It was a mild surprise that Jimmy Dykes "resigned" Friday as head basketball coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks' women's team.
Just days before, Dykes said his intentions were to return and coach the Razorbacks next season, and that he, too, was disappointed in the season. The Razorbacks were last in the SEC this season and eliminated in the first round of the SEC Women's Tournament.
So what should be obvious is Dykes, a University of Arkansas, Fayetteville graduate, was forced out.
That he was only given three years to find some lightning in the bottle is a little troubling to some of the fans.
Remember, there was national criticism from several who coach college women's basketball teams as well as administrators of women's basketball when Dykes was hired.
Dykes had no experience as a head coach, and hadn't been an assistant for 25 years.
Dykes had no experience coaching women.
Jeff Long, the athletic director, knew those things going in, and it seems Long would have given Dykes, the coach he personally hired, at least four, maybe five seasons.
Instead, Dykes becomes the third women's coach terminated since Gary Blair was forced out in 2003. Blair interviewed with Texas A&M but offered to stay for the same pay he was making. He was strongly encouraged to take the Aggies' offer.
All Blair has done is go 324-134 and win the 2011 national championship.
The fiasco involving Blair, who was 198-120 at Arkansas with a Final Four appearance, was not on Long's watch. He had just started the job as AD at Pittsburgh.
Susie Gardner and Tom Collen were also fired at Arkansas.
Maybe the dismissal of Dykes wasn't about his last-place finish, and maybe it had nothing to do with his record, which was 43-49 overall and included one trip and one victory in the NCAA Tournament.
Dykes endured the issue of some of his players taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem of an exhibition game played at Walton Arena in early November. The players had a right to do that, but boosters have rights, too, and if they choose not to support a program after that, that is their prerogative.
Dykes said he supported his players' right to protest. What else would a coach say?
Two of the six protesters eventually quit the team, but the highest-profile departure was Jordan Danberry, a former All-Arkansas Preps Player of the Year, who quit six games into the season.
Danberry, from Conway, ended up transferring to a highly successful Mississippi State program that made it to Sunday's championship game of SEC Women's Tournament before losing to South Carolina.
The Bulldogs are coached by former Blair assistant Vic Schaefer.
Being dismissed and not being successful are new to Dykes, who was a walk-on at Arkansas for Eddie Sutton and worked for him at Kentucky and Oklahoma State before pursuing a career as a basketball television analyst.
Dykes was a super sub when he started his TV journey. He filled in here, there or anywhere. Conferences didn't matter, nor size of school. If a game needed an analyst, it was voice on the move.
His eventually made it to ESPN, where he worked his way up to being one of the main game analysts. Three years ago, he gave it up to pursue another dream, to be a coach for the Razorbacks.
Whatever the bottom line, and maybe it was a combination of things, Dykes was forced out last week, probably a year or two too soon.
Now Long and the UA need to find someone who not only can mend some fences but win some games, and that means sooner than later.
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Congratulations to Jenny Massanelli, the first female from the host city to cross the finish line in Sunday's Little Rock Marathon. Massanelli was the sixth-fastest woman overall with a time of 3:21:39.09.
Sports on 03/07/2017