What a twisted world we live in.
Brand Fires Knight and the media praises Brand for standing up to the "Big Ogre." Yet Nancy Zimpher forces Bob Huggins out at Cincinnati and she is the villan. How dare she get rid of such a fine upstanding citizen like Bob? He gave "at risk" kids a shot at a college degree. The fact he had a graduation rate of ZERO for 6 years shouldn't matter. The fact he had a dozen kids end up in jail for FELONIES. Who cares, he took chances on kids.
Give me a break Dickie V. Just shut up Mike Golic. Go away Tony Bruno. Bob Huggins is everything that is wrong with College Sports. Win at all costs. I hope I never hear his name ever again. Sadly I'm sure he will end up at another D1 school doing the same exact thing. Yippee!
Nancy Zimpher made a great decision and UC now has the opportunity to hire a coach that can clean up the program.
And I still can't believe there are "IU Fans" out there that would like Huggins to take over from Mike Davis at the end of this year. If that happens, I'm not only done with IU athletics, I'm done with IU PERIOD! That would prove a complete lack of institutional control.
Cincinnati president not living in real -- basketball -- world - cbssportsline.com
Check out the poll... sad!
Cincy soap opera leaves Huggins out in cold - DickieV on espn.com
Dickie V changed his tune a bit from his time on Mike and Mike this morning. He was spewing against Ms. Zimpher. Interesting.
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And once again, we have proof that it doesn't matter whether a coach makes sure his student athletes (at least, high profile ones) graduate and have productive lives. It's only the wins that matter. Colleges will just use student athletes for publicity, then throw them out like so much trash.
I'm torn between giving kudos to Zimpher for throwing him out, or wondering why the school didn't do it sooner. At least she was worried about the future of the student athletes, and not just about messy publicity, like in Knight's case. Miles would have sold his own mother to get rid of Knight, just so there wouldn't be any angry phone calls to the Varsity Club.
I loved the following two quotes from Dickie V's article:
"The coach is all about work ethic and discipline, yet he had problems with players struggling off the court, plus his own DUI incident last year. He sat out two months to straighten out his life, and he appeared back on the right track last season."
Work ethic and discipline? Maybe when it comes to basketball, which is what most of those students will do for perhaps the next 5-10 years if they're lucky. I guess that ethic (or "ethics" in the more general sense) doesn't transfer to actually interacting in society outside of a basketball court. And why does Dickie V talk about players "struggling off the court?" Is that what you call statutory rape and firearms possession on a college campus? Is that what you call a DUI which kept Huggins off the job for 2 months? Damn right that we should be thankful more people don't get hurt by members of this program. Those "struggles" are more like felonies. Or do athletes really get a free pass in life, Dick?
"Huggins has made some mistakes, and we all do. I think that's why he is loved in Cincinnati -- because he represents the blue-collar guy, fighting and scrapping to get ahead. There are bumps in the road, and he hurt nobody but himself with the DUI (thank God nobody was injured). He was remorseful over that situation."
Guess that's my answer about the free pass thing. Gee, I come from a blue-collar family. And my family always prized true hard work, caring for others, and accountability - not expecting "bumps in the road" to be smoothed over like we're special or something.
It's not like Huggins should be persecuted forever or something. It's true that we all make mistakes But it takes a very special person to be a leader of to a bunch of overly-pampered man-children like men's college basketball players. And this guy doesn't seem to be the type to show them the way.
As DK would say...
Preach on Sister Anna!!!
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