Their best story begins on a golf course, as so many of the best stories do.
This was almost 20 years ago. Gary Colson was the men's basketball coach at Fresno State. Steve Cleveland was the coach at Fresno City College.Colson had gotten Cleveland into golfing, mentored him at that game as much as basketball. Which was a lot.One day, Colson came up to his young assistant coach, Jim Saia, and asked whether he wanted to go with them, too.Now that might not sound like a big deal, but it was a huge deal to Saia. Assistants don't really get asked to golf with the head coach that much, and Saia never had, so he was nervous. He's kind of a fast-twitch worrier anyway.They went out to play the round at Fort Washington Country Club and at some point Saia bent down to mark his ball and realized he didn't have a ball marker. Instead, he looked around, picked up his golf ball and jammed a dent in the green with his thumb.Cleveland and Colson laughed about it for four holes. Nonstop. Bellyache laughs. Food-out-the-nose laughs. Remember in church, as a kid, you'd get to laughing and couldn't stop no matter how hard you tried? It was like that.They told Saia he'd ruined the entire round, and even though they were sort of kidding, Steve Cleveland and Jim Saia have never played another round of golf together."He always tells me he's going to invite me," Saia laughs, "but it never happens." When Fresno State plays Fresno Pacific in tonight's exhibition at the Save Mart Center, well, it would be tough to find two coaches with more connections. We'll start with coaching.Cleveland is now the Fresno State coach, and he's not really sure how many times he has faced Saia.Saia, the coach at Fresno Pacific, says it's seven. Three times during the 1994-95 season, when Cleveland was at Fresno City and Saia at Columbia. Then two times the next season. Then the past two years in exhibitions between Fresno State and Fresno Pacific.You might think that's a little dig by the D-I coach, not remembering when he played the NAIA coach, but it isn't like that. People's memories just work differently. Saia probably remembers his seventh-grade locker combination.Without looking it up, Saia says the third game, in 1994-95, was in a tournament in Modesto. In the consolation bracket. Um, yeah, how many workdays do you remember vividly from 15 years ago?Oh, but we're just getting started. Saia and his brother, Mike, both played college basketball with Cleveland's brother, Craig, at Cal Poly in 1982-84."Whenever anybody asks me about Craig," says Mike, who lives in Marin County, "I tell them he was the most competitive guy on the court, and the nicest guy off it."In another interesting connection, Mike Saia was a referee for many years, and worked Cleveland's games at Fresno City and Brigham Young. He never gave Cleveland a technical, which is no surprise, since Cleveland never gets them, and the only two technicals Mike ever gave to Division I coaches were Billy Tubbs and Cal Poly's Jeff Schneider.Brother connections not obscure enough for ya? OK, how about this? Jim Saia's pastor at New Harvest Church is Mitch Ribera. Mitch played for Steve Cleveland on the JV team at Bullard High about 30 years ago.Not weird enough? Both men are graduates of the other school. Cleveland got his master's from Fresno Pacific, Saia from Fresno State.For the record, in their seven meetings Saia has won four. The Bulldogs have won the exhibitions the past two years, but last year's game was close and this one could be. Saia's team is No. 3 in the NAIA.Both teams should be better, and both have goals that have nothing to do with tonight's game. The Sunbirds want a national championship. The Bulldogs want to make the leap to respectability that Cleveland has been building toward.It's probably not going to build into a great rivalry (they like each other too much for that), but it's still a fun game and good competition for both teams."I hope we can make them better," Saia says. "I hope we can give them a battle."He'd also like to win, finally give the big school that's passed him over a couple of times a thumb in the ol' green, you might say. Cleveland wouldn't mind a laugher of a blowout.Ah, just like old times.