Time Has Come for Razorbacks, Richardson to Reconcile

Nolan Richardson spoke Tuesday at the new Northwest Arkansas Tip-Off Club's biweekly luncheon. The former Arkansas Razorback coach's visit was scheduled well before John White announced his exit as chancellor at the UA, but it figures that with White and former athletic director Frank Broyles moving out of the way, it's time for some fence-mending between Richardson and the university.

His dismissal in 2002 was an ugly scene. It's funny how ESPN was suddenly on the scent of graduation rates among big-time college coaches such as Richardson at the same time Broyles and White were hoping for Richardson to depart as coach as 17 years, the first 11 of them taking the Razorbacks to the pinnacle of basketball success.

The last six, and particularly the 1999-2002 stretch, weren't a lot of fun for anybody. Richardson didn't seem to have much fun on the sidelines, it didn't appear he was too enthused to recruit 17- and 18-year old prima donnas and their "guardians" and AAU coaches and shoe representatives, and Arkansas wasn't sniffing the second-round of the NCAA Tournament anymore, much less the Sweet Sixteens and Final Fours they had reached just a few years earlier.

Broyles may have been the athletic director, but he avoided meeting directly with Richardson during that period, sending subordinates to deal with the sometimes volatile coach. Understand now, in light of testimony that came out of Richardson's lawsuit over his firing, where both men stood: The boss wouldn't meet with his coach and wanted him gone for at least three years before he and the chancellor acted, and Richardson, sensing the growing animosity over that period, finally blew up in a media spectacle as a disappointing 2002 season drew to a close.

When Richardson said his superiors could pay him his money and he'd be gone, White and Broyles could barely get the final papers drawn up quickly enough.

At least in White's defense, according to Richardson, the chancellor suggested they kneel and pray about the dismissal during those ugly last hours. After all, it was a little like an execution.

The ousted coach then followed Little Rock lawyer John Walker's recommendation that they drag the UA, and mostly White and Broyles, through the mud in what was pretty much a frivolous lawsuit that still unearthed some delightful facts. We learned that John White was at best mendacious with the media, Broyles wasn't necessarily as conciliatory as he let on in dealing with race relations, Caucasian UA trustees tended to talk like a 1957 country club men's grill gathering, and Richardson had a boulder-sized chip on his shoulder that predated UA employment and was exacerbated through 17 years working in Broyles' administration.