A Sea Of Red

I know all FlameFans have probably been asking themselves, "Why can't I know more about Mel Hankinson?" Well all of your dreams are coming true.

Now that I have completed my LU Football Coaches WikiProject ... I am working my way through the basketball coaches. With McKay, Dunton & Meyer already up and running, I took on the living legend that is Mel.

Mel Hankinson on Wikipedia

There are a million & one Mel stories and this thread is where you should bring them.

Well, he did recruit and sign Texas phenom Rob Attaway.

Does anyone know if Hanky's son is still coaching anywhere? He went to Glenville after LU, but I don't know where he is now.

This thread outta be filled with some true golden nuggets!

Hanky's teams had 2 wins against VA Tech, didn't they?

With all of the people on this board who had direct connections to Mel, nobody is stepping up?

After all the stories I have heard from you gusy off the board about him, surely somebody will step up with some of these classics.

For those who weren't around LU during his tenure, suffice it to say that he was very colorful in the coaches box and beyond.

I remember when the local fishwrap had a headline on the sports pages when the job came down to Hanky and an assistant coach from FSU, and the paper said the FSU assistant was hired instead and had his pic in the paper and everything.
The fishwrap blew that article big time.

I remember when the NBA first changed the rules to allow zone defense he somehow got interviewed on the Sportsline and made sure everybody (or at least the couple of hundred people listening) knew how many NBA teams were blowin up his cellie wanting him to be their zone defense consultant.

I had a good friend who walked on the bball team during the Mel years. The players "affectionately" called him Hitler. Suffice it to say he was not a "player's coach."

I demand an appearance in this thread by formerplayer (give him a shout for me, Scar).

All i know is when your the worst team in the country and your coach keeps using the word "Intangibles" about every other player i had to smile.

Not to mention the high percentage of Hanky's playbook that our players couldn't seem to grasp in a single season. Exactly how thick was that playbook anyway?

Cider Jim wrote:Not to mention the high percentage of Hanky's playbook that our players couldn't seem to grasp in a single season. Exactly how thick was that playbook anyway?

Don't ask Attaway, he was only allowed to pass.......( Note: i do recall him taking the opening tip multiple times and laying it in)

hahahaha Was that true. I actually heard the same thing in GNED Freshman year.

jack_sparrow81 wrote:hahahaha Was that true. I actually heard the same thing in GNED Freshman year.

about attaway? I heard it right outta Hankys mouth....yup....."don't shoot rob"

I did a Google on Rob's name and I came up with a worship leader in Amarillo. The guy used to be in a band called Honestly. Is this our Rob?

I know Rob was from Texas (Arlington to be precise) so him being in Texas would make sense.

He often rode in a seperate rented car to away games and stayed at a different hotel. My favorite, and I loved Mel as a person, was when he told me the school where I was getting my PhD had a really good basketball team. It was the University of Phoenix

Haize, that is hilarious! I never met the man believe it or not. I reached out a few times but he was uninterested in even speaking with me.

My favorite Hankinson story -- as told by Jerry Edwards...

One day, after another humiliating loss (pick whatever one you want), Hanky was in the post-game press conference talking about how at the beginning of the year, he challenged his players to be more like Gideon. He went on and on for a few minutes about courage and pressing through in the face of adversity and concluded by saying something to the effect of, "the score showed that our players lost, but seeing them out there on the court tonight was another kind of victory -- because tonight I saw our team take a step towards acting like Gideon."

After a few moments, Hankinson took questions from reporters. One local beat writer for the team that demolished us raised his hand, and in a gruff voice, says "Coach... Who the hell is Gideon?"

::::::

And then there's the story of Glyn Turner, who Hanky started a few games but took him out after the first possession and kept him on the bench for the rest of the game. I asked Coach why, and he said it was because we started Turner one game and we played well, so he wanted to keep that starting rotation in tact. Even if the other 38 minutes of the game had the same rotation.

SCAR wrote: I never met the man believe it or not. I reached out a few times but he was uninterested in even speaking with me.

Do you blame him?

jcmanson wrote:

SCAR wrote: I never met the man believe it or not. I reached out a few times but he was uninterested in even speaking with me.

Do you blame him?

Seriously though, I think he associated me with the prior staff since I worked with Meyer and Dunton. He seemed to want to disassoiate his tenure with the past which is a major mistake at any school.

Uh, I think Coach Dunton probably wanted to disassociate himself from Hanky when he came back.

Sly Fox wrote:Uh, I think Coach Dunton probably wanted to disassociate himself from Hanky when he came back.

And I think the current regime probably wants to do the same with the previous.

Purple Haize wrote:He often rode in a seperate rented car to away games and stayed at a different hotel. My favorite, and I loved Mel as a person, was when he told me the school where I was getting my PhD had a really good basketball team. It was the University of Phoenix

Mel was a strange guy....he probably wanted the seperation to cry about getting his tail whipped every night. I mean honestly he is the only coach i know who could lose by 40 and find a way to smile in the post game press conference. Plus his first book was so successful he probably wanted to have time to write another.....Mels Memoirs would be a must read!

Mel Hankinson was, for those who don't know, terminated in a rather unusual way.

He just went 5-25 or so, and wrapped up the year as the worst team in the nation. At the same time, Liberty secured the rights to the Big South Conference tournament (which had been held at neutral sites to much embarrassment).

The administration paid a chunk of change for the tournament, and wanted to be able to recoup their costs. That meant that Liberty wasn't allowed to stink again, because a bad LU would mean bad crowds and that would mean lousy revenues.

Hankinson had a year left on his contract, and his team would be losing its best player (Chris Caldwell). The only recruit we had coming in was some white guard who was averaging two points per game on a small Christian school in Roanoke. Times were tough, so we let Hanky go.

Of course, the athletic director at the time, Kim Graham, didn't exactly have the stones to outright terminate the guy (even though the decision wasn't his, it was Falwell's, with Pres. Borek)... so he leaves a CERTIFIED LETTER on Hankinson's desk over the weekend, saying that he'd been fired.

Hankinson, being the man that he is, announced that he was getting his lawyers involved -- and was going to sue Liberty for "wrongful termination"!

(boy, that case would've been open-and-shut!)

Sly, Rob Attaway also used to be in a band called "Mary's Eyes." I didn't know that he had moved back to TX.