Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Lute Olson is a Bitch

For the second time in a week, Arizona's old man coach Lute Olson held a press conference to talk about returning from his year long leave of absence. Remember, he told everyone it was not for health reasons, then said he had a health scare, and then claimed it was no big deal. Yes, he was getting divorced and you feel bad for him for that, but that doesn't give him the right to be a bitter old man.

Now interim/assistant coach Kevin O'Neill, who said last week he planned on being back next season, won't be returning. Olson clearly didn't like the defense first style O'Neill ran all year and the two clearly clashed. Check out these quotes from yesterday's presser:

"Frankly, even though I realize I'm a public figure, I don't think I need to go into every nuance of my private life. There were things going on in my life that did create some health issues that I needed time to address. But it was not a health scare."

"I hope you can see that I feel great. This issue, though, has raised my blood pressure all the way up to 113 over 65, and my resting heart rate has gone from 60 to 62. So I'm concerned about my health."

When asked if he had to provide a guarantee on his health to the A.D., he angrily replied "Do I look like I have a condition to you?"

Here he is throwing O'Neill under the bus again: "When he said he's coming back, or that he's going to fulfill the terms of his contract, he won't be on the staff. I apologize for what they had to go through this year in terms of the change. They came here to play a wide-open game, and they didn't. That's no one's fault, because that's not coach O'Neill's belief on the offensive end. It was his team once I left. But I said we're going to play Arizona basketball and we're going to have fun doing it."

Finally: "You know what, maybe the fans needed to realize that this program doesn't just operate -- we don't go into the gas station and fill the kids up with fuel and turn the key on."

2 comments:

scottsdaleoliver said...

What great commentary coming from someone who apparently knows nothing about Arizona basketball. The guy still can coach and out recruit guys half his age. Not to mention that this years class only includes the #1 pg and National player of the year Brandon Jennings and Jeff Withey who I have been told by the man himself has the greatest upside of any player he has ever recruited. Granted Lutes days are numbered and internally he is on an island in the athletic dept but calling a Hall of Famer a bitch and supporting it with nothing is off base. What Lute is tired of and the reason he acted like Bobby "frickin" Knight without the F bombs is about 95% of what the press is writing and what the message boards are saying is completely false. I'll "CHALK" it up to you still being bitter about 1997!

Hiphopopotamus said...

You know, oliver is right. Lute handled this whole thing beautifully and he should be commended for it.