UA contract with Richardson ends Monday

By The Associated Press

FAYETTEVILLE — The University of Arkansas reaches two milestones Monday - its contract with fired basketball coach Nolan Richardson ends and the chancellor who helped show him the door is stepping down after 11 years at the Fayetteville campus.

"We need to let the healing begin," said Chancellor John White, who said he was not aware his retirement date coincided with the last day on Richardson's buyout agreement.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press, White discussed a number of issues including the impact that "ridiculous" turmoil in the football program over the past two years had on Arkansas' academic standing, last year's one-day tenure of basketball coach Dana Altman and David Gearhart's selection as White's replacement.

After a brief sabbatical, White will teach engineering at Arkansas. He also is working on five books, including textbooks, something that is sort of but not quite a biography and a commentary on the Gospel of John developed from years of teaching it to youths and adults.

"I'm transitioning to a different role. I have my schedule aligned with my grandchildren," White said.

White and then-Athletic Director Frank Broyles fired Richardson on March 1, 2002, after the coach said he would leave if the school would buy out his contract. With the dismissal, the Razorbacks' fundraising arm was obligated to pay Richardson $500,000 a year through June 30, 2008.

White said he has encouraged Broyles' replacement, Jeff Long, to develop a relationship with Richardson, and said current Arkansas coach John Pelphrey should do the same. With Broyles' retirement last winter and White's departure this summer, it might be easier, White said.

"It might require my no longer being there for Nolan to feel comfortable coming back," White said. "He has done a lot for the University of Arkansas. There shouldn't be that kind of division."

Richardson claimed racial bias after his firing and lost an $8.9 million federal court lawsuit alleging discrimination. The university said it perceived Richardson had lost confidence in the basketball program after hearing comments made after a Sunday game at Kentucky and in a Monday news conference in Fayetteville.

White said he now regrets letting Broyles take a previously planned trip to Augusta, Ga., that week rather than stay in Fayetteville and meet with Richardson over his remarks.

"We would have had a productive dialogue and we could have reached a resolution that he would have been happy with," White said. "I didn't tell Frank, 'You can't go to Augusta."'

Nonetheless, White said, it was believed that Richardson had lost confidence in the program and the coach still would have been removed. A vice chancellor who made similar remarks would have been handled the same way, White said.

White said the university suffered at times during a flap over whether star football recruits were playing enough and whom then-coach Houston Nutt was sending text-messages to before games.

For a time, "I could step back and laugh at it because it was so ridiculous," White said, but after a time it became apparent Arkansas' reputation was being damaged among its peers.

"You can plot what happened on our reputational ranking" in a national educational publication based on what stories were in print, he said. Stories about turmoil in the athletic department drove the number down while stories on academics drove it up.

"Anytime the institution gets dragged through the mud in the press, it doesn't just stay in the sports sections, it carries over into public media," White said. And when the reputation is down, it's harder to attract people to the university's programs, he said.

On other sports matters, White said it was obvious nearly from the beginning that Altman, Creighton's basketball coach, had "buyer's remorse" after accepting the Razorbacks' job in 2007, replacing Stan Heath.

After Altman's hiring was announced, "we had them (the Altman family) to dinner and he hardly ate a bite. It was obvious to all of us, 'this isn't playing out how we thought."'

Some in Altman's family were upset about being uprooted from Omaha, Neb., so when White heard the next morning that the new coach was thinking he had made a mistake, he wasn't surprised. White said he had no regrets about letting Altman back out.

"It could have been a miserable situation if he had stayed," White said.

Pelphrey was announced as Arkansas coach a week after Altman's hiring.

For more information see today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.