Florida Gators
Early Bird Invitational
Norfolk State coach Anthony Evans got here the hard way
Sunday, March 18, 2012 | Men's Basketball, Women's Swimming & Diving, Chris Harry
OMAHA, Neb. -- Florida coach Billy Donovan was asked Saturday about the extent of familiarity with his next counterpart, Norfolk State's Anthony Evans.
“I don't know Anthony that well,” Donovan said of the coach who busted countless brackets 24 hours earlier with his club's stunning upset of third-ranked Missouri in opening-round play of the NCAA West Region. “I was impressed with his team yesterday, and even more impressed watching their team [on tape] during their schedule.”
Allow us here at GatorZone to introduce you to a guy the CBS and TNT talking heads will be gabbing about when the seventh-seeded Gators (24-10) face the 15th-seed Spartans (26-9) Sunday at CenturyLink Center.
Evans certainly has a sense of history.
“Hopefully, we will look back and see 'One Shining Moment' and know that we were a part of this,” he said Saturday. “And be happy about it.”
To know the guy's story, is to appreciate what Evans has achieve.
"It's been tough," he said. "But it's a good tough."
A native of Brooklyn, Evans got his foot in the coaching door by working as a volunteer assistant at a community college in Middletown, N.Y. He made time for his coaching duties before late-night shifts at a convenience store. He didn't have a car, so he walked to work -- both jobs -- and pulled seven-hour shifts at the 84 Quick Stop.
He did it all there, too. Some of it he didn't like.
“Cleaning the bathroom,” he said. “That was terrible, but it was something you had to do.”
In time, Evans got a JuCo head job before joining Norfolk State as an assistant in 2004. Four years later was promoted to head coach. In his first season leading the program, the Spartans posted just their second winning record since jumping to Division I in 1997-98.
In his fifth season, every college basketball fan is talking about Norfolk State, the itty-bitty MEAC squad from the school of 5,400.
He and the Spartans are revealing in it.
“I wish you were on the bus,” Evans said of the trip from the arena to the team hotel following Friday's upset. “[The players] were in the back going crazy. I was even in awe, [with] the police cutting off everyone to let us go first. Everyone was saying it felt like we were the president.”
Maybe more like king -- make that Cinderella -- for a day.
The Gators and their fans hope the clock strikes midnight somewhere around 8 p.m. Sunday.
