Remembering the Cinderella season
By Gavin Keenan
It’s that magical time of year when 65 privileged college basketball teams are lucky enough to be invited to the “Big Dance.” During this month long stretch of basketball, anything is possible.
Teams can crawl from the depths of the unknown to achieve national notoriety, even if only for a few glorious days.
Believe it or not, it was Cleveland State that once put on Cinderella’s slipper in March 1986. The Vikings, led by Coach KevinMackey, shocked the collegiate basketball world by upsetting national powers Indiana and St. Joseph.
The wins took the Vikings to the sweet 16, where they were narrowly beaten by the Navy Midshipmen.
Unfortunately, the magical memories of that CSU team are older than most of the students currently enrolled in the school. Soon after the success of the 1986 season, Cleveland State ran into an array of problems, which led to the collapse of the program. Such problems included the NCAA placing Cleveland State on probation for recruiting violations with notable NBA player Manut Bol. Soon
CSU was forced to dismiss Mackey as head coach after the architect of the great CSU run was busted by Cleveland police in a local crack house.
Since Mackey’s dismissal following the 1990 season, the Vikings have suffered 12 losing seasons and have not returned to the NCAA tournament.
Cleveland State attempted to take a huge step in the direction of becoming a mainstay in the national college scene by opening the Convocation Center (Wolstein Center) in the 1991 season.
The university built the $55 million arena in hopes it would be invited to join a conference with more national publicity, such as Conference USA.
Years of losing and a lack of notable competition resulted in a lot of empty seats in what has become a cavernous arena. As the years went on, the team grew accustomed to losing and the magical memories of the exciting run of the 1986 season faded from the memory of Clevelanders.
Since the departure of Mackey, CSU has gone through four coaches.
Cleveland state was able to acquire NCAA coaching great Rollie Massimino. Massimino had made a name for himself as the head coach for the Villanova Wildcats, who shocked the sports world as the lowest seed to ever win the NCAA tournament in the 1987 season.
However, it was not to be and the addition of Massimino did very little for the program as it remained in basketball purgatory for his seven-year stay in Cleveland.
With the exception of two winning seasons, Massimino was unable to pull the Vikings above the .500 mark. What had seemed like the spark that would re-energize CSU fizzled out as Massimino stepped down as head coach on the tails of a last place finish in the 2003 season.
Problems Persist
The comedy of errors continued when Ken “Mouse” McFadden, one of the stars of the CSU teams of the late 80s, was fired as Cleveland State ticket manager.
He responded to his termination by accusing Associate Athletic Director Chris Sedlock of academic wrongdoing with current athletes. McFadden’s allegations were dismissed after an investigation found Sedlock’s hands to be clean of any suspicious acts.
Only Cleveland State is capable of taking an up-and-coming team and following it with nearly two decades of losing. Their recipe for disaster included squandering a state of the art arena, not taking advantage of a nationally known coach, and effectively cutting ties with a key member of the most successful teams in school history.
“You need to get the talent on the floor in order to compete and make a name for yourself and Cleveland State just hasn’t been able to do that and it’s frustrating to see,” said Shawn Hood who was a contributing member of the 1986 Vikings.
Instead of hanging their hat on accomplishments that are two-decades old, perhaps the program should consider acquiring the talent to forge new memories.
It’s hard to blame any one person for the constant failures of the Vikings. However, following up a run to the Sweet 16 with two decades of losing is almost as unbelievable and a Houdini magic act.
Perhaps if the program felt some pressure from the fans to make the necessary changes to return to glory we might see some results.