Byline: JOHN GIBSON
Throughout its long history, Hotel Utah hosted a plethora of formal banquets, with many an important speech delivered in the mezzanine meeting rooms.In his moment of triumph last night Fab's thoughts turned to his older brother Devine, who was shot dead as lawless gangs fought for territory on the streets, and to his younger brother Calvin Jnr back in America who likewise was a gun victim but thankfully survived.More than tidy for a man who began life on the wrong side of the track enduring abject poverty, squatting and soup kitchens, gang warfare, murders, and the Ku Klux Clan before basketball came to his rescue.Inevitably, Flournoy has been personally honoured - eight winner's medals as a player being accompanied by the BBL Coach of the Season awards in 2004-05 and 2005-06 and now, in front of his sporting peers at a glittering black-tie dinner, the ultimate accolade a city can bestow upon a sporting hero.CAPTION(S):Fab could easily have gone their way, maimed or even killed by the gun that ruled their world."The Bronx is no longer my home and neither is America," he insisted. "My home is here in Newcastle. I live in the city centre and play basketball in the city centre.Today, the LDS Church maintains restaurants and offices in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. Yearly Christmas displays enchant visitors. Banquets may be arranged there, a chapel is available downstairs, and the building's Legacy Theater has regular free showings of the movie "Joseph Smith, the Prophet of the Restoration."In years past, a circular counter served soup and salad to downtown office workers who popped in for lunch.The Sports Personality of any year it could be argued. What kept you waiting Sport Newcastle?Anyone with memories of the Hotel Utah is invited to share them on the Deseret News Internet site.Some Utahns, however, remember it as a bastion of segregation that allowed black employees but no black guests. Even famed perfomers in town to present programs to huge audiences were barred from the hotel's elevator. That racism was overcome decades ago and the hotel was fully integrated.In 1987 it was decommissioned as a hotel and a great surge of renovating and updating began. Reopening in 1993, the structure began a new life as the Joseph Smith Memorial Building."We are a community-driven club and we're intent on putting down deep roots so that the sport flourishes year by year.Photographs from the Deseret News archives, selected by Utah history expert Ronald Fox of North Salt Lake, document the story of the Hotel Utah. Besides those in the print editions, other photos are posted on the newspaper's Web site."I know I'm hard as a coach but then I'm hard on myself. I want us to play in a certain manner, to go about our business right.On the day we met he had got up at 7.30am to attend a school assembly promoting basketball, had then dashed to weight training with the team which stretched over one and a half hours, spent a similar length of time with me in a city hotel, dashed to a second school assembly over lunch, took Tyne Metro College for two hours training, held a meeting of the Hoops4Health community programme which visits 132 schools in Tyne and Wear, and took Eagles training which is from 6pm to 8pm when the players are lucky or 8pm to 10pm when Fab wants them to study videos either of their last game or their upcoming opponents."I know a coach is judged in any sport by the trophies he wins, but if we do things right, the way I want to do them, then success will automatically follow."When it comes to egos the only one there is room for is mine," he smiled. "I'm the only chief, the rest are Indians. I lead from the front but I do it by example."Of course winning every trophy available to us in 2006 - League Champions, Play-off Champions, BBL Cup and BBL Trophy - was making a rod for our own backs.Yet here he was Britain's most successful basketball coach, a rounded man with a burning drive for perfection who, having seen abuse of the body and spirit at first hand, lives the cleanest of lives neither smoking nor drinking nor eating red meat.Fond recollections remain in the hearts of many who stayed in the hotel, visited it or worked there.A rooftop restaurant offered spectacular views of downtown, Temple Square and the Salt Lake Valley, while concerts were performed downstairs."The club is bigger than me and bigger than any player. It is paramount to what we all do.Sources for this article include recollections by several Utahns with long memories, articles in the Deseret News and the paper's Mormon Times, an article by Heidi Swinton in the Utah History Encyclopedia and history-oriented Internet sites.Flournoy didn't even want to become the Eagles coach in 2002 when approached by owner Paul Blake, but eight trophies with anything up to another three likely this season tends to suggest he was wrong to hesitate.A remodeling project about 35 years ago added a ballroom and two new wings.The Eagles have soared to eight trophies in the last four seasons under their demanding player-coach."The Falcons have lost Jonny Wilkinson for huge periods of time, Newcastle United the same with Michael Owen, and we've had our fair share."In the 1960s, a young woman was first exposed to that strange pink soup, cold borscht made from beets with a dollop of sour cream, in the downstairs restaurant. Visiting dignitaries met reporters for interviews in that restaurant, including Russell Peterson, former governor of Delaware and then-chief of the National Audubon Society. In the restaurant, an aquarium large enough to house a pod of killer whales fascinated diners.That Fab cares about his sport and his club is revealed by his staggering work load.For a time, while remodeling work was carried out at the LDS Church's Family History Library, 35 N. West Temple, some of the library's resources were shifted to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and patrons roamed the stacks, doing genealogical research.Or he could have become bitter and twisted by the Ku Klux Klan activities he witnessed when at university in America's notoriously racist deep south.HONOUR: Flournoy receives his SportNewcastle Sports Personality of the Year award from Tim Lamb last night"To do the clean sweep takes luck and a good deal when it comes to injuries as well as talent, experience, tactical nous and the like.Thousands of couples spent their honeymoon in the venerable inn. It was a place where young people worked and interviewed for jobs or dropped in just to lounge in the plush easy chairs and watch the bustle of visitors going in and out through the lobby's revolving glass doors. Waiting to check out, or just relaxing, guests read newspapers in the great entrance room. College students waited tables or washed dishes in the restaurants.As a 1993 Deseret News article reported, "breathtaking," "exquisite" and "inspiring" were breathed when the building was reopened. "Visitors to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building are likely to be touched with nostalgia immediately upon entrance to the lobby," it added. "Efforts were made by architects and artisans to remain as loyal as possible to the Hotel Utah's original interior design."This campaign is going the relentless way of the others - Fab's Eagles will play Guildford Heat in the final of the BBL Trophy on Sunday, their fifth successive appearance in that particular final, and are lording it on top of the league."So when I demand more they cannot say 'well, you do it.' I do." Fabulous Flournoy arrived here as a player in 2001 and has never left.A marble statue of Joseph Smith, more than 9 feet tall, graces the lobby."I work as hard behind the scenes as I do in the gym or on the court on match days.
HONOUR: Flournoy receives his SportNewcastle Sports Personality of the Year award from Tim Lamb last night
No comments:
Post a Comment