Fred Williams put his Utah Starzz team through its Friday shootaround in the Delta Center, then went back to his office and returned a few phone calls.
"It just really hit me right after the shootaround," he said, calling the light practice prior to Friday night's game with Eastern Conference leader Cleveland one of the best his slumping Utah team has had. "I just sat in my office and thought about some things."
He'd thought about them earlier in the week, on the plane ride home from Utah's third straight loss, this one in his hometown of Los Angeles.
And then, in late afternoon, he called Starzz chief operating officer Jay Francis and told him he was resigning. His record with the Starzz was 36-37.
After Francis recovered, he called team owner Larry H. Miller with the news.
Two other top executives are out of town, so Francis and Miller absorbed the news.
"This comes as not just a surprise but a shock to the organization," said Miller, who added that when the players were finally told, after a 5 p.m. news conference, some of them shed tears.
Captain Jennifer Azzi said she thought she spoke for her teammates in saying, "Fred, you are one of the class men that I have ever known in my life. I think the classiest except for maybe my dad.
"This has got everyone's head spinning on the team," Miller added.
Williams showed tremendous poise by being the first to speak at the hastily called press conference. He called himself a strong man.
Assistant coach Candi Harvey was named head coach — not an interim position, Miller stressed — two years and two days after a July 4, 1999, phone call from Williams asking her to be his assistant.
"This is not a happy day," said Harvey, who has eight years of head coaching experience but was so unprepared for Williams' sudden resignation that she said she might need a bedpan during the game because she was so nervous.
"He's one of the finest human beings I've ever been around, more a brother to me than my brother," Harvey said, near tears.
Tammi Reiss remains as an assistant.
The move came so quickly that Miller knew nothing of Harvey's contract. He said Kevin O'Connor, vice president of basketball operations, and LHM Sports president Dennis Haslam would deal with that on Monday.
Harvey becomes the fourth coach in the fifth-year team's history. Williams is the second straight to actually resign. Only Denise Taylor was fired. Williams has resigned before; he left an interim position at Southern Cal because he felt he had no opportunity to succeed with the facilities and emphasis.
He professed a much different story Friday, saying from the moment Taylor hired him as an assistant and he walked into the Delta Center, he felt he was at home. "I got teased a lot about being a minority here in Salt Lake City, but it's one of the best places in the world to have an opportunity to work," he said.
Later, he added that he will stick around for awhile and that he would watch Friday night's game from an unobtrusive spot.
Williams was the target of a group of fans howling "Fire Fred" during the last two home games.
And, while players liked him as a person, some had groused about a lax atmosphere.
When he took over after Frank Layden resigned five games into the 1999 season, Williams was greeted by an immediate crisis. About half the team was late for the bus. He ordered the bus to leave for the arena but left trainer Leanne Stockton at the hotel to procure taxi rides for players to the game. Those players did not start, but they played.
Fans complained that the team never set screens, though Williams said there are many and that Utah was getting 65-70 shots a game and that a lot of them were good shots. He shrugged a bit when asked why the screens weren't set well enough to be seen.
Power forward Natalie Williams often said that there were few plays designed to get her the ball down low without five opponents hanging on her. Margo Dydek said recently that on offense, she sometimes felt "surprised. Some action is just accidental."
The Starzz, despite their dismal start with a team brimming with talent, held short practices, and Williams originally planned two-a-days in training camp but cut that to one a day before they even started.
Natalie Williams said on Thursday morning that players were not "held accountable" for their shortcomings, like not setting screens or being where they were supposed to be on offense or defense.
"One of the things we lack," Azzi said Thursday, "is execution. We don't do things like setting screens or reversing the ball."
Fred Williams said in his press conference that he had felt frustrations during games, "but I can't call 15 timeouts. Things look good in shootarounds, and practices look good." Still, he said, "I felt no pressure from players." Or management. The decision, he said, was solely his.
"I just felt maybe I wasn't reaching some of them," Williams said. "The focus will be on them now, so they'd better show what they can do."
Coach Seasons Record
1. Denise Taylor 97-98 13-34
2. Frank Layden 98-99 4-11
3. Fred Williams 99-2001 36-37
4. Candi Harvey 2001 1-0
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