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Coach Whisenant Says Slam Is A "Risky Gamble"
Candid Coach's Conversation Counters CEO Rossi's Public Comment
on a Sale to Possible Whisenant-Lead Local Ownership Group

Albuquerque - 2/18/01 - In a Friday morning radio interview with IBL CEO Ralph Rossi, Jr. on KNML-610AM, the Sports Animal's Morning Show, Rossi told hosts Blake Taylor and Dennis Glasgow that Slam Head Coach John Whisenant was possibly a potential investor in the team.

In a candid exclusive interview with MLN almost a week prior to the radio program, Whisenant, the outspoken coach of the Slam, said that Rossi is pressuring him to make that move, but that he is not ready to make that commitment at this time.

"Quite honestly, the league President [Thaxter Trafton] and the league owner [Ralph Rossi, Jr.] and Gil [Burciaga] ever since he's owned [the Slam] have pushed me to buy this franchise," Whisenant said.

"I have consistently said number one I do not have deep enough pockets to take this kind of gamble," said Coach Wiz. "Furthermore, I have been here twenty-five years and my job, other than basketball, has been getting people in good business, real estate or whatever deals. I'm not sure of a startup league, the uncertainty of it. I don't think it's a good risk... They've been working so hard to keep just our six teams together."

According to Whisenant, he is already a minority owner of the team. "I'm really a 5% owner, but that was just really a deal... Gil took $80,000 out of my first year's salary for the cost."

Does the IBL want a franchise in Albuquerque? "You know what [the IBL likes]?" Whisenant told MLN. "They like the crowds that we got last year, and they're disappointed this year. They don't know what that means. They don't know whether that's moving downtown or all the confusion of merger or no merger, schedules then no schedules or a combination."

Whisenant also suggested that the league was unhappy with current owner Gil Barciaga, who lives in Austin, and his lack of attention to the team. "Absentee owner. I mean, Gil's gotten a lot of criticism. He's just about disappeared."

Coach Wiz also lays the problem at the door of his team's front office. "I really believe we've done a lousy job. I mean the Lobos have [a sports information department] and three assistants and of course they've got thirty years. I didn't expect to get all of that. I'm disappointed in the people that we've had here... I don't want to hurt somebody's feelings, but we've had a lot of people that didn't know what they were doing. The League was saying originally that they were going to bring in experts on media relations and experts on sponsorships and signage sales, experts on ticket sales and that didn't happen.

As to why Burciaga made his head coach a part-owner, Whisenant ruminates "I think his goal was, and the reason why he wanted me to take some ownership when he saw me as a coach, was a local guy that's been here and would have connections that if I'd get together and I'd get a group of eight or ten guys and buy the franchise. I might have and I still might do. I want it to be stable and a known quantity, you know, and at a point I think that you could make it attractive. I mean it's good basketball."

"Now if [the League] can get everything that they say that they're going to get done over the next six months, everything smooth, things could conceivably change," Whisenant says with a look of optimism, before a wave of pessimism consumes his thoughts again.

"I'm not prepared to stick my neck out or ask friends of mine in this community to join me to stick our necks out on what I consider a risky gamble," Whisenant says pensively. "I say it just that way to [the league officials]."

Generally, Whisenant has praise for the new IBL CEO, Ralph Rossi, Jr.'s efforts to bring the leagues together and form a more stable group of teams.

"[Rossi] is certainly a lot more energetic than Art Cipriani [the former CEO of the IBL] was. Art was a nice guy who made some money in oil and gas. He got his buddy Gil [Burciaga] in, who made money in oil and gas, and neither one of them knew jack about sports franchises. They just thought if you go in and open up franchises the people were going to come. They just had no concept of how hard it is. It's a whole separate business. I learned that from being a consultant to the Maloofs [Who own the Sacramento Kings franchise in the NBA] for ten years."

"I expect that this will be my last season to coach," Whisenant said with a small sigh, then picked up on a note of optimism for professional basketball in Albuquerque.

"I think that triple-A basketball...you could sell four thousand, five thousand seats here. I really do. I think you can build on [UNM] Lobo basketball. I think it's got to be done differently. I think you've got to have league support. That's what the league gets their little cut back from all of that. What Rossi's intending to get. I think the main feather will be if you can get to become an NBA franchise. Then you've got stability long-term."

Rumors continue to abound that the NBA is looking at the 'new' IBL. Maintaining stability in the founding franchises may be a critical component in landing a deal with the NBA, which has already been burned several times in its attempts to create a stable pipeline to a talent development pool in a dedicated minor league system.

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