Larry Cochell was 511-336-1 in 14 seasons at Oklahoma AP

"Everything white people don't like about black people, black people don't like about black people. It's like our own personal civil war. On one side, there's black people. On the other, you've got n------. The n------ have got to go. I love black people, but I hate n------. I am tired of n------. Tired, tired, tired."
-- Chris Rock, 1996

"There are honkies and white people and there are n------ and black people. (Joe) Dunigan is a good black kid...There's no n----- in him."
-- Larry Cochell, 2005

The first comment leapfrogged a comedian into superstardom and earned him two Emmy awards for his HBO comedy special Bring the Pain, the second forced one of the winningest coaches in college baseball history to resign in disgrace.

While the two opinions are glaringly similar, there are differences. One was said by a 30-year-old black man, the other by a 65-year-old white man; one was said by a comedian during a comedy show, the other by a coach to a reporter before a baseball game; and one was funny while the other was disturbing.

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In a few seconds while Cochell was trying to praise one of his players to a reporter off camera, he catapulted himself into the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, erasing all the good he's done for the past 36 years as a collegiate coach.

Admit it, you had no idea who Cochell was before news came out that he had uttered a racial epithet before Oklahoma's game against Wichita State last week. You had no idea that Cochell ranked fifth on the list of wins by active Division I head coaches and 10th all-time, or that Cochell was also one of 25 coaches in NCAA history and one of only 11 active coaches with 1,000 or more career wins.

Not that any of that matters. Cochell, much like Jimmy the Greek and Al Campanis, will be engrained in our minds as a racist. Even if he, and the others, is not, that's how history will remember him.

There is little doubt that Cochell deserved to lose his job for those comments. There is no word in the English language more hurtful than "n-----." Any company would be within rights to fire an employee for using the word to characterize someone else. The fact that the University of Oklahoma allowed Cochell to resign, instead of firing him, says more for what's he's done for the school during his 15 years than their tolerance of his behavior.

That said, I don't think Cochell is a racist. Just as I didn't think Bill Parcells was a racist when he apologized to Asians for calling his surprise plays, "Jap plays" during a press conference last season. It was an insensitive comment, but if you look at Cochell's body of work, there is nothing to suggest that he is a racist. In fact, Dunigan and his father came to Cochell's defense after the incident.

"He has apologized," Joe Dunigan Jr. told The Oklahoman. "Those words are powerful and derisive. They were inappropriate and offensive. But he is a man who has done so many good things in his life. He has treated us like family. We have broken bread with him. I know he is a Christian man. We all say things that we don't mean, and I hope people down there don't color him as a racist because he made a mistake."

Unfortunatly for Cochell, however, he cannot be colored as anything else.