Like Sands Through the Hour Glass.......
Shockingly, coach Lewis was perhaps not the best choice. On February 10th, about a month and a half after the near shooting incident, Tennessee State and opponent Eastern Kentucky staged a bench-clearing brawl during their game. Nineteen players (NINETEEN!) were rejected for fighting or leaving the bench to fight. Only four players were left for each team, so the game continued with only four players on a side rather than the usual five. When a Tennessee State player later fouled out, the game was completed with only seven players on the court. Eastern Kentucky "won" the game, 89-72.
The brawl had begun when Tennessee State player Cedric Bryson was called for a hard foul. Tennessee State was losing by fourteen points at the time. The brawl included, in the words of Ohio Valley Conference interim commissioner Ron English, "wild swinging, punching, and kicking by multiple players."
Coach Lewis, two Tennessee State players, coach Travis Ford of Eastern Kentucky, and two Eastern Kentucky players were suspended for one game. Thus, Tennessee State found itself without a head coach for February 13th's game, leading to Teresa Phillip's dramatic announcement that she would coach the game. The same Teresa Phillips who was athletic director while coach Richardson was being investigated for NCAA rules violations. The same Teresa Phillips who decided that Hosea Lewis' use of a bag full of chain rather than a gun during the altercation with coach Richardson warranted promotion rather than termination. One can make a good argument that Teresa Phillips should be closer to being fired than to coaching a game.
Make no mistake, Teresa Phillips is a fine coach. Before becoming athletic director, she turned the Tennessee State women's team completely around. Coaching is coaching, and any coach who succeeds in the women's game has the tools to succeed in coaching the men's game. In fact, it may even be somewhat easier to coach men's teams, as the level of athletic ability presents possibilities that would not exist with less athletic players.
It has always been inevitable that one day a woman would coach a Division I men's team. Given the triumph for gender equality that such an event represents, those who support such a change have always hoped that the first woman to do so would do so because an athletic director had chosen to hire the best coach for his school's men's team, rather than the best male coach.
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