Capel chooses right profession
Mar 27, 2009
I’ll go ahead and put this on the table. I am a BIG fan of Oklahoma basketball coach Jeff Capel III.
In the fall of 1992, Bob Holliday and I went to South View High School near Fayetteville to do a story on Capel.
He was a star on the Tigers team.
He was well-spoken beyond his high school age.
He was an engaging person who was easy to like.
Jeff Capel continued to be that way in his playing days at Duke through the good and the bad. Capel was the one who launched the 3-point shot against Carolina to send the game into overtime. It has gotten to the point now that people believe it was the game winning shot and Capel doesn’t correct them all of the time.
He played in the 1994 Final Four in Charlotte his freshman year, just like a long lineage of players in the Duke program had done.
A year later, Capel was also on the team that went 2-14 in the ACC while Mike Krzyzewski stepped away for back surgery. “I was the guy blamed for the demise of Duke basketball, “ Capel said on Thursday.
Jeff Capel III is the son of a coach. His dad Jeff is on the staff of the Charlotte Bobcats. Prior to that, he coached in the college ranks as a head coach and assistant.
The younger Jeff Capel would tag along with his dad to Wake Forest practices. “I used to be a ball boy,” said Capel III. “Standing under the basket during warm-ups, getting rebounds for guys like Len Bias. I played two-on-one against Muggsy Bogues.”
Having been around basketball that long you would expect Jeff Capel III would naturally transition into coaching. “The last thing I wanted to do was coach,” Capel laughed. “I saw what my dad went through.”
But Capel has taken all of his experiences and become a darn good coach. Whether it’s at Virginia Commonwealth or now at Oklahoma.
“My career has been abnormal, “Capel reflected. It has also been successful and I hope fulfilling.
People ask me all the time, what team do you root for? My answer is always the same. I don’t pull for teams. I root for the people who play and the coaches who coach.
Good people like Jeff Capel.
