Damon Stoudamire is a college head coach. Yeah, that Damon Stoudamire. The 1995 Pac-10 Player of the Year with Arizona. The 1995-96 NBA Rookie of the Year. The point guard of the "Jail Blazers." The guy who got caught trying to smuggle weed onto an airplane using aluminum foil.
Stoudamire was reportedly offered the head coaching job at the University of the Pacific on Tuesday. On Wednesday, he accepted the position. The Tigers finished 6-12 in West Coast Conference play this season, good for second-to-last. The team endured a self-imposed 2016 postseason ban that left them out of this season's WCC Tournament.
Pacific has offered the job to Damon Stoudamire, sources told ESPN. Likely to accept the job.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanESPN) March 16, 2016
Stoudamire will definitely accept, I’m told, long as there are no last-minute issues. Should be official Wednesday. https://t.co/Yt3fzlN4um
— Gary Parrish (@GaryParrishCBS) March 16, 2016
You're probably asking yourself, where has Damon Stoudamire been for the past decade? Does he still have handles? Does he talk to Rasheed Wallace? And did he ever get weed onto that airplane?
Luckily, we have some answers.
Months after his retirement, Stoudamire jumped to coaching. He served as director of player development at Rice for one season. When Lionel Hollins, a Grizzlies assistant during Stoudamire's tenure in Memphis, took over the Grizzlies' reigns, he hired Stoudamire as an assistant.
After two years, Stoudamire moved locker rooms to the Memphis Tigers, where he began to assist Josh Pastner, a former Arizona Wildcats player and assistant coach. Two years of work with Pastner led to Stoudamire nabbing a job back in Tucson, as a Sean Miller assistant at Arizona.
But after another two-year journey, Stoudamire left his alma mater to go back to Memphis, where he could be close to his family as a second-term Tigers assistant.
This Wikipedia screenshot should help explain that last paragraph:
All of this was apparently enough for Pacific, a program marred by controversy for the past year, to hire the 42-year-old former ball-handling wizard.
But what about the weed controversy?
It happened 13 years ago, and is in no way a reflection of Stoudamire's current behavior.
It's also one of the most comical stories in sports history. According to the AP on July 7, 1993, Stoudmire was charged with possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, both misdemeanor charges. He was in possession of almost 40 grams of marijuana.
How did Stoudamire get caught? He tried passing through Tucson International Airport metal detectors with one and a half ounces of weed in aluminum foil. So yes, the metal detector went off.
This was Stoudamire's third marijuana offense, including one that involved Rasheed Wallace and him getting pulled over in a yellow Hummer while speeding back to Portland after a win in Seattle. After the airport incident, Stoudamire was suspended three months, fined $250,000 and, ultimately, he attended a 90-day rehabilitation program.
Stoudamire went as far as to promise taking a random drug test for The Oregonian columnist John Canzano. He did so, and the results came back negative. Stoudamire was subsequently criticized by National Basketball Players Association.
In 2005, comedian Alonzo Bodden rifted about Stoudamire in his Comedy Central Presents special (start at 1:30):
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But that's all in Stoudamire's past now. He's grown up, and is now deserving of his opportunity at Pacific.
-- Follow Jeffrey Eisenband on Twitter @JeffEisenband.
