Steve Kelley / Times staff columnist
Snyder a rare shining star in sullied world of coaching

	L.G. PATTERSON / AP Missouri coach Quin Snyder paces the sideline during an exhibition game in November.
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The air conditioning was broken again and the lights were flickering because the fickle power system pumping electricity into the athletes' village wasn't supplying enough juice.

It was so hot people couldn't stay in their rooms, so little pockets of players gathered in the steamy courtyards, volleyball players playing pepper, baseball players playing catch, field-hockey players throwing a football and track athletes soaking their aching muscles in buckets of ice.

Some of the world's best athletes were chilling into the sweltering summer night last August at the Pan Am Games in the Dominican Republic.

But oddly, it was in this setting, far from the tumult in Columbia, Mo., in a place where you had to brush your teeth with bottled water, where the newly installed air conditioners — when they worked — dripped condensation on the beds below, that Missouri coach Quin Snyder knew everything was going to be fine.

That night, Snyder, an assistant coach on the U.S. Pan Am basketball team, sat on a stoop with Missouri players Ricky Paulding and Arthur Johnson and talked about life, about the war in Iraq, about girlfriends, about everything but basketball.

And it was a quiet, wondrous reminder to Snyder about why he got into the game and what coaching truly meant to him. He had watched these two kids grow up in his program.

He knew them almost in the same way a parent knew them. And he loved them in that same way.

"The environment was so different down there. It made it such a unique night," said Snyder, a former Mercer Island High School star, by telephone last night. "I've got a picture of that night in my head and I remember sitting, for two-plus hours, with those two guys and almost nothing we talked about centered around basketball. It was an unbelievably special time. To feel you have a significant part in someone's life, whether it's as a mentor or a coach, is incredibly special."

It was a moment of calm in a time of controversy.

Missouri's basketball program is being investigated by the NCAA for allegedly giving cash payments and improper academic help to long-gone point guard Ricky Clemons.

The results of the investigation are supposed to be made public this month. Snyder says his program isn't running from the charges and he promises he won't let the investigation affect or infect his team.

"Doug Collins told me that whatever happens, don't let any of this affect your passion for the game, and for coaching," Snyder said. "That does happen. But I think what's been helpful to me, as a coach, you have to view yourself as an elected official.

"You're accountable for everything you do. Understanding that, that's not necessarily the life I would have chosen when I got into coaching. But it's part of this life and it's one that I accept and want to do a good job at."

Because of the investigation, which Snyder isn't allowed to discuss, he has been linked with all of the cheats and charlatans in his profession, even though he isn't one. He is mentioned, in the same sentences, with the mavericks and the renegades. But he isn't one.

His four seniors — Rickey Paulding, Travon Bryant, Arthur Johnson, Josh Kroenke — are on pace to graduate this summer. That would mean all 14 players who have stuck with the program, since Snyder became Missouri's coach five years ago, have graduated.

Snyder admits he made mistakes. Maybe his judgment was blurred by his need for a point guard. Maybe Clemons' fast-talking con mixed badly with Snyder's inherent desire to reclaim a lost kid.

"The measure I use in recruiting is, 'Can this young man have success at our institution?' " Snyder said.

He believed Clemons could. Snyder tried to help, but Clemons abused the help. He was arrested and pleaded guilty to charges of false imprisonment and third-degree assault of his former girlfriend, Jessica Bunge.

Clemons was sentenced to 60 days in a work-release program and, while serving that time last July, he overturned an ATV near the residence of Missouri's president, Elson Floyd, who was hosting a party to which Clemons was invited.

Snyder probably was more patient than he should have been with Clemons. He learned that patience from his father, Gary, former athletic director at Mercer Island.

"When you're at a public institution like Missouri," Snyder said, "you try to identify some people who, on the surface, don't appear to have the potential, either athletically or academically, but you feel like there is something in them you can cultivate or develop and help them rise to another level."

He needed a point guard and he thought he could make a difference in Clemons' life. He thought he could help Clemons rise to that other level. He couldn't. But he has with Paulding, Johnson, Kroenke and Bryant. He is making a difference in the lives of Clemons' replacement, Jimmy McKinney, and in Portland's Thomas Gardner.

Maybe he was overzealous with Clemons, maybe too trusting, but Snyder still is one of the good people in his profession.

It is a tribute to him and the players he recruits that his team has stayed together through the turmoil. Missouri, which plays 17th-ranked Gonzaga on Saturday at KeyArena, is 3-0 and ranked third in the country. Snyder has kept his team focused in the midst of the fury.

Columbia is a small town that is passionate about basketball. Everything that happens at Missouri is dissected and sweated over like U.S. foreign policy. This is coaching in the cauldron. Every substitution he makes is second-guessed. Every Missouri Tiger Web site background checks his recruits as if they're candidates for the CIA. Still, Snyder, 37, is succeeding.

"We're ranked three, but there are 20 teams in the country, on a given night, that might be better than us," he said.

Last Saturday, at Indiana, Snyder played every possession on the sideline. He soaked through his light-blue dress shirt. His hair, once the envy of every follicle-challenged male, looked matted against his scalp.

Missouri was playing unforgiving defense and Snyder was playing it right alongside his players.

He's one of the decent people in a sport overloaded with charlatans. He made a mistake, but he will survive it.

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company