I realized that writing about the loss of one of our generations greatest basketball head coaches, former Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson, needed to be addressed.

I just want to go on record saying that I will never watch another sporting event with the University of Arkansas as a participant. The way Richardson was forced out of the job is sad and disgusting and has tarnished the image of the University of Arkansas.

The man didn’t have a tirade, nor did he throw a hissy-fit, as many of the media moguls have been labeling his press conference comments. That’s all they were, comments. Just because a man raises his voice and speaks with passion, doesn’t mean he is being unruly, nor does it mean he is threatening.

Trust me on this one, I know a lot about being misunderstood as to the rationale behind an argument when raising your voice.

I don’t think I need to go into detail about one college coach, let’s call him “Rob,” that has had numerous run-ins with the media, but you can learn all about him on March 10 on ESPN.

The way Arkansas treated this situation was poor and callous and just plain disheartening. To be bought out, which is a fancy way to say “you’re fired, now take your money and leave,” for speaking your mind doesn’t say very much about notions of free speech in our country.

The firing was what weak- and feeble-minded people like to call, “politically incorrect.” Who decides what is politically incorrect? How incorrect is the truth? What is so wrong about stating the obvious?

I hope Richardson takes another high-profile coaching job so he can schedule a game against the Razorbacks and put them through a brand new version of “40 minutes of Hell.” I would love it, I would love to see him destroy them.

Nobody outside of the program knows just exactly what the coach has gone through. Nobody knows what he has had to put up with living in the shadow of Eddie Sutton. Nobody knows exactly how long he held in those comments. I’m sure it has been a while.

If his buy-out was race-related, which it definitely seemed to be, and if Athletic Director Frank Broyles really meant it when he said, “We believe it’s time for a change in the leadership for the best interests of the basketball program,” then I wonder how the Arkansas brass feel about naming Richardson’s assistant head coach Mike Anderson to the job. He has been his assistant for the full tenure of Richardson’s stay at Arkansas.

The chancellor, the athletic director and the whole administration that oversaw the actions of the past nine days really looked like a bunch of idiots and perpetuated the myth that southern whites, are and always will be, racists. I am so glad I am not affiliated with any southern states.

In a 1994 New York Daily News article, Richardson said, “If I was white and I did what I’ve done here, they’d build statues to me… Eddie Sutton did the same thing here and he became god.”

Coach, you will never read this but, I did not even know Sutton was the coach at Arkansas and it doesn’t matter he was there for 11 years. It was in the late seventies and early eighties, I didn’t know that basket ball existed. I hate the University of Arkansas, I even hate the whole state of Arkansas now. I would rather drive through the Gulf of Mexico to get to Oklahoma

For most of us college students, Richardson was the coach when we started to follow college basketball. He was the only thing for the Razorbacks and now that he are gone they don’t have a leg to stand on. It’s going to be a hard fall down to the bottom.