This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to go, of course. The introductory press conference four years ago was less celebration than coronation. Alumni Hall was electric with life and possibility.
The crown prince was back.
The prodigal son had returned home.
Surely this was destined for the happiest happy-ever-after of all. St. John’s tour through the basketball wilderness was over. Chris Mullin was back. Surely the good times would follow closely behind. Surely this had to work out.
“It’s great to be home,” Mullin said that day. “It’s a surreal moment, it really is. St. John’s University has meant so much to me and my family and when that opportunity was presented to me, I couldn’t turn it down. I feel obligated to give back and I’m going to be the best basketball coach I can be.”
In the end, we are reminded that sports, even college sports coached by the local hero, doesn’t always follow the script we want it to. Mullin’s teams scuffled mightily for three years, and this last year was supposed to be the culmination of the coronation. It started that way. The Johnnies were 12-0, and a terrible whistle away from being 15-0.
They beat Marquette twice. They beat Villanova. They cracked the top 25.
And maybe someone should’ve taken a snapshot of all that, early in January.
Because that was the high-water mark. The team peaked, then stumbled, then cracked, then collapsed. It was a difficult professional time for Mullin, compounded by the death of his older brother, Roddy.
And now, word comes that he is stepping down.
Camelot is kaput.
And look: By the end this had long since stopped being a universally feel-good story. There were plenty of grumbling fans who grew impatient at Mullin’s learning curve. The TV regularly captured moments where others were running Mullin’s huddle, and those were some terrible optics. Of course, if the Johnnies were winning big, Mullin might’ve been lauded as a master of delegating authority. But they never did win big.
“It’s only been 30 years, but really I never left,” Mullin said the day he was hired. “My relationship with the program remains strong no matter where I am or where I go. I’ve learned a lot of lessons here and most of them I learned on campus, right here in this gym.”
The last one was this: Being a great player — being the greatest player — doesn’t guarantee anything. Clyde Drexler learned a similar lesson the hard way at Houston. Patrick Ewing has shown promise as a head coach at Georgetown, but at some point soon that’s going to necessitate a trip to the NCAA Tournament.
Mullin got that trip, but his team could barely stay upright it was leaking so much oil by the end. The grumbling grew. Patience wore paper thin. Rumors flew.
Now there is talk of Bobby Hurley coming home from Arizona State. Four years ago, before Mullin’s name dropped out of the sky, it was Bobby’s brother, Danny, who spent a few brief moments as the focus of the attention of Johnnies fans. But that feeling quickly passed when the favored son wanted to come home.
It was always a gamble, of course, because there was always a chance the ending would get in the way. The ending got in the way. Sometimes you really can’t go home again.