Richardson Plans Meeting With A-State Officials

Nolan Richardson says he'll visit with Arkansas State University officials this week about the basketball vacancy at the school.

Richardson addressed a full house Monday at the Wyndham Riverfront banquet room, where the Downtown Tip-Off Club held its weekly meeting. During a question-and-answer session, the question of ASU's opening and Richardson's interest came up, but club co-sponsor Joe Kleine, an assistant coach at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, didn't give the former Arkansas Razorback coach time to answer.

"I can comment on that. We don't want him in the Sun Belt," Kleine said, getting a large roar from the crowd.

Later, after most of the luncheon crowd had dispersed, Richardson discussed the speculation surrounding his involvement with ASU. He said he hasn't talked contracts or job offers with Arkansas State Athletic Director Dean Lee yet but that they are to meet this week.

A-State also announced last week that it had retained a search firm to help find a replacement for Dickey Nutt, who resigned two weeks ago after 13 years as head coach and 20 years on the campus.

"I will be looking at several different things, and if I find what I think is the right situation, I'll pray about it and come to a decision," Richardson said. "Maybe you'll see me out there on the court again."

Since his firing by Arkansas with one regular-season game left in the 2002 season, Richardson says he's stayed busy in basketball. He has coached for the Panama and Mexico national teams, and he said he's served as a consultant for a number of coaches, including Tubby Smith when he was at Kentucky, Kelvin Sampson when he was at Oklahoma, Mike Anderson when he was at Alabama-Birmingham, "best friend" Andy Stoglin with the now-defunct Arkansas RimRockers of the NBA Development League, and others. "I've been doing a lot of these speaking engagements, doing motivational speaking, all over the country," he said.

Richardson recently addressed the Northwest Arkansas Tip-Off Club in Springdale. Soon after that, new Arkansas Athletic Director Jeff Long said he wanted to open communication lines with the former Razorback coach and wanted to recognize Richardson and the 1994 UA national championship team.

Richardson said Monday he's not looking necessarily to get back into coaching at a program that's already established, noting that he took time to lead the downtrodden national teams in Panama and Mexico. He spent three months with the Mexican national team, which finished sixth in its division in the qualifying tournament for the 2008 Olympics.