Summary: Rick Reilly, one of the
leading sports columnists in the nation, ripped Kansas State for its hiring of Bob
Huggins as its head basketball coach. What's ironic is the Reilly's column
has similarities to the one written by BLC's John Landsberg for KC Sports &
Fitness in May of this year (his column follows).
LET THE BUYER BEWARE
By Rick
Reilly, (10/23/06)
Congratulations, Kansas State University!
You've just purchased Famous College Coaches Model NX9873, Bob Huggins.
WAIVER: Before you open your used
Bob Huggins, please read the directions CAREFULLY. We cannot be responsible for
damage to your integrity, reputation or standing in the community.
GUARANTEE:
Your used Bob Huggins is guaranteed to win games, not graduate players. He
operates best at a zero graduation rate. In fact, in four of nine reporting
years at Cincinnati his graduation rate was 0.0 -- meaning Huggins graduated as
many people as the local cemetery. He insists his rates were low because he
relied on junior college transfers, who don't count in the stats when they
graduate, and because many of his players turned pro. Still, in 16 years at
Cincinnati, Huggins graduated only 28% of the players who arrived as freshmen.
You could do better than that teaching calculus by smoke signal.
SETTINGS: Do not adjust the
volume on your used Bob Huggins. He has only one setting. During games he
screams at his players, and they scream back at him. It's like dinner at Ozzy
Osbourne's house. Your fans will love it. They will be able to hear much of his
halftime speech without leaving their seats.
CARE AND CLEANING: Do not attempt
to clean your used Bob Huggins with abrasive cleansers or industrial products.
In fact, don't try to clean your used Bob Huggins at all. The stain will not
wash off. He's about as black a hat as you can find in college basketball. He
even wears black. His temper is factory-set to "quick" and his ethics to
"slick," and he'll sign a cottonmouth if he thinks he can rebound.
BEFORE YOU BEGIN: Hire extra
cashiers. Your used Bob Huggins will win many games and win them quicker than
you can tote them up. He's the best defensive coach in the land. K-State won six
Big 12 games last year? Hah! Huggins will pass that by Groundhog Day. You'll
sell out of seats, jerseys and nachos. Alumni donations will double. You'll be
on Dick Vitale's speed-dial. With Dick's lung capacity, that's not always a good
thing.
LIMITED WARRANTY: No wins
guaranteed after March 15. Only one of Huggins's last nine Cincinnati teams made
it past the first weekend of the NCAA tournament. You said you wanted to go to
the dance. You didn't say you wanted to stay.
NOTE TO USERS: Do not store your
used Bob Huggins near any flammable material, such as the NCAA rule book. In '98
his Bearcats program got two years probation and lost three scholarships for
"lack of institutional control." Also, keep your university's ethics professors
away from him. We all know what you did here. You sold your soul for wins. It's
like marrying Anna Nicole Smith. She ain't moving in to cook.
TROUBLESHOOTING: Your used Bob
Huggins already made you look a little sleazy before you hired him. After
getting canned by Cincinnati in August 2005, he had all of last season to
basically recruit star players, even though he didn't know what school he was
recruiting them for. You're going to love it there, as soon as I figure out
where "there" is. Right after Hugs signed with Kansas State, he got a verbal
commitment from star forward Michael Beasley, one of the top high school players
in the class of '07. (Probably didn't hurt that Huggy Bear hired Beasley's old
AAU coach as one of his assistants.)
HELPFUL TIP: Have plenty of good
lawyers around. Your used Bob Huggins often recruits the kind of player reserved
for Scared Straight! documentaries. In his time at Cincinnati, 19 of his players
or recruits were charged with crimes ranging from shoplifting to assault. One
player punched a horse. Huggins's Thug-o-meter broke years ago. If you hold a
reunion of ex-Huggins players now in the NBA, it will draw such moral beacons as
San Antonio's Nick (the Gangsta Hooper) Van Exel, who once attacked a ref;
Denver's Kenyon Martin, who was suspended for insubordination during last
season's playoffs; and Milwaukee's Ruben Patterson, a registered sex offender.
SAFETY WARNING: Use caution when
allowing your used Bob Huggins to take the wheel of your program. In fact, use
caution when allowing him to take the wheel of anything. He's already had one
DUI conviction.
REPLACEMENT PARTS: These are not
covered by the manufacturer on your used Bob Huggins. The man is so intense he
had a heart attack four years ago, at 49, and was back at work within two weeks.
(Defibrillator sold separately.)
EMERGENCY SHUT-OFF: After a few
seasons you will want to get rid of your used Bob Huggins the way Quasimodo
wanted to get rid of his hump. This will not be cheap. It cost Cincinnati
president Nancy Zimpher $3 million to fire him. Why'd she do it? Because, she
said, "character counts."
Not at Kansas State. Accountants do.
Enjoy!
Integrity or Wins? Which is More Important
at KSU?
By John Landsberg
MAY 2006: It’s kind of funny the way some folks have blasted Kansas State for
hiring Bob Huggins with his woeful reputation as its head basketball coach. “How
could the school sell its integrity for wins?” cried one caller to a local
sports talk show.
My answer: This isn’t the first time the school has decided wins trumps
integrity. Let’s face it, K-State gave up any pretense of having athletic
integrity more than two years ago.
If you want to determine exactly when the school decided to sell its soul for a
win go back to January 2, 2004. That’s when “Mr. Integrity,” Bill Snyder,
ignored sexual assault allegations against his star quarterback Ell Roberson and
started him in the Fiesta Bowl against Ohio State.
Unfortunately, his move backfired as the Buckeyes jumped out to a 35-14 lead and
held on for a 35-28 victory. (As expected, my fellow Baldwin-Wallace College
alum Ohio State coach Jim Tressell out coached Snyder in the game).
Snyder’s Bowl game actions were very similar to when Tom Osborne decided to
tarnish Nebraska’s integrity and play well-known criminal Lawrence Phillips.
Phillips today is probably somewhere punching someone.
What was particularly shameless was Snyder’s actions AFTER the bowl game. That’s
when he suddenly found his ethics. When Roberson’s eligibility was up that’s
when Snyder decided to take the high ethical road.
Despite not ever being charged with anything, Snyder yanked Roberson’s
scholarship, refused to give him a Fiesta Bowl ring despite a sterling
performance, wouldn’t allow him to attend the team’s awards banquet and required
him to perform community service. It certainly took a lot of integrity to crush
a kid once you were finished using him.
So now Huggins, K-State’s version of Jerry Tarkanian, will be scouring AAU teams
across the country to entice a variety of semi-illiterate thugs to come to KSU
to play basketball. Manhattan police should start hiring now to prepare for an
increase in crime.
At Cincy, Huggins had 19 former players or recruits charged with a crime. One
even punched a police horse (ala Mongo in Blazing Saddles?). Talk about upcoming
fun in Aggieville, or as it is now affectionately dubbed “Huggieville.”
On the other hand, maybe the school can save money by not having to order
graduation gowns for people over 6-5 in height. At Cincinnati, Huggins only had
27 players graduate during his 16 years (1.7 per year). Remember, Cincinnati was
a national laughing stock for its abysmal graduate rates for players.
One local basketball coach told me Huggins will last three years before the
program implodes. But, he said, “KSU fans will have some great victories in
the meantime.”
One writer said before Huggins landed at KSU that “any athletic director or
university president who signs off on Huggins might as well hold up a huge
poster that says, ‘We don’t care about anything but winning.’” At K-State that
slogan should be etched in stone to greet everyone going on campus.
Possibly this could be a case of what my mother used to say about “Cheaters
never prosper.” But, in this day and age of big dollar athletics, winning in any
way possible brings in money.
Just by hiring Huggins season ticket sales have risen at KSU. And there is
probably a gaggle of big-time alums who can’t wait to start greasing players
with $500 handshakes, SUVs, women, booze, etc.
By hiring Huggins as its head basketball coach, the school has said it really
doesn’t care what kind of program he runs. They are following the immortal words
of Oakland Raiders’ Al Davis, “Just win, baby!!!”
What’s ironic is Davis’s program of bringing in thugs and malcontents has never
worked out well for his team. We’ll see if it works at Kansas State….
(Send any thoughts, comments, complaints, whatever, to John Landsberg at
[email protected] .He reluctantly responds to them all.)
