When coach George Raveling called a morning meeting with the USC basketball team, the players thought he might tell them it would be awhile before he would return.
They didn't expect him to say he would never be back.Raveling, slowly recovering from serious injuries from a car accident on Sept. 25, told the players Monday that he was retiring.
"At first I thought he was just kidding and trying to pick up everybody's mood, because everybody's feeling sorry for him right now and looking at him differently because he's lost a lot of weight,"' swingman Stais Bozeman said. "But after talking to him, I knew he was serious.
"Everybody was just real shellshocked. You couldn't believe it. He just up and retired."
A head coach for 22 years and the Trojans' coach the past eight seasons, Raveling, 57, said he can't meet the physical demands of the job and wants to concentrate on rebuilding his strength.
One of the sport's most prominent coaches, Raveling said he had intended to remain at Southern Cal until he retired, and that time came "sooner than I had expected. . .
"Although my health is improving, my present physical state does not allow me to work the sidelines in my accustomed manner," he said in a statement.
Charlie Parker, an assistant under Raveling for seven years, was appointed interim head coach for this season.
Raveling said he may now consider sports administration jobs that were previously offered him. He also has expressed interest in sports broadcasting.
"I do not believe that remaining on as head basketball coach, while not fulfilling my professional responsibilities, would be fair to the university, the student body, my coaching staff and the players," Raveling, who did not attend an afternoon news conference at USC, said in his statement.
Raveling said he asked his attorney, Gerry Roth, to make the retirement announcement because it would have been "emotionally difficult" for the coach to do so.
Roth said he did not believe Raveling would ever coach again.
Raveling, who previously coached at Washington State and Iowa, has been one of the leaders of the Black Coaches Association, which has criticized standardized tests for athletes as culturally biased.
Raveling was released from the hospital Nov. 8 after spending more than six weeks there. He sustained nine broken ribs, a fractured pelvis and clavicle, and a collapsed lung in a collision near the Southern Cal campus. He was on his way to take a recruit to breakfast with his assistant coaches.
The driver of the other car in the accident, Robert Ziehm, filed a personal injury lawsuit against Raveling on Monday, alleging the coach ran a red light. Ziehm, who claims head and neck injuries, seeks unspecified damages. Ziehm's wife, May, also is a plaintiff.
Raveling's USC teams had a composite record of 115-118, but went 77-40 the past four seasons and to the NCAA tournament in 1991 and 1992. He has an overall record of 336-292, including his stints at Washington State from 1972-83 and Iowa from 1983-86.
He coached the U.S. team of college players at last summer's Goodwill Games in Russia. Also last summer, he was courted by Seton Hall, but decided to remain at USC.
The Trojans open their season Wednesday night against New Mexico State in the preseason NIT.