Jim Livengood was on his way to a fundraiser when his cell phone rang.
And then it rang again. And again. And ...
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| Lute Olson has so much happening off the court, it's enough to make your head hurt. (Getty Images) |
The coach is Lute Olson.
Perhaps you have heard him.
Without warning, he called into a local radio station two Fridays ago to talk about his divorce proceedings. Minutes later, his estranged wife, Christine Olson, rang the same show, and it's a shame Howard Stern didn't get a piece of these interviews. Or Jerry Springer even. Because I tell you, this is perfect material for those guys -- an ongoing and ever-changing reality series playing out in a very public way, kinda like a senior citizen's version of The Hills.
(Are you Team Lute or Team Christine?)
It's a circus by any standard.
Which makes Livengood the ringmaster.
So I called to get the ringmaster's reaction.
"My reaction is there's a part of me that understands what Lute is all about, trying to explain things because the rumor mill is running rampant," Livengood said by phone. "But my reaction also is, 'Guys, is there any way we can get this on a little bit more low-key?'"
Good luck with that.
It really is difficult not to feel badly for Livengood. He has been the AD at Arizona since 1994 and no extended period has been tougher than the one he is currently enduring. His marquee sport -- Wildcats basketball -- is going through turbulent times that kinda started when Arizona blew that 15-point lead to Illinois in the Elite Eight of the 2005 NCAA tournament but really picked up when Olson took a leave of absence in November 2007.
A month later, interim coach Kevin O'Neill was tabbed as Olson's eventual successor in a move designed to create stability. Everybody seemed happy. But O'Neill fell out of good graces with Olson and was ultimately reassigned within the athletic department, and now nobody seems happy and things have never been less stable.
Meanwhile, assistant Miles Simon has been pushed out, too.
That development came via a vague statement quoting Olson as saying "Miles will always be a Wildcat."
(Always doesn't mean what it used to mean, I guess.)
If you're keeping track, that leaves just one assistant still in place from the staff Olson planned to take into the 2007-08 season. His name is Josh Pastner, but it appears he's on the way out, too. Pastner has been, according to sources, offered a spot on John Calipari's staff at Memphis. Barring a change of plans, he is expected to formally accept in the coming days, and can it be a good sign when an Arizona player and alumnus is about to bail on the program he has been associated with his entire career?
Either way, the byproduct is this: A 73-year-old man (Olson) whose health has been questioned for years is coming off a leave of absence and trying to lead a program that is expected to lose its top two players (Jerryd Bayless and Chase Budinger) from a squad that just finished seventh in the Pac-10.
That's a tall order, and that Olson will likely do it without a single returning assistant -- while going through a publicly nasty divorce -- should make it even taller, and if McDonald's All-American Brandon Jennings doesn't qualify (he still has some serious work to do, I'm told) then Wildcat basketball could be headed toward its worst season in many decades.
Meantime, Livengood will watch from the side (plus listen to the radio), and I don't envy his position. He finds himself in the same spot as the Florida State and Penn State ADs, which is to say he's caught in the middle of the volatile debate about how to handle a legend heading toward (or, perhaps, already past) the end of his career, and there is no simple solution to any problem, perceived or otherwise.
There are, you see, reasonable Arizona fans who believe Olson should be thanked for all he has given and kindly asked to step aside. Even those close to Olson privately wonder whether he's genuinely capable of coaching at his age (and while his personal life is in shambles).
On the other hand, there are similarly reasonable Arizona fans who insist Olson has accomplished too much (23 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances before his leave of absence) to be forced into retirement, that the Hall of Famer should coach until he chooses to walk away on his own terms.
As for me, I don't know.
My instincts tell me Olson's best years as a coach are behind him and that a man his age dealing with the stuff he's dealing with simply isn't built to handle the day-to-day rigors of major college basketball. Maybe I'll be proved wrong. But I still think it is a fair opinion, and based on that alone I would probably be tempted to make a change if I were Livengood, just buy Olson out of his contract and call Pitt's Jamie Dixon, ASAP.
Of course, I'm not Livengood, meaning I'm not the one who would have to deal with the fallout. Rest assured, there would be some fallout because anytime an administrator moves on a legend there's fallout -- which is why this stuff is way more complex than the average person understands, and if it wasn't do you really think Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno would still be coaching?
"Whether you're talking about Bobby or Joe or a number of coaches across the country, I think those things are very hard," Livengood said during a well-rounded, extremely candid conversation this week. "Most of the time -- and please know I don't take any license to this at all -- people who have the most answers to those questions are people who probably haven't ever sat in the chair. It's much easier to talk about what you should do in those situations if you haven't done it because there's no consequences whatsoever. In the chair, it's much different."
In other words, Livengood's chair isn't comfortable these days. It gets more uncomfortable with every coaching staff change. It gets more uncomfortable with every radio show.
But ultimately, all Livengood can do is stay seated and let this soap opera play out while hoping everything settles soon. Asked when he thinks that might be, Livengood remained optimistic, well aware that dealing with this is part of his job, even if it's an incredibly tough and almost uncontrollable part.
"I chose to be a chef in this context," he said. "That means I'm going to work in the kitchen."
Point taken. But that doesn't mean finding the right recipe will be easy. Particularly when reasonable people are wondering whether he's even working with the right ingredients.