Times are a'changing

The first time was always a surprise. A coach would arrive in Burlington for a game the next day with the University of Vermont and sure enough, soon enough, Catamounts coach Tom Brennan would be on the phone asking if they had dinner plans.

Dinner with the opposing coach? On the eve of a game?

"Eventually I accused him of trying to distract me the night before the game," laughed Dennis Wolff, coach of Boston University and a long-time friend/rival/dinner partner of Brennan. "I used to accuse him of using some negative propaganda to get us all relaxed."

Brennan will coach his final game in Burlington on Saturday when Vermont plays Northeastern for the America East championship. If he loses, he retires to pursue a career in broadcasting. If he wins, the Catamounts proceed to a third consecutive NCAA tournament, where Brennan's coaching career will end.

Whenever that next loss happens, college basketball will lose not just one of its most appealing and unique coaching characters, but another link to an increasingly by-gone era when the business wasn't as cutthroat and characters, not chameleons, paced the sidelines.

Brennan's farewell occurs during a season when old school sort Gene Keady leaves Purdue and even older school sort John Chaney is under the gun at Temple.

College basketball coaches these days are better paid, better educated and better groomed than a generation ago, but they sure aren't as much fun.

"I think it's uncommon," said Wolff of Brennan's dinner invites and friendly, supportive calls. "In the course of my time as a coach [he started as an assistant in 1982], it's in general a whole lot more business-like approach with a lot of other coaches. You don't have the camaraderie [Brennan] and I have."

You don't have a lot of things. Look around whatever conference you follow and consider the head coaches. Now think back 15, 20 years and consider the coaches then.

Which group would you rather hang out, golf or have a beer with?

Increasingly, today's generation of coaches is polished, polite and professional. Which is a lot different than interesting.

The reason is simple. Being a head coach at a major school brings with it a multiyear, million-dollar contract. That wasn't the case 20 years ago when shoe money was in its infancy, the Final Four was held in small markets such as Lexington and Albuquerque and coaches got into the game because they had no other discernible skills, not to get rich.

In recent years, college coaches have been fired (at least in part) for drinking with students (Larry Eustachy), gambling in office pools (Rick Neuheisel) and getting drunk at a strip club (Mike Price). I'm not encouraging or defending any of that behavior, but if you think those guys invented that stuff, you are kidding yourself. A generation ago, nobody would have cared.

Coaches used to pride themselves on their beer drinking and golf-hustling skills. Just a year ago, a young, high-profile coach begged me not to mention in an article that he chewed tobacco. To some, this is a good thing. But it's not for those of us who like their coaches to be a little colorful.

Remember when college coaches were born jokers – sideline stand-up acts like Jim Valvano, Jud Heathcote and Abe Lemons. The six funniest coaches in the game today are Brennan, Chaney, Keady, Billy Tubbs, Pete Gillen and Phil Martelli. And there may not be anyone in seventh place. Unless Rick Majerus comes back, we could easily be down to just Martelli real soon.

This is why the retirement of Brennan (who should be a big hit on ESPN or CBS) is a loss for more than just fans of Vermont. The game was better with a guy who had a second job as a morning drive-time radio host.

Brennan's show "Corn and the Coach" is hugely popular in Vermont. It was certainly enjoyable when he would crank call people like Jim Boeheim at 5:45 in the morning.

The days of guys who don't take themselves seriously have been replaced by a group who, with a straight face, refer to their jobs as "Coach as CEO."

And that's too bad. Because there is something nice about a coach who isn't afraid to take his competitor out to dinner the night before the game, unconcerned that some fan message board will rip him for fraternizing with the enemy.

"I'm only the basketball coach of Vermont," Brennan once explained to me.

In today's self-important game, you'll never hear the word "only" again.