We've been wating for this for a few months, but now it's official: A former basketball coach has announced that he wants a job up in the Capitol. No, it's not Dean Smith. It's Dick Versace.

Former NBA coach and commentator Dick Versace is looking for a new job: congressman.

The 67-year-old Versace, a Democrat, said Thursday that he will bid for the 18th Congressional District seat in central Illinois. Incumbent Republican Ray LaHood announced in July he will retire when his term runs out in 2009.

[...]

Versace is well known to basketball fans around the country. He is a former NBA assistant coach and head coach, and was a longtime television commentator.

In 2005, he stepped down as the Memphis Grizzlies' general manager after six years with the team.

But before that, he was at Bradley University [which is in the district], where he won three Missouri Valley Conference Championships and a National Invitational Tournament title from 1979 to 1986.

This is a winnable seat for the Democrats. Though in the absence of a retirement this district might not be on the Democrats' map due to the fact that it leans about five points more Republican than the nation as a whole in presidential elections, given that this is an open seat race and there is a quasi-celebrity potentially running on the Democratic Party ticket (not to mention a substantial chance that someone with deep Illinois ties -- either Barack Obama, who represents the state in the Senate, or Hillary Clinton, who originally hails from the state -- will top that ticket), this could be a race that the Democrats can win. And at the least, it's one more seat that the Republicans will have to worry about, which they can little afford to do at this point.

And just to add... I very much remember this basketball card, as well as this one (which I may actually have somewhere floating around in my stuff), from back in the day.