It started early last Friday, and to save time, just fill in the name with Darrell Walker or Joe Kleine.
"What is UALR waiting on with (insert Walker or Kleine here) wanting the job?"
That was heard countless times before it was learned Tuesday that Chris Beard would be the Trojans' new men's basketball coach.
UALR Athletic Director Chasse Conque had given our man Troy Schulte the list of five finalists for the job last Thursday. Schulte had already submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the resumes of all the applicants, not knowing there was a final list already.
It has been a very long time since an athletic department released a list of finalists for a coaching job. Generally they refuse, saying that it is a personnel issue.
Yet, there it was in last Friday's statewide newspaper that two Little Rock residents, both former Arkansas Razorback basketball players with coaching experience, wanted the job. Walker has been a head coach and an assistant in the NBA and Kleine spent eight years as a UALR assistant.
What seemed like a no-brainer to many was apparently a "no way" on the UALR campus.
Honestly, it was expected that one of them would be allowed to withdraw his name from consideration before the other was named. As days rolled by, it became apparent they were not in real contention.
If they had been, Eddie Fogler wouldn't have been paid $15,000 as a consultant for the job search by a school with financial problems and a shrinking enrollment.
If they had been, it wouldn't have taken three weeks for the new coach to be announced because both had been available every day since March 18, when Steve Shields was told UALR was going in a different direction.
That was the exact same day Fogler contacted Chris Beard to see if he was interested in moving up from NCAA Division II Angelo State to Division I UALR.
It would seem that Shields' dismissal had been in the planning for a while, but he had to be called home March 17 from a recruiting trip to Wichita, Kan.
Needless to say, when the list was revealed several wealthy, influential people who have helped UALR -- who had voiced private support to Conque or Chancellor Joel Anderson -- called to express concern that Walker and/or Kleine were nothing but window dressing.
There was even a whisper that a highly placed elected official had endorsed one of them.
The story leaked out Tuesday morning, and Wednesday morning Beard was introduced as UALR's new head coach.
Outside of high praise for his former boss Bobby Knight -- who once spoke at a UALR fundraiser tabbed a "Family Picnic" and whose talk was so heavily laced with profanity that people bailed out -- Beard said all the right things.
All the same things Jim Platt, Sidney Moncrief, Wimp Sanderson, Porter Moser and Steve Shields said.
Fans want to hear a coach say his goal is to get back to the NCAA Tournament. It is an easy way to create some excitement.
He said he believes in a mix of high school recruits, junior college and other transfers and international players. His last Angelo State team had 13 players listed on the roster who transferred, including two from junior college. That is not a bad thing.
During radio interviews he seemed like a nice guy, and a source in Dallas said Beard does not have Knight's personality.
He was recruited for the UALR job, and when it was offered he accepted. He did what any coach in his position would have done. He bettered himself.
Now he has a lot of work to do and, truth be known, so does the athletic department for the way it mishandled two popular residents and their supporters.
Sports on 04/10/2015