Richardson deserved better

Former Arkansas coach earned benefit of the doubt

After having a few days to reflect upon Nolan Richardson's firing and to scan through the fallout, it's clear to me there's plenty of blame to go around in this mess, much of which alights squarely on Sir Nolan's broad shoulders. In the final analysis, however, only one conclusion can be reached: This man did not deserve to be fired.

This bottom-line assessment seems so obvious to me that I am dismayed my colleagues in the media have not voiced it more loudly, if at all. Yes, the program had slacked off in recent years. Yes, Richardson crossed several lines during his press-conference meltdown. Yes, the program's graduation rates are abysmal. But know this: College basketball coaches, especially those who have coached at the same place for 17 years, do not operate in a vacuum. Whatever baggage Richardson brought to the job, it's clear the University of Arkansas tolerated it so long as he was winning. Once the winning stopped, Richardson became expendable. That's what makes his firing so outrageous.

Let's start with the now-infamous press conference. Much has been made about his diatribe on race, but say this for Richardson: at least he's consistent. After all, his (now) second-most famous philippic on the subject was delivered during the 1994 Final Four, when he was just hours from winning a national championship. People don't like it when Richardson plays the race card, but very few of us can relate to the bigotry he's had to overcome during his life. That's doesn't excuse what he said, but if he didn't deserve to be fired in '94, or on the many other occasions in which he has brought up race, why force him out now?

To me, the most puzzling thing about what unfolded at that press conference is that there was, as far as I can tell, precious little criticism of Richardson in the press to begin with. It seems that what set him off was a relatively tame, if snarky, column penned by a local writer whom Richardson didn't much care for in the first place. But despite the Razorbacks' difficult season, there was no massive public outcry for his ouster. Even worse than Richardson's suggestion that he was above being criticized by the media was his statement that he was "the best thing going" at Arkansas, which I'm sure came as quite a surprise to the school's chemistry and English professors.

So fine, he was wrong. Reprimand him. Suspend him. Fine him. Institute a zero-tolerance policy, if you must. But fire him? On the spot? Without even letting him coach on senior night or through the end of the season? For conducting an embarrassing press conference? Puh-leeze.

Many have written that perhaps Richardson orchestrated his own firing because he simply didn't want to coach anymore. Given his out-of-the-blue assertion after losing at Kentucky that Arkansas could buy him out if it wanted, obviously he was frustrated. Arkansas chancellor John White has said Richardson's they-can-buy-me-out comment was the biggest cause for his dismissal. Of course, Richardson was wrong -- and stupid -- to say that in such a public forum, but when push came to shove, Richardson wanted to stay. The school didn't give him that option. And you can't say he forced its hand because he wanted the money, since he was offered the cash to simply retire. He didn't want to, and shouldn't have had to.

I am truly confounded as to why so many of my fellow writers and broadcasters have marched lock step in support of White's reasoning. Consider, by way of comparison, the case of Temple coach John Chaney. Unlike Richardson, Chaney has never taken his team to a Final Four, much less won a national championship. Chaney has also in the past expounded on matters of race that made his (mostly white) listeners uncomfortable. Temple's graduation rate in the latest NCAA report was not much better than Arkansas' -- 20 percent overall, 13 percent for African-Americans. And Chaney has had a media meltdown even worse than the one Richardson had last week. I'm sure you remember Chaney several years back charging then-UMass coach John Calipari during a postgame press conference, shouting "I'll kill you!" as he was being restrained. Chaney was dead wrong in that instance, and afterward he was contrite. He didn't deserve to be fired, and he wasn't. Why was Richardson?

Finally, about those graduation rates. They're atrocious. They're inexcusable. And they're even worse than you think. Everyone has written that in the time period (1990-1994) covered by the NCAA report, Richardson didn't graduate a single black player -- but he also didn't graduate any white players. The overall rate for the program was zero percent. But this should not come as news to anyone, much less Razorbacks athletic director Frank Broyles and chancellor White. They know full well which coaches are doing a good job graduating their players and which are not. Besides, the NCAA report was issued last fall. Why wasn't Richardson fired then? Could it be because ESPN hadn't yet come poking around for its Outside the Lines story, aired last week, that shined a hot white light on that unflattering statistic?

Broyles and White are complicit in the program's poor academic performance, so if Richardson should be fired for this, then Broyles and White should both offer their resignations. What are the chances of that happening?

The fact is, Richardson has long had a strained relationship with his athletic director, and Broyles leaped at the chance given him when Richardson publicly embarrassed himself in the midst of a losing season. As much as Richardson brought these circumstances on himself with his troubling behavior, he deserved better, much better, than to have the school dump him so quickly and unceremoniously. The only reason he wasn't treated better was he wasn't winning.

Shame on Frank Broyles. Shame on John White. Shame on Arkansas.

Sports Illustrated staff writer Seth Davis covers college basketball for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.

 

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