CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- The universally popular bashing of Isiah Thomas is justified, but only to a point. Whatever the case, it continued on Monday night at the Dean E. Smith Center, where it was mostly harmless and often humorous.Ailing mothers have a tendency to soften hard souls.
So, for the first time since just shy of forever, Thomas walked into a basketball arena as somebody that many wished to hug instead of choke. That's because hours before he made his debut as a college basketball coach for Florida International University against North Carolina (yes, that North Carolina), Mary Thomas was in a Chicago hospital preparing to have her 86-year-old heart repaired.
