UH's Wallace 'back to normal' after surgery

By Dayton Morinaga
Advertiser Staff Writer

UH men's basketball coach Riley Wallace returned to work yesterday. Advertiser library photo • Feb. 21, 2002

Even with a 5 1/2-inch scar across the top-left of his head, the University of Hawai'i men's basketball coach was back at work yesterday. Only 11 days ago, he underwent emergency surgery in Las Vegas to remove swellings of blood near his brain.

"Everything's back to normal," Wallace declared yesterday in his first interview since the surgery.

To be sure, Wallace peppered his starting center, Haim Shimonovich, with questions in the UH basketball office yesterday.

"You been working hard? You been lifting every day?" Wallace said. "You better be."

Wallace insisted yesterday that the surgery will not affect his coaching style. The first practice for the upcoming season is the Midnight 'Ohana on Oct. 11; the regular-season opener is Nov. 22.

"About the only thing I can't do is head-butt somebody," Wallace said. "The doctors told me not to yell, but by the time October comes around, I should be able to yell a little bit."

Wallace, 60, was in the University Medical Center for eight days, and returned to Honolulu Sunday night. He was told by doctors to "take it easy" for the next two weeks.

However, he refused to stay at home yesterday because "it drives me nuts just sitting around."

UH women's volleyball coach Dave Shoji said the scar on Wallace's head looks "like a centipede," but Wallace said it does not cause any pain.

While the procedure was described in media reports as "brain surgery," Wallace said "cranial surgery" would be a more accurate term.

"They went into the skull, but they didn't operate on the brain," he said.

He and his doctors are still unsure how the swellings of blood started. Wallace recalls bumping his head several times in the last month — "coming out of the shower, on my garage door, on the top of the tailgate of my car ... it could have been any one of those," he said.

He suffered severe headaches in the days leading to the surgery. He was in Los Angeles for a golf tournament on Sept. 3, and then drove to Las Vegas with friends the following day. Wallace was supposed to meet with potential UH athletic boosters in Las Vegas, and then attend the Hawai'i-BYU football game in Provo, Utah, on Sept. 6.

But on the morning of Sept. 5, he said he awoke with the worst headache of his life.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst, I know what a 10 feels like now," he said.

He called his daughter, Kim, who resides in Las Vegas, to take him to the hospital.

Wallace had been taking blood thinners for the past few years, and he said that contributed to the swelling. He is no longer on that medication.

When the swellings were discovered, Wallace underwent a complete blood transfusion before the surgery.

"The surgeon came in and told me about the procedure and all that was going to happen," he said. "I thought it was going to be all right but then the final thing he says is 'there's a chance you could die.' It makes you think a little bit."

Wallace spent most of his time at the hospital in the intensive care unit.

"You feel uncomfortable, but you realize you're not that bad off when you look around," he said. "One guy next to me got shot in the chest and didn't move the whole time I was there."

In any case, Wallace is anxious to get the 2002-03 season under way. Four starters return from last season's record-setting 27-6 team that won the Western Athletic Conference.

"If everything goes the way it should, I won't have to yell that much anyway," he said.

Wallace is entering his 16th season as head coach at UH. He is the program's all-time winningest coach with a career record of 243-204.