Friday, April 06, 2007

Betrayed

It's been a bad week for the Big 12. Billy Gillispie left Texas A&M for Kentucky the day after Bob Huggins left K-State for West Virginia.

Especially painful was K-State's basketball coach, Bob Huggins, who quit after just one year to take the job at his alma mater. There are all kinds of mixed reactions around here but most of the K-State folks are taking it pretty hard. The local radio stations have made every Ned Beatty joke they can and played every John Denver song there is to play. It's a bitter pill to take.

You might assume, that as a KU fan, I'm enjoying this. I'm not. I feel bad for K-State and think Huggins was really wrong to leave. You don't make a commitment and then bail on it so soon. If Huggins knew he might leave so easily he shouldn't have made the promises he made. He told the folks at K-State what they wanted to hear. Now he's left the school in a lurch and he betrayed those players. Doing the right thing often means honoring your commitments above your own selfish desires.

It's not fair and K-State shouldn't have to pretend that it is.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The BIG 12 is starting to look like a stepping stone for a "real job". To top it all off, TX's Durant will also probably leave for the NBA, so the BIG 12 is going to stink next year with the exception of Kansas. All the other men's BB teams are looking kinda iffy. That makes 9 new men's BB coaches out of only 12 programs in the last two years!

...This just in-- The NCAA has granted Kansas coach Bill Self the BIG 12 Title for the next three years. They will be allowed to skip all regular season games with a 16-0 record in the BIG 12 and go straight to the NCAA tournament.

Thumper said...

Kansas is actually hurt by the Big 12 going down hill. The misfortunes of the Big 12 will hurt KU's ranking and RPI, meaning less respect because the conference is perceived to less than it was.

KU is better off to have these schools do as well as possible (except for Mizzou - it's always good for MU to suffer).

Anonymous said...

It's just too bad that Huggins left because I am pretty sure they would have put the boots to KU in the next few years.