Mark Macon

Mark Macon came to Temple with a reputation gaudier than a Mummers costume. He was Mr. Basketball in the state of Michigan as a high school senior. A McDonald's all-American. Fifteen games into his freshman season with the Owls, Dick Vitale anointed him the next Oscar Robertson. A headline in The Inquirer frothily asked: "The most remarkable Owl ever?" In the current Temple media guide, coach John Chaney is quoted as saying: "Mark, without question, is the very best guard in America.

He walked off the floor stone-faced, as he had done after every Temple basketball game this season. The slow, duck-footed gait. The sunken, haunting eyes staring blankly into space. Through Mark Macon, anyway, it was impossible to tell that the Owls had just lost a heartbreaking 63-53 decision in the NCAA East Regional final to Duke. Or that Macon's horrendous 6-for-29 shooting night would be fodder for Monday morning quarterbacks. But the dam, so solid, so secure, was about to break.

For the first time in 11 years, an all-American player has decided to come play for John Chaney. Mark Karcher, a 6-foot-5 McDonald's all-American guard/forward, signed a national letter of intent yesterday with Temple. He signed it at his school, St. Frances High in Baltimore, where he starred over the last four years. "We're excited about it," Chaney said after his first all-America signing since Mark Macon in 1986. "He's a fine youngster. His entire family was very happy that he chose us, and so are we. "He's a mix-and-match player, a forward that can play either the guard or forward spot and can do a lot of things for us. Everyone wanted him. We're elated we have him. " Temple should be. With Karcher, the Owls now have inked two players of the year in their respective states (Lynn Greer, the Pennsylvania state player of the year from Engineering and Science, signed with Temple earlier in the recruiting season)

They are the area's two finest college basketball players. Their talents are so vast that they are projected to be first-round NBA draft picks. They are both guards, natural leaders. They are so much alike. Yet so different . . . The La Salle bus cruises along the Cross Bronx Expressway, heading for the stately campus of Fordham University, as Doug Overton rises from his seat. It is about an hour before game time, but Overton feels no pressure. It is time for his contrived imitation of the Fordham professor.

Mark Macon, a former Temple star who plays for the Detroit Pistons, puts up a shot for Noel Mayo during its 112-105 win over Dr. Foot in the Baker League championship last night at McGonigle Hall.

VESTAL, N.Y. - Binghamton University fired men's basketball coach Mark Macon on Monday and began a national search for a replacement. Director of athletics Patrick Elliott made the announcement, saying the decision "comes after a thorough assessment of our current program and my expectations for the future. " "Mark Macon led the program during an extremely difficult period," Elliott, who took over as athletic director in November, said in a statement. "I appreciate and thank him for his efforts.

He still wore that cherry-and-white Temple shirt with the No. 12 on the front. He still flashed that patented hypnotic stare. He definitely looked like Mark Macon. He walked like Mark Macon. And he talked like Mark Macon. But for two games, he sure wasn't filling up the hoop like Mark Macon. The box scores keep insisting that Macon scored eight points and six points in back-to-back games last week. But anybody who saw this guy score 20 points a game last year without opening a sweat pore knows that couldn't possibly happen.

They have been inseparable. They have philosophized together, they have joked together. They have watched films together, and they have shopped together. They have won and lost together. For four years, John Chaney and Mark Macon have forged a relationship that goes beyond that of coach and player. It is a relationship of brother to brother, father to son, sage to pupil. And today, it exists on borrowed time. Sometime in the next few weeks - it may be tomorrow night in College Park, Md., when Temple takes on Purdue in the first round of the NCAA tournament, or it may be later, perhaps even at the end of the month, in the Final Four in Indianapolis - there will be a final buzzer to the Owls' 1990-91 season.

Shortly after practice one day last week, Mark Macon stopped by John Chaney's office looking for a cookie and perhaps some idle chatter. Instead, what Temple's sophomore guard got was an earful. Though his tone was reverent, Chaney made it known that he was not pleased with what he interpreted to be a bit of hyperactiveness on Macon's part. "You were a little crazy out there today, Mark," Chaney said. "And when you're a little crazy, the rest of the team thinks they can be crazy.

VESTAL, N.Y. - Binghamton University fired men's basketball coach Mark Macon on Monday and began a national search for a replacement. Director of athletics Patrick Elliott made the announcement, saying the decision "comes after a thorough assessment of our current program and my expectations for the future. " "Mark Macon led the program during an extremely difficult period," Elliott, who took over as athletic director in November, said in a statement. "I appreciate and thank him for his efforts.

GIVEN THE WAY the season has gone so far - and that would be pretty awful if you just followed the box scores - Mark Macon was surprisingly upbeat as he wrapped up his postgame press conference recently at Rider University. The former Temple basketball star and interim Binghamton University head coach had a spring to his step as he headed out the door to join his players for a 3-hour-plus bus trip back to the southern tier of New York. "It'll be good," Macon said with a laugh. "We've got movies.

Former Temple star Mark Macon was named interim basketball coach at Binghamton after head coach Kevin Broadus was placed on an indefinite paid leave of absence. Interim athletic director James Norris said the decision, announced yesterday, was reached after discussions with university president Lois DeFleur and vice president James Van Voorst. The move comes after Friday's announcement that Broadus admitted having contact with prospective recruits that violated NCAA regulations.

John Chaney could have been Barack Obama's secretary of defense. Buoyed by the president's inauguration, Chaney, the defensive genius who coached Temple to 516 wins, echoed the words of Obama during his induction into the university's Athletics Hall of Fame yesterday. "It's not about us," he said, "it's about you. " Chaney was inducted, along with longtime team physician Ray Moyer, at an official ceremony earlier in the day. But the 77-year-old icon was honored during halftime of Temple's 80-53 win over Charlotte last night.

The Liacouras Center was half-empty, and Temple had just blown a big lead. Owls star David Hawkins looked particularly gassed. Nothing suggested anything special was about to happen. His shot to open the second overtime Wednesday against Massachusetts never had a chance. "It wasn't just that I was tired," Hawkins said later. "My wind was down, plus my knees were bothering me. I have tendinitis in my left knee. Sometimes during a game, it tightens up. My legs were tired. I was just exhausted.

Mark Macon, Temple's all-time leading basketball scorer, was hired yesterday by John Chaney as an assistant coach, filling a spot on Chaney's staff that had been open since Nate Blackwell was let go after last season. "The only strange part is sitting in the office as an adult, as a coach," Macon, 34, said yesterday by phone from Temple's basketball office. He said he still looks at himself as a student under Chaney. "It's still almost like a father-son relationship," Macon said.

The 10,000-mile time-out Dawn Staley took from the U.S. national team in September to recruit for her Temple women's basketball team paid off big-time yesterday. Britney Jordan, a flashy 5-foot-8 point guard from Peoria, Ill., became the most prestigious blue-chip prospect to commit to a local women's program yesterday when she announced her intention of joining Staley's Owls next season. "Dawn Staley is the best point guard in the world," Jordan said from her home in Peoria when explaining her choice of Temple over Arkansas and Southern Cal. "I know I can learn from her and improve my game.

Former Temple basketball star Mark Macon was jailed in Saginaw, Mich., on Sunday for failure to pay more than $75,000 in child support. Macon allegedly owes $41,099 to support a 4-year-old son and is $34,068 in arrears to support a 15-year-old daughter. The children have different mothers. Macon was arrested Sunday in Southfield, Mich. Police responding to reports of a fight at an illegal drinking club asked patrons for identification and learned there was an outstanding warrant for Macon.

Guy Rodgers, a former All-America guard at Temple and member of the NBA's Philadelphia Warriors, died yesterday in Los Angeles. Rodgers, 65, was pronounced dead at Midway Hospital at 5:26 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, a hospital spokeswoman said. Rodgers felt ill while attending a movie. After leaving the theater, he complained of chest pains and was taken to the hospital. Rodgers, of the Fairfax section of Los Angeles, was a graduate of Northeast High School, where he was a coaches' all-Public League selection in 1953.