return as head coach. It would take five days for the Magic and Donovan’s representatives to agree on the conditions for breaking the contract. Donovan kept quiet in that time, leaving his home only for a quick jog and a couple trips to church.
Thursday morning, June 8, 10 days after the first advance from the Magic, Donovan stood behind a podium and before a statewide television audience.
“Well, the first thing I’d like to say,” he said to begin a 40-minute press conference, “is I’d like to apologize.”
Since, most everyone has forgiven him. The university awarded him a six-year, $21 million contract. Rival coaches busted on him across the recruiting trail in July. Boosters at the program’s largest booster club, 30 miles south of Gainesville in Ocala, cracked him up with a two-and-a-half hour roast filled with jokes mocking his near-jump.
And, yes, Donovan has poked fun at himself, too. In Ocala, Fla., and during a September lecture at the Florida High School Athletic Association Sportsmanship Summit, he opened by suggesting he’s the wrong guy to ask about career advice.
Everyone laughs when Donovan drops those lines, and he says they’re signs he’s happy with the result. But close friends say being funny might be a facade. Underneath, Donovan still wrestles with how things shook out over the summer.
“I don’t know if he’s at peace with it,” says Augie Greiner, founder of the Ocala Tip-off Club. “That was a really hard time for Billy. He was embarrassed. He thought he let everybody down.”
His players, some of whom were hurt by his initial choice, say all’s well here in the fall. Florida’s entire roster, plus the coaching and support staff, all came back to UF to face a challenge unique to most programs. Of the 73 schools in BCS leagues, Florida, Villanova and Wake Forest are the only ones without a senior. The Gators might be the nation’s youngest, with one junior, three sophomores and five true freshmen among their nine scholarship players.
That group needs to replace six pros, five of whom figure to start the season on NBA rosters. So instead of dwelling on the spring, Donovan’s trying to get Werner to rebound, Marreese Speights to run harder and Jai Lucas to throw the ball only to his teammates.
Of course, he hasn’t forgotten about what went down with the Magic. And if he slips his mind for a moment this season, the kids around the Southeastern Conference will be thrilled to remind him.
