Tucson Citizen.com

Wild About AZ Cats

A different slant on Wildcat athletics

Healing process begins for Norman

by on Jul. 19, 2010, under Sports

Coniel Norman is in the public eye for the first time since he played in the NBA in 1979 with San Diego (Norman family photo)

From down on his luck to downright proud of his existence on Earth — the healing process has started for the once wayward Coniel “Popcorn” Norman, the career average scoring leader in Arizona basketball history.

Previously unemployed, Norman started a 12-week training regimen Monday with Southwest Solution’s GreenWorks program in Detroit.

Pictures provided to TucsonCitizen.com on Monday from his niece Cassie Norman show a beaming Coniel Norman, who five to six months ago thought he would never see his family and his hometown of Detroit again. He was living on his own in Los Angeles without a job and nary a hope. He was disconnected from his family for 27 years, he said.

Norman, 56, is pictured at the grand opening last Thursday of the $23 million apartment complex in Detroit called Piquette Square, a haven for homeless and unemployed veterans. He had the opportunity to speak to the crowd, which included Detroit mayor Dave Bing, who played in the NBA with Norman in the 1970s.

It was out of his character for him to talk in front of a crowd like that. The mild-mannered Norman usually let his automatic jumper do his talking, hence the nickname “Popcorn” for popping it in from anywhere.

“He is extremely reserved yet very funny,” Cassie Norman said, referring to how the crowd was receptive to her uncle’s humble nature.

Coniel Norman speaks last Thursday at the grand opening of the $23 million Piquette Square in Detroit, a facility that is home for Norman and homeless and unemployed veterans (Norman family photo)

Cassie Norman and her uncle’s extended family are impressed with the outpouring of support from people in Detroit and Tucson. She informed me that if anybody wants to provide assistance to Norman, please contact her at cassienorman@hotmail.com for information.

“He has never been one to ask for help,” Cassie Norman said. “I think my uncle thought he wasn’t important to the history of Arizona (basketball). So this will give him confidence, which he truly needs, to be honest with you.”

When interviewed Saturday by TucsonCitizen.com, Norman sounded surprised that his career at Arizona is still discussed. He said more than once that having his name still in the record books “is unreal because it’s been so long ago (he played from 1972-74).”

Although he is taken aback about others understanding his place in the program’s history, he is convinced about the importance of the mark left by him and former “Kiddie Korps” (1972-73) teammates Eric Money (a fellow graduate of Detroit’s Kettering High School), Jim Rappis, Ron Allen and Al Fleming.

Immediately following that group in 1973-74, former UA coach Fred “The Fox” Snowden brought in Bob Elliott, Jerome Gladney, Len Gordy and Herman Harris.

“The program was not all that good before we got there,” Norman said, referring to five losing seasons in the six years before Snowden, Money and Norman, et al, arrived in Tucson from Michigan. “Some of the guys Coach Snowden brought in there brought in a winning attitude.”

The Wildcats reached the Elite Eight in 1976, a year in which Norman and Money would have been seniors had they stayed in school and not declared hardship for the NBA after their sophomore seasons. Elliott, Fleming, Harris, Rappis and Gordy led the charge that season.

“Coach Snowden turned things around and put Arizona basketball on the map. He showed how good of a program that could be. Nobody in the nation before that knew about us. I’m glad I was a part of it.”

More in TC Sports Network:

2012 AZSportsTV Baseball All-Stars

This entry was posted on Monday, July 19th, 2010 at 9:50 pm and is filed under Sports. Tags for this post: , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

RSS feed for this post (comments)

  • Pingback: @TC.com: Norman starts healing process | "Tell them … tell the team to bear down"

  • erniemccray

    I look at those teams that the Fox put together with the likes of Elliott and Money and Norman as the kick start for big time Arizona basketball as we know it today. Those guys put on quite a show.

  • Carlos J. M.

    Great wrap up, Jay, to the story of ‘Corn’s reunion with family, both the Norman and UA families, which are, in reality, one in the same.  ‘Corn’s as determined to nail this turnaround in his life as he was in hitting all those turnaround jumpers.  Good to see.  Something tells me he’ll get there. 

    The official NBA logo, as with the American Flag we all salute and that which Norman enlisted in the Army for four years to defend, is red, white and blue.  That logo also has as part of its symbolism a ball player dribbling right down its center, as if to say NBA basketball is as balanced and as driven to serve its public as it is American.  If I were Coniel Norman and his family, and maybe in particular niece Cassie, I’d touch bases with the Congressional delegation in Michigan and the NBA to see what resources, what services there are available for a constituent, an American soldier in need right in their midst.  Time to put them to the test as well.  

  • Andy Morales

    “When interviewed Saturday by TucsonCitizen.com, Norman sounded surprised that his career at Arizona is still discussed.”
     
    I remember when the media (NOT Javier) called the players who left for the NBA early under Lute Olson the FIRST to leave in that fashion.
     
    With egg on their faces, it took ONE journalist who actually knew about Arizona’s history, Javier wrote a few articles an especially one upon Snowden’s passing, to set them straight.
     
    I was amazed that the so-called “experts” who had the Arizona Basketball beat back then would make such a huge mistake.
     
    As Snowden once told Javier, had Money and Norman stayed we would have won a Championship.
     
    Norman was one of the reasons my brothers and I have chosen this path.  Had it not been for my older brother (Hector) getting “Fees Receipts” (Only TRUE Arizona fans remember those), for Carlos, Javier and me, we never would have been able to see the group Snowden had put together up close.
     
    Had it not been for David Bell (Again, only TRUE Arizona fans know who he was), we never would have been able to visit the locker room so often after basketball games – Javier’s first chance at talking athletes after games and we only 8-14 years old.  Bell noticed we would always hang out in the tunnels under McKale after games and one day he basically told Snowden to let us in the locker room, Snowden looked at him and then us and we were “in” from then on.
     
    So, Norman will be remembered for a long, long time.

  • erniemccray

    The story gets better by the day. It’s all about connections isn’t it? You got into the locker room and from that and probably other life experiences you found the writer in yourself and in the mix Coniel Norman is brought to life again for us old Wildcats, caught up in the wonder of being remembered after all these years. I know how he feels still being mentioned in this era of athletes who’ve taken the game to levels he and I could never have imagined as young athletes.

«
»