Lute Olson is a D-Bag

D

DLev

250+ Posts
The Link

Jerkoff hires Kevin O'Neil to succeed him, leaves for a year, during which it is formally announced that O'Neil will succeed Olson. Then he comes back and tells O'Neil he plans on coaching beyond 2011. What a prick.

And, yes, I have the same feelings for Pat Reily.
 
Do you even know the situation at U of A? O'Neil was hated by his players and did not want him as the Coach....

Plus there is a lot of information going on with the Olsen absence that hasn't quite been let out. (Not a fan of how he left the team...kind of a circus)

Just before you call Lute Olsen a prick...he is a legend in Tucson and is a well respected coach around the NCAA

Get the facts straight on why O'Neil isn't coming back before you open your mouth
 
O'Neil is the same as Gillespie. He plays a much tougher style than Olson and the players weren't happy, but they would have adjusted. All of the quotes I saw were that all of the players were saying that they couldn't envision going back to Olson's style. That is the damn problem. O'Neil is a former Olson assistant, he knew what he was getting when he hired O'Neil. It is slimy to go back on his deal now, period.

I know why Olson left. Olson left because he was getting divorced. That is fine, he certainly has the right to deal with personal problems. But he shouldn't have hired a replacement, told him he was in line, and then decide to come back once he had ceded power.
 
I have to think most of O'Neill's complaints for grievances, whether real or imagined, should be directed to the AD, not Olson.

I don't know what was going on in Arizona the last year with Olson. There were rumors of serious illness of a son. There was definitely the divorce. There was the weirdness of Olson saying he had a medical condition but was told by the university that even he couldn't talk about it under privacy laws.

There is him coming back and referring to the loss of 3 recruits. Uh, then why did you take your leave of absence 10 days before the early signing period? HIs young players' parents are stating the players need to know what happened before they decide to stay.

Stuff happens to people, and one can understand a school showing a lot of support and loyalty to a long time coach. At the same time, one can understand needing to require a high degree of certainty from someone when his salary is among the highest paid to state employees. You don't pay someone X million a year for chaos. (Apparently, Olson gets $738,000 base salary, but wikipedia says "a substantial percentage of his salary is supplemented by private interests (primarily UA alumni organizations)." That's kind of confusing, but given the level of compensation for top tier Div. 1 coaches, I have to think that means the salary figure shown is supplemented, not paid in part by the private interests.)

Maybe the Arizona AD did what he needed to do to meet everyone's concerns in the best fashion, and maybe there was no way to make things work out smoothly, but I just have to think a smarter AD wouldn't have let these things come to pass.
 
Pop was never the coach, stepped down and come back.

He was GM, fired Bob Hill right after or right about when we got Robinson back from injury and has been coach ever since.

Hill has done nothing since then (fired at Fordham for going 2-something) so I am guessing it was a good move.
 
I admit that I was wary initially, but Popovich anointing himself coach, - along with getting Tim Duncan - is the best thing that ever happened to the Spurs.
 
Yep, Popovich thing was in reference to the HIll firing. Obvious right move now, but back then, it looked like "hmmm....I'm getting David back and a high lotto pick. My time has come."
 
Regardless of the reasons for Olson taking his leave of absence, this past season will haunt Olson for the rest of his career. Whenever he tries to recruit a kid to Arizona, the elephant in the room will be that the 73 year old Olson (who will turn 74 in September) can't be counted on to be the coach for that recruit's entire college career....no matter how long that kid plans to be in school. Even a "one-and-done" phenom can't be certain that Lute will last through that kid's entire freshman year.

And you know that every coach competing with Arizona for a kid is going to bring it up one way or another. Without even mentioning Lute Olson or Arizona specifically, all a coach would have to say is "I will not be leaving this program in the next four years" or "I am committed to this program for the long haul" and a recruit would automatically contrast that with the uncertainty at Arizona. Obviously there will be negative recruiters who will come out and tell kids that Olson could retire at any time.

If Olson is still able to get top recruits after this season, he should get some type of Teflon Recruiting Award.
 
Hill coached the Sonics for a little while a season or two ago. He proved he was still a professional screwup.
 
All I know is that Kevin O'Neill is a genius when it comes to using curse words. When he coached at Marquette I heard the funniest **** come out of his mouth.

Dude is hilarious.
 
Living in Tucson, I can tell you a good amount of the people in this town will let him get away with whatever he wants. The man looks like he's all class with his silver hair but I'm beginning to think he's only out for number 1. As far as I can tell from his statements to his press conference, he's never once thanked Kevin O'Neill publicly for trying to salvage a completely f'd up situation.

And Livengood, the AD, has zero control over the hoops program. That's pretty obvious with the way Lute does things.
 
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