I am sick and embarrassed at how the process has gone so far. The fans are so eager to have a quality coach, and with all the starters returning it should be a great year next year. But it seems the U of A is either holding back or hiding something which is keeping the really good coaches from wanting to come to U of A.|||I'm not going to write an essay like the guy above me. Arkansas has a great program and fan base. I don't understand it. Arkansas deserves a good coach and they should have already had one. The SEC is a tough conference. Maybe you're right about something is going on. I can't figure out what's up with the AD.|||Also sick and embarrassed. Check this out...
Bacon Bits - We Are No Longer Mediocre...We Are Broken
by whatsshakinbacon, Apr 3, 2007
Bacon Bits – We Are No Longer Mediocre…We Are Broken
Volume LVIII
April 2, 2007
The sports gods have been playing jokes on us. A dramatic plot has unfolded over the last few months that even Tom Clancy would be proud of.
And it climaxed today, at least one hopes, in the sudden resignation of new coach Dana Altman. This happened just hours after he called the Hogs, albeit poorly, at the press conference announcing his hire.
I really don’t know what to say. There is no way to ease the embarrassment that this year has been, much less the spotlight on our rejection from a coach who likely was in double digits on the list of targets.
Make no mistake Razorback Nation, this is a very deep problem. Despite what Dana Altman may say over the coming days, the real reason he had a “change of heart” has less to do with his fondness for Creighton than the upset stomach our program gave him as he began digging into his future team here at Arkansas.
Lavish praise on Frank Broyles if you would like for our fantastic facilities, but whatever you do don’t fail for one minute to recognize that he was absent at one of the most critical junctions of a coaching transition. It was apparent to all involved that Altman would have a difficult time making the transition from Omaha, Nebraska to Fayetteville, Arkansas. And despite the fact that he held a press conference yesterday - this hire, like all coaching hires, isn’t completed until the ink dries on a new contract.
So where was our illustrious leader today when Altman sat down to review the contract? Why in Augusta, of course. His little pastime of golf was more important to him than a seamless transition for Coach Altman into the program.
In the class “Closings 101” everyone learns that you hold hands and cuddle all the way to the end. But alas, bent grass fairways were a priority for Frank, not the University of Arkansas.
Can you imagine Chancellor White’s disdain at taking Altman through these precarious final steps without the salesman by his side? If you don’t think he’s chapped at Frank look no further than his abrupt announcement that a search firm would be hired in lieu of Frank’s expertise in the wake of this debacle. In the immortal words of Donald Trump…Frank – YOU’RE FIRED!
Friends, something is wrong in Fayetteville. Frank and his posse can keep telling us to look the other way but when a coach commits career suicide by backing out of a move after accepting the job there’s only one thing that should be obvious to us all. Our basketball program has some serious problems. Problems that should have been evident enough to our AD that he disclosed them during the sales pitch.
My guess is Altman found some things out that had he known on the front end would have kept him from ever accepting the position. We’ll likely never know what these issues were. Maybe he’s protecting players by not divulging what he found. Maybe he has enough integrity to leave and not publicly blame. I wasn’t crazy about his coaching record, but I was enamored by his obvious honesty and character.
So where does that leave us? We’re now about to re-embark on a coaching search that will no way include “grand-slam” candidates. We will be very lucky to get a decent mid-major coach to come here. In addition to the basketball issues our football program is on the precipice of being exposed for the sham we know it to be. And all the while, Nero fiddles on lush courses a thousand miles away.
Sometimes in order to fix things, they have to completely break first. And sometimes this breaking has to be painful on a grand scale. Unfortunately, that is where we are at. National media is touting Creighton’s superiority to the U of A. And if you aren’t embarrassed and shocked by this, well you’re not breathing.
The time has come for a reckoning. We will be given penance for years of gross mismanagement and cover-ups on the hill. This penance will include hiring lesser coaches and bringing in lesser talent…in both the football and basketball programs. Our Board of Trustees has a simple choice. We can either embrace the continuance of good-ole-boy governance, of ignoring elephants in the corners of our rooms, or we can make a clean sweep of our athletic department by outright firing the people who have gotten us in this mess and moving on.
To the Trustees I submit the following. I am at the end of my rope as a Razorback fan. The noose around this fan’s neck has been tightened by constant lies, vendettas and unprofessionalism. I have been cheated on and abused. The program I have long supported has been mocking me for years now. I am wise to it and nothing short of wholesale change will ever bring me back. I think I speak for thousands who feel the same.
The dawn of a new age is coming. In this new age my passions will be directed somewhere. You choose where they go.
Bacon out…
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