Date with Tar Heels looms for Thomas

MIAMI -- There are many exotic and refined places to visit around this city, but on this day Isiah Thomas wants to see the rest.

He hops into a rental car with a GPS and starts to drive. He charts a path through some of the area's grittier enclaves, touring Overtown, Liberty City and -- How did he pronounce it? "Ha-la-leah?" -- Hialeah.

Thomas is new here, hired seven months ago to coach the Florida International University basketball team in a move that was as stunning as it was intriguing. He doesn't know these streets, but he grew up on some just like them on the west side of Chicago.

When Thomas makes a wrong turn, he says he doesn't mind. Because in driving, as in life, he finds those wrong turns can lead to interesting places, just as his recent ones have brought him to South Florida.

"You meet people, you start talking, maybe pick up a little Spanish," Thomas said of his inadvertent detours. "I want to get a feel for the city, for the people."

A long day of driving brings him back to the luxurious Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, where he stayed for nearly six months before finding a more permanent residence.

In that time, he learned something central to his new hometown, something locals sometimes take for granted: Miami is made for comebacks.

Here, where South America meets the South, the Hall of Fame player is trying to repair his reputation after a series of high-profile missteps, including a disgraced stint as the president, general manager and coach of the New York Knicks.

"There's a sense of great opportunity and great struggle that you're feeling here," said Thomas, who will make his official debut Monday, when FIU visits North Carolina in a 7 p.m. game to be nationally televised on ESPNU.

He is starting over at a commuter school with no basketball tradition, hoping to mend his relationship with the sport that made him famous.

"I don't think there's a need to redeem," he said. "I think there's a need to remind."

When Thomas' players take the floor for practice, he is ready to work them hard. He wants them to hustle Monday against North Carolina in what figures to be a terrible mismatch.

The Golden Panthers were 13-20 last year under coach Sergio Rouco, and just Wednesday night they lost an exhibition game at home to Northwood, an NAIA school based in West Palm Beach. Much work lies ahead.

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