I spoke to so many people about Michael Iavarone yesterday - himself, his mother, two college coaches, three former teammates, his old athletic director - and I just now see that Mike Jarvis works for him.
Yes, that Mike Jarvis.
According to Iavarone's racing company Web site, Jarvis is a VP of public relations. (Feel free to laugh out loud.) Here's his bio on the site. It says nothing about how he ran St. John's into the ground.
I covered St. John's for three-plus months in '03-04, and in that time a player was arrested with a former player for marijuana possession, Jarvis was fired, the team never won and there was a sex scandal.
Jarvis was a jerk to me at first, but warmed up to me in our short time together and he always answered my calls in the weeks after he got fired. So I appreciated that.
He did once mistakenly call me one random morning.
This was how I recall our conversation going:
JB: "Hello."
MJ: "Hi."
JB: "How are you?"
MJ: "Good. What's happening?"
JB: "Uh, nothing. What about you?"
MJ: "So what's the plan?"
JB: "Plan? I don't know what you're talking about."
MJ: "What time are we going to meet?"
JB: "Mike, you called me. I don't know what you're talking about."
MJ: "Who is this?"
JB: "Jim Baumbach"
MJ: "Oh, I thought I was calling Jim so-and-so."
We laughed and went on our merry ways.