One Lucky Chair

November 30, 2011   ·   2 Comments

by Cody Norman

In the far corner of Mason Hall office D103, there sits a modest-looking bar stool. It’s an old chair with nicks up and down the legs and a flattened cushion on the seat. Certainly not an object with pristine visual appeal, but an object with as much history as its body alludes.

“I bring all the new recruits into my office to show them this chair,” said President Alan Merten. “I tell them that I need a few more like it.”

Back on March 26, 2006, right in the midst of the Patriots legendary run into the Final Four, Merten sat in that chair as he watched his team knock off the No. 1 seeded Connecticut Huskies in their Elite Eight match-up in D.C.

He was seated in the late Abe Pollin’s box at the MCI Center, taking in the game from what would become his lucky chair.

That same lucky chair that now sits in his office.

“Before I left the box and headed down to the floor, I told Mr. Pollin, ‘That’s my lucky chair,’” Merten said. “And it showed up in my office sometime the next day.”

When Merten and his wife Sally took over as president and first lady of George Mason University in July of 1996, the university schooled just 24,000 students, most of whom commuted from within the Northern Virginia area. It has since become the fastest-growing university in Virginia, eclipsing the 30,000-student mark.

One of his first duties as president was to replace the men’s basketball coach, Paul Westhead. While he was not directly involved with the search process, Merten made it clear to the athletic department that any potential hire had to interview with him first.

“I believe, and Sally believes, that there is a strong relationship between the university and athletics,” Merten said.

Shortly after the search began, Jim Larranaga, coach of Bowling Green State University, met with Merten and was offered the coaching job at Mason.

“Jim told us that he was going to build a program and that he wasn’t here for the short term,” Mrs. Merten said. “He said he would take us to the NCAA Tournament in three seasons and we made it in two. So he made good on his promise, just as he makes good on all of his promises.”

The new coach and president, along with their wives, developed an almost immediate friendship.

“My wife and I were very impressed with President Merten’s leadership ability,” said Larranaga, the Patriots’ head coach for the last 14 seasons. “He would interact with deans of the colleges and then come out and be a huge fan of the basketball team.”

“Sally was always there with him. It was a team effort.”

As their friendship off the court progressed, Larranaga’s success on the court was incredible.

With one week left to play in his second season as head coach, Larranaga and the Patriots clinched at least a share of their first CAA title in the history of the university. Without hesitation, Merten ordered an airplane and had it fly around the university with a banner that read, “George Mason University: CAA Champions.”

“Most people would have waited to see if we won it outright,” Larranaga recalled. “But his thinking was that, whether we won or tied, we were going to win our first regular season conference championship and  we should be proud.”

The Mertens have attended nearly every home basketball game throughout their tenure, sitting in their courtside seats at half court.

“Long before everybody else jumped on the bandwagon, he was promoting how good we were,” Larranaga said. “He talked to the national media about how proud he was, not just of the basketball success, but of the success academically.”

Then, the unthinkable occurred in March of 2006.

The Patriots rode a hot streak throughout the NCAA tournament, reaching the school’s first and only Final Four.

They were in the midst of an incredible run and the Mertens were there the entire way, flying on the plane with the team to almost every game.

“Most presidents don’t fly on the planes because they don’t have that kind of relationship with the coach or the players,” Larranaga said. “But President Merten would come out to our practices. He cared that much about our program.”

Through all of the noise surrounding the men’s basketball program, Merten and his staff were primed to take advantage of the spotlight and morph the university into one of the biggest, fastest-growing universities in the state of Virginia.

“People wanted to write about us and they’d run out of things to say about our basketball team,” Merten said. “Every morning we would meet and discuss how we were going to take advantage of all the media attention, how we were going to get our academic programs out there. And, somehow, we did. We were in newspapers and on televisions all over the world.”

With all of the exposure came a rapid inflation in admissions requests. There were 350 percent more inquires, 54 percent of which came from out-of-state students. More and more people flooded the Internet, applying for the chance to enroll in Mason.

“March of 2006 was the best [public relations] month that George Mason, the man, ever had,” Merten said. “He had more attention in one month than he did in 250 years.”

Since then, the university has continued its hasty growth, consistently appearing in the U.S. News and World Report’s list of Up-and-Coming Schools in America. The campus has now branched out to Arlington and Prince William as Merten and the administration have poured more than $450 million into construction.

Over the last five years  on the court, Mason has compiled a 107-57 record. They’ve helped legitimize the CAA, earning a trip to three postseason tournaments.

The 2010-11 Patriots notched the longest win streak in school history, winning the regular season conference title on their way to a third round appearance in the NCAA tournament.

Yet, with everything that Merten has accomplished while employed as president of Mason, he remains humbled by the pace at which this university has grown.

Each game, with four minutes left to play in either half, he rises to a thunderous ovation from the student sections. He points his air-powered gun into the stands and sends a t-shirt into the hands of one lucky fan.

“It reminds me of what I’m here for. And that’s the students,” Merten said. “This is a very special place and a very special university. It has meant a lot to Sally and me to be able to play a role in making this a better university. To see what we’ve created, particularly what we’ve created in respect to the enthusiasm from the student body, it’s just been incredible.”

As the time nears that the Mertens’ tenure as president and first lady will end, so too does their time sitting courtside at Mason basketball games.

This is their last basketball season, their last CAA tournament, and their last NCAA tournament.

But it is also their last chance to find another seat to place in the far corner of Mason Hall office D103.

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