EUGENE, Ore. —
Bob De Carolis sat in the cheap seats Thursday at Gill Coliseum. He wore jeans and a rain jacket. I never saw him yell at the refs, step away to do business on the phone, or fail to stand and applaud when the hometown Beavers played their pep song.
Just another guy in a crowd of 4,963.
At game’s end, De Carolis, who retired as Oregon State’s athletic director in the spring of 2015, rose from his seat, zipped his jacket to the neck, and walked alone out into the cold.
Wait ’til next year, right?
De Carolis did not have to concern himself about ineligible players, ongoing litigation, a federal investigation or how to raise millions of dollars to buy-out a football coach.
His day was over. The Beavers lost again. So what?
Later that night, about the time Arizona arrived at a hotel in downtown Eugene, De Carolis, 65, was probably in a deep sleep. His money is in the bank, his career is in the books, and no longer is he responsible for 500 student-athletes, their coaches and those on the outside who may influence them.
No wonder he seemed so at peace.
The suspended Allonzo Trier? Good luck, son.
Not everyone slept well.
In Tucson, Arizona athletic director Dave Heeke was in the process of developing a 611-word communication to his constituency, a pledge to “do things the right way — always,’’ in the wake of the most turbulent two years in UA athletic department history.
Elliott Pitts. Craig Carter. Rich Rodriguez. Orlando Bradford. Book Richardson.
And now, Sean Miller.
The one man who seemed to be a Rock, the coach who sold the UA administration on his character and constitution, has been implicated in one of the most compromising acts in college sports: lying and attempting to buy a recruit – and not just any recruit, but Deandre Ayton – for more money than many basketball-worshipping Tucsonans make in a year or two.
Miller cannot be allowed to coach the Wildcats again. Not Saturday at Oregon. Not ever.
The school should withdraw from the Pac-12 Tournament and notify the NCAA that it will not participate in the NCAA Tournament.
Miller’s coaching career is surely at an end. Unless this is a monumental misunderstanding, Miller will take a place with Rick Pitino among the most disgraced figures in college basketball history.
On Thursday, Ole Miss announced it had created a position for and hired a deputy general counsel for its athletics department. Given the legal imbroglios at Arizona, you’d think the Wildcats would hire two.
Wrote Heeke: “While our education and training and our multitude of initiatives to ensure respect, diversity and safety are strong foundations, we must do more to establish a positive culture within our department.”
Within six hours Heeke’s words were torn asunder and made meaningless.
Arizona is likely to enter a nuclear winter in college basketball, starting over at the lowest of low points, lower than when Ben Lindsey went 4-24 in 1982-83 and Lute Olson was hired to start over.
This will be worse.
At Arizona, as in college basketball, the leading question isn’t “what’s next?” but rather “who’s next?”
On Friday, reactionary NCAA president Mark Emmert said his organization will attempt to “identify and punish the unscrupulous parties” who are part of a mushrooming college basketball scandal that now mentions Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky and Michigan State.
What’ll they do, shut down the Final Four?
Emmert is practiced at these scandal-driven press conferences; it’s as if he doesn’t want to let a good crisis go to waste.
What he needs is a bigger hammer and not so many big words.
In 1999, UA All-American Jason Terry accepted $4,500 from an agent in New York, and another $7,000 from an agent in San Francisco. Terry got caught.
Not much happened. The UA had to return $45,362 from its appearance in the 1999 NCAA Tournament. The apologetic Terry reimbursed the money and was banned from having his jersey retired at McKale Center — until the Pac-12 softened and allowed Terry to be so honored in 2015, a move I championed.
As further punishment, the UA was instructed to vacate its 1999 NCAA Tournament appearance.
If you look in the UA media guide, you’ll see that there is a very small asterisk next to the 1998-99 season. The record is listed at 22-6, which is actually better than Arizona’s true record, 22-7.
According to the NCAA, that 61-60 loss to Oklahoma never happened. Arizona’s winning percentage went up.
Terry has gone on to earn more than $106 million in the NBA, play in the All-Star Game, win a world championship and return to McKale Center to rousing cheers.
On Friday night, Terry punched up a Twitter message that said: “It’s time to clean house and bring home our own bloodlines to carry on Lute’s legacy. We have too much tradition to allow outsiders to tear down what we built.”
Isn’t it a bit late for that?
