Creighton University - Bluejay Yearbook (Omaha, NE)

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TONY BARONE A Family Man First By Laurie Vail Creighton basketball coach Tony Barone grew up in an ethnic melting pot, Chicago. But even memories of a life that he says wasn ' t very easy still bring a smile to his face. Barone ' s father died when he was two, so the sole responsibility of rearing him and his older sister, Adrienne, fell on his mother. She often held three jobs just to get the family by. ' ' A lot of people who grew up in up- per middle class environments never knew what it was like to sneak into a ballgame, to scrape to get by, or even to struggle for a daily ex- istence. A special bond grew bet- ween people in the neighborhood. Friendships were based on loyalty and they ran deep; I don ' t see those close-knit relationships developing now, Barone said. Growing up in the situation he did gave Barone a special insight to achievement. Where I come from, you grew up with an attitude that nothing is going to be easy, Barone you get, but when you do achieve that goal, it ' s much more satisfying. Barone viewed athletic achieve- ment as a way out of a bad situation. His mother got him involved in sports in junior high to keep him off the streets, and in doing so she pro- vided him with something even more valuable: a father figure. A little league coach named Tracey took a great deal of interest in me, and so did a lot of others. I had a great deal of respect... for coaches, from day one. Barone ' s athletic skills won him a scholarship to play basketball for Duke University. He says he picked up his own coaching attitudes from his coach, Vic Bubas. Everyone has an opinion about coaches, but very few people really understand what goes into the coaching profes- sion. Barone picked up more than at- titudes on basketball from Bubas. The best advice I ever received was from Vic, who said, ' If you realy want to become a coach, the most important decision you ' re going to make is the type of person you marry ' . Barone and his wife Kathy have a bright person who is really an asset to me in my particular profes- sion. She ' s willing to stand up to me, he said. She ' ll tell me when I ' m being a jerk... and that makes me think. You need to give your spouses freedom to express themselves in whatever way, but you better sit down before you get married and discuss your expectations for the marriage. You ' re going to have problems-that ' s the bottom line, but it can work if you keep the lines of communication open, Barone said. Because of his job a lot of his work is done at home, and the team becomes like a second family to him. You become involved with the personal problems of each of your players ; if you don ' t you are making a big mistake. You simply feel a certain closeness to your players. I try to coach the team as if they were a part of my family. If you have a problem you try to solve it the same way you would a family problem. You discipline players just like you discipline your own kids. The Barones have three children. Daughter Amy is 16, son Tony Jr. is 12, and son Brian is 8. Kathy is from a family of 10 children. Barone considers family life to be very important. One of the biggest fears I have is the thought that I haven ' t prepared my kids well enough to face the realities of life. What I portray, religiously, morally and ethically affects them. It ' s typical to tell a kid what to do, but they ' re not going to buy it if you don ' t set the example, Barone said. I think the most important thing I want my kids to know is the value of hard work and diligence. I expect a lot from my kids because I want them to understand the value of self- discipline and self-motivation, Barone said. The Barones set curfews and other rules, but Tony says, We try to sup- port our kids in the decisions theil make. 1 Family activities are important to Barone. They may range from trips to simply time spent at homej together. In his spare time Barona reads Arthur Conan Doyle mysteriel and he tries to get his kids to read as well. Of course Barone likes sportsfl| even sports besides basketball. oW the people that he admires, Pete Rose tops the list. 8 A lot of us work hard but we don ' tS always see visible results. Pete Ros has worked hard and the results are§ obvious. M Barone has set at least one goal fo H himself and he said, I want th H peace of mind that I have done s P good job. p When asked what he would want if he could have anything for his birth- centers would be nice, but just to have someone say ' You did a good job ' would be the best present to me.

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WOMEN ' S By Mike Larsen Take a schedule that includes games against national women ' s basketball powers like Oklahoma, Iowa, Missouri, Louisiana Tech and Northwestern Louisiana, and two games apiece against Kansas, Nebraska and Marquette. Throw in injury problems for four of five starters and four reserves so that the only women who played healthy the entire season were one starting guard, a freshman recruit and two walk-ons. Add multi-game road trips to Texas, Illinois and Louisiana. Then try to explain how the Lady Jays managed to compile a 20-8 record for the 1985-86 season. It ' s been a very rewarding season, Coach Bruce Rasmussen said. The kids have had to over- come a lot, 18 road games, a lot of games in a short amount of time, players coming back from serious injuries. We overcame more than at any other time. We ' ve shown that we can compete at a national level when there was a time that we had trouble competing on our own campus. Some highlights to the Lady Jays ' season included the record-breaking performance of Connie Yori, an 11-game winning streak that includ- ed a road sweep of four Chicago- area schools, and the extension of a home winning string to 28 games in a row. We were 20-8, and a 20-win season is something a lot of people shoot for, said Yori, who closed out her four years at Creighton with 2,010 career points. The 20-win season is the standard for what peo- ple consider a good season. And we could have won, realistically, at least four more games if we could have pulled out some of them. As she did her freshman and sophomore seasons, Yori led the team in scoring. She finished with 572 points, an average of 20.4 per game, while starting all 28 contests. Two teammates also averaged in BASKETBALL Left: Yori looks for an opening against Marquette. 148