A little more than 5 a long time ago — March 26, 2006, to be exact — the University of Missouri system’s Board of Curators gathered in a special session at the Columbia campus’ University Hall.</p><p>On the agenda was discussion about MU athletic director Mike Alden’s handling of the ouster of Tigers basketball coach Quin Snyder, as well as Alden’s intention to reveal Mike Anderson as Snyder’s replacement later that day at Mizzou Arena. And whether the curators would vote to fire Alden.</p><p>Monday night, another set of curators will meet — largely by teleconference at the same place, to put another set of hard questions for Alden about the man he has picked to succeed Anderson, a coach from the University of Miami who few Missouri fans or even officials had heard of until the Sunday night revelation of Alden’s selection of Frank Haith.</p><p>“The board is going to have a lot of questions,” St. Louis curator David Wasinger told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Monday morning.</p><p>The curators must approve the contract offer to Haith, who Miami announced on Monday afternoon had resigned as the Hurricanes basketball coach. While they could refuse to do so, that option is not considered likely to be exercised.</p><p>Laura Confer, student member of the board, declined to comment on that possibility.</p><p>“I would like to respect the University’s tradition and not comment publicly about personal and/or performance issues,” Confer said.</p><p>An email sent to Missouri media outlets — including The Star — on Monday said some students were considering staging a protest outside the curator’s meeting, “a peaceful but adamant rejection of Frank Haith.”</p><p>Tim Hyder, an MU alumnus from Kansas City, described the selection of Haith — in contrast to Missouri’s ill-fated courtship of Purdue coach Matt Painter last week — was like “going from a Mercedes to a Prius.”</p><p>“Where is our commitment to being the best we can be?” Hyder said in an email to The Star.</p><p>Aside from the surprise of Alden selecting Haith, a coach who has guided Miami to only one NCAA Tournament in seven seasons, has a losing record in Atlantic Coast Conference games and merely a 129-101 record overall with the Hurricanes, most of the angst seemed to have settled not on the proposed new coach but upon the man who would hire him.</p><p>“This is my school and I’m going to support my team,” said Paul Blackman, a Kansas City attorney and past president of the Kansas City Tiger Club.</p><p>“Let’s at least give the guy a chance. I’m one of those. He’s the coach now so damn it, I want him to do well. I hope that he does great. But I don’t think Alden has much wiggle room here.”</p><p>Alden’s willingness to offer big money — up to $2.3 million a season — to Painter raised the hopes and expectations of many Missouri fans.</p><p>Alden’s hiring of Haith — no matter Haith’s reputation as a great recruiter for Rick Barnes at Texas and in two stints as an assistant at Texas A&M — quite honestly let the air out of the balloon.</p><p>“If Alden brings in Painter and Painter does not work out, people would not slam it,” Blackman said. “It was a great hire, it just didn’t work out.</p><p>“In this case, the margin for error isn’t as great. If this team isn’t really, really good, then Alden is going to catch it. His neck’s on the line.</p><p>“He rises or falls with how Haith does.”</p><p>It does not help that Haith — who was to address his Miami players in Coral Gables, Fla., late Monday afternoon and then board an aircraft furnished by one of Missouri’s top boosters bound for Columbia on Monday evening — was waved goodbye with some glee on Monday morning.</p><p>An article in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel put it this way:</p><p>“Frank Haith sure made things easy for the University of Miami and himself.</p><p>“He got the job at Missouri.</p><p>“Problem solved.</p><p>“This looks like a win-win for both. Haith gets a better job and doesn’t have to wonder if he’ll be fired after next season. And Miami gets a fresh start to decide what kind of basketball program it really wants.”</p><p>It is a generally accepted theory among college basketball sources who know Frank Haith that fan apathy and the need for better facilities made Haith’s job at Miami tougher than what he should face at Missouri.</p><p>Mizzou Arena is a modern, 15,061-seat arena that includes its own practice facility, up-to-date treatment and training areas, and a luxurious team area. For the fans, Mizzou Arena features something few other college facilities have: luxury suites and the Clinton Club for high-dollar boosters and their friends.</p><p>One longtime MU booster told The Star on Monday he believes the Tigers are getting a better coach in Haith than the one they lost in Anderson.</p><p>Anderson, after two a long time rebuilding the program following Snyder’s departure, coached Missouri to three straight NCAA Tournament appearances, including one Elite Eight run in 2009.</p><p>Anderson left, however, after Missouri lost 10 of its final 19 games, including to Cincinnati in its first game of the NCAA Tournament. Worse, Anderson left only weeks after saying he wanted to retire at Missouri.
As they have throughout the search for Anderson’s replacement, Alden and other MU athletic sources have refused to comment. Monday was no different, despite direct requests.</p><p>The Star emailed all the curators seeking comment as well, but only Confer responded as of Monday afternoon.</p><p>Dennis Harper, founder of the iconic Harpo’s bar and grill franchise and long a familiar face at MU basketball games, did not know of the Sunday night hubbub until contacted on Monday morning by The Star.</p><p>Harper chose his words carefully,
Purchase Windows 7, choosing not to respond at all to some questions, but admitted the falloff from Painter to Haith certainly seemed a precipitous one.</p><p>“I thought we were stepping up,” Harper said. “It sounds like we’re stepping down.”</p><p>Harper, too, said MU fans needed to give Haith a chance.</p><p>But in the midst of it all, words from Alden delivered on the evening of Anderson’s resignation at Missouri, echoed throughout the first 24 hours of what will be the Frank Haith Era of Missouri basketball.</p><p>Shortly after 9 p.m. on March 23, Alden acknowledged that some of his thoughts strayed back to March 26, 2006.</p><p>“Wow, what an awkward situation for all of us at Mizzou for lots of things,” Alden said. “We went and recruited a guy out of the University of Alabama-Birmingham to come here and be our head basketball coach at Mizzou. And we were so excited about that.</p><p>“And with all the turmoil and turbulence that was taking place here, whether it surrounded me personally or our program and our institution, it was a tough time.</p><p>“And I think about that now, and I think to myself that there was no doubt at that time, Mike could have turned around and ran right back to UAB and said, ‘Wait a minute, man. I’ve got something really good going on here.’</p><p>“But you know what, he didn’t. He said, ‘No, I’m committed toward doing something special at Mizzou. I’m going to do that.’</p><p>“And he came and he just knocked it out of the park.</p><p>“We’re a better program because of that.”</p><p>But one that at least as a matter of public perception, seems back at a similar crossroads with Alden in the crosshairs of another coach-hiring controversy.
MU's Alden faces controversy again over coaching hire
A minor a lot more than 5 years in the past — March 26, 2006, to be exact — the University of Missouri system’s Board of Curators gathered in a special session at the Columbia campus’ University Hall.
On the agenda was discussion about MU athletic director Mike Alden’s handling of the ouster of Tigers basketball coach Quin Snyder, as well as Alden’s intention to reveal Mike Anderson as Snyder’s replacement later that day at Mizzou Arena. And whether the curators would vote to fire Alden.
Monday night, another set of curators will meet — largely by teleconference at the same place, to put another set of hard questions for Alden about the man he has picked to succeed Anderson, a coach from the University of Miami who few Missouri fans or even officials had heard of until the Sunday night revelation of Alden’s selection of Frank Haith.
“The board is going to have a lot of questions,” St. Louis curator David Wasinger told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Monday morning.
The curators must approve the contract offer to Haith, who Miami announced on Monday afternoon had resigned as the Hurricanes basketball coach. While they could refuse to do so, that option is not considered likely to be exercised.
Laura Confer, student member of the board, declined to comment on that possibility.
“I would like to respect the University’s tradition and not comment publicly about personal and/or performance issues,
Office Professional Plus 2010,” Confer said.
An email sent to Missouri media outlets — including The Star — on Monday said some students were considering staging a protest outside the curator’s meeting, “a peaceful but adamant rejection of Frank Haith.”
Tim Hyder, an MU alumnus from Kansas City, described the selection of Haith — in contrast to Missouri’s ill-fated courtship of Purdue coach Matt Painter last week — was like “going from a Mercedes to a Prius.”
“Where is our commitment to being the best we can be?” Hyder said in an email to The Star.
Aside from the surprise of Alden selecting Haith, a coach who has guided Miami to only one NCAA Tournament in seven seasons, has a losing record in Atlantic Coast Conference games and merely a 129-101 record overall with the Hurricanes, most of the angst seemed to have settled not on the proposed new coach but upon the man who would hire him.
“This is my school and I’m going to support my team,” said Paul Blackman, a Kansas City attorney and past president of the Kansas City Tiger Club.
“Let’s at least give the guy a chance. I’m one of those. He’s the coach now so damn it, I want him to do well. I hope that he does great. But I don’t think Alden has much wiggle room here.”
Alden’s willingness to offer big money — up to $2.3 million a season — to Painter raised the hopes and expectations of many Missouri fans.
Alden’s hiring of Haith — no matter Haith’s reputation as a great recruiter for Rick Barnes at Texas and in two stints as an assistant at Texas A&M — quite honestly let the air out of the balloon.
“If Alden brings in Painter and Painter does not work out, people would not slam it,” Blackman said. “It was a great hire, it just didn’t work out.
“In this case, the margin for error isn’t as great. If this team isn’t really,
Office Enterprise 2007, really good, then Alden is going to catch it. His neck’s on the line.
“He rises or falls with how Haith does.”
It does not help that Haith — who was to address his Miami players in Coral Gables, Fla., late Monday afternoon and then board an aircraft furnished by one of Missouri’s top boosters bound for Columbia on Monday evening — was waved goodbye with some glee on Monday morning.
An article in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel put it this way:
“Frank Haith sure made things easy for the University of Miami and himself.
“He got the job at Missouri.
“Problem solved.
“This looks like a win-win for both. Haith gets a better job and doesn’t have to wonder if he’ll be fired after next season. And Miami gets a fresh start to decide what kind of basketball program it really wants.”
It is a generally accepted theory among college basketball sources who know Frank Haith that fan apathy and the need for better facilities made Haith’s job at Miami tougher than what he should face at Missouri.
Mizzou Arena is a modern, 15,061-seat arena that includes its own practice facility, up-to-date treatment and training areas, and a luxurious team area. For the fans, Mizzou Arena features something few other college facilities have: luxury suites and the Clinton Club for high-dollar boosters and their friends.
One longtime MU booster told The Star on Monday he believes the Tigers are getting a better coach in Haith than the one they lost in Anderson.
Anderson, after two decades rebuilding the program following Snyder’s departure, coached Missouri to three straight NCAA Tournament appearances, including one Elite Eight run in 2009.
Anderson left, however, after Missouri lost 10 of its final 19 games, including to Cincinnati in its first game of the NCAA Tournament. Worse, Anderson left only weeks after saying he wanted to retire at Missouri.
As they have throughout the search for Anderson’s replacement, Alden and other MU athletic sources have refused to comment. Monday was no different, despite direct requests.
The Star emailed all the curators seeking comment as well, but only Confer responded as of Monday afternoon.
Dennis Harper, founder of the iconic Harpo’s bar and grill franchise and long a familiar face at MU basketball games, did not know of the Sunday night hubbub until contacted on Monday morning by The Star.
Harper chose his words carefully, choosing not to respond at all to some questions, but admitted the falloff from Painter to Haith certainly seemed a precipitous one.
“I thought we were stepping up,” Harper said. “It sounds like we’re stepping down.”
Harper, too, said MU fans needed to give Haith a chance.
But in the midst of it all, words from Alden delivered on the evening of Anderson’s resignation at Missouri, echoed throughout the first 24 hours of what will be the Frank Haith Era of Missouri basketball.
Shortly after 9 p.m. on March 23, Alden acknowledged that some of his thoughts strayed back to March 26, 2006.
“Wow, what an awkward situation for all of us at Mizzou for lots of things,” Alden said. “We went and recruited a guy out of the University of Alabama-Birmingham to come here and be our head basketball coach at Mizzou. And we were so excited about that.
“And with all the turmoil and turbulence that was taking place here, whether it surrounded me personally or our program and our institution, it was a tough time.
“And I think about that now, and I think to myself that there was no doubt at that time,
Microsoft Office Home And Business 2010, Mike could have turned around and ran right back to UAB and said, ‘Wait a minute, man. I’ve got something really good going on here.’
“But you know what, he didn’t. He said, ‘No, I’m committed toward doing something special at Mizzou. I’m going to do that.’
“And he came and he just knocked it out of the park.
“We’re a better program because of that.”
But one that at least as a matter of public perception,
Microsoft Office 2010 Standard, seems back at a similar crossroads with Alden in the crosshairs of another coach-hiring controversy.
Office Professional Plus 2010 MU's Alden faces con
Linear Mode
