Although they don't agree on the details, Laurence Alexander and Lonza Hardy Jr. share the core understanding: Hardy's contract as the athletic director at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff will not be renewed and associate athletics director Alyse Wells-Kilbert will be appointed interim athletic director.
Alexander, UAPB's chancellor, said a national search to find Hardy's permanent replacement will begin today.
In separate interviews with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the 6-year athletic director and UAPB chancellor shared conflicting details on how the university made the change at the athletic department's highest official position.
Hardy said Thursday morning that he was waiting for Alexander to deliver an official letter regarding his dismissal, which had been ordered by a directive from the University of Arkansas System board of trustees when the board met for an executive session Jan. 26.
Hardy said he and Alexander had spoken during their weekly meeting Tuesday.
"I know it's something that he did not want to do," Hardy said. "It was a given directive, and you do what your bosses tell you."
Alexander said Thursday afternoon that this was not the case.
"There was no directive," Alexander said. "I did tell him that we weren't going to be renewing his contract and that I would be giving him a letter, a notice informing him that his contract, that his term is coming to an end."
Alexander said Hardy's contract had expired in June and that Hardy was working with his usual duties and salary until the school decided whether it was going to renew the contract.
"It's not all that unusual," Alexander said. "Particularly if you're not ready to extend, or if you're in the process of evaluating and making a decision. We had several seasons going on. ... Just last fall we made a coaching change in football. So we quite frankly had a lot going on."
Hardy then said in a text message to the Democrat-Gazette later Thursday that, "My termination is not an action that Chancellor Alexander willfully devised on his own. It is an action that he was directed to make. But because I served UAPB at the pleasure of the Chancellor, and ultimately the Board, I can accept the decision and I will move on very happy about the positive changes that my staff and I made to the athletics program over the last six years.
"I challenge the Board to recognize UAPB as what the NCAA terms a 'Limited Resource Institution' and to help make consistent winning a greater possibility by providing greater resources to UAPB and to the athletics program."
Each of the 10 UA board of trustees did not accept requests for interviews.
Hardy issued his own personal news release to Arkansas news outlets, including KARK-TV, on Thursday morning, which outlined his understanding of the change.
"I felt a little blindsided by it," Alexander said. "At the same time, I recognized that I did inform him verbally that a letter was coming. That we would not be renewing his contract. My sense is, on that base of understanding, he acted."
Alexander said that since "it's a personnel matter" he "doesn't want to go into" the reasons why Hardy's contract is not being renewed.
Hardy said he was "not really sure what the official reasoning is behind the change," but he said he knew even back in November -- when the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville fired Athletic Director Jeff Long -- that there were also "concerns about the progress of our football program."
Since Hardy was hired on Sept. 6, 2011, the Golden Lions football program has gone 27-51 (.346), winning the 2012 Southwestern Athletic Conference championship game. UAPB has gone 11-44 since then. Hardy decided not to renew 10-year Coach Monte Coleman's contract, which expired on Dec. 31. UAPB on Dec. 27 introduced Alcorn State defensive coordinator Cedric Thomas as its next head football coach.
In November 2014, the NCAA reported that UAPB had wrongly certified 124 athletes for competition from 2007-2009, learned of the error in 2009, but "failed to correct the deficiencies, which allowed ineligible student-athletes to compete until 2012.
The penalty included five years of probation, a postseason ban for football, men's and women's basketball and baseball teams, vacating all victories in which the ineligible athletes participated and scholarship reductions.
The football team also had 31 scholarship players when Hardy was hired, 36 on the 2012 SWAC title team, and after fundraisers in the past two years, the football team had 61 scholarship players this past season.
"I wanted the athletic program to be in much better shape than when I came on board," he added. "Whenever my last day on the job is, it is in much better shape than when I inherited it in 2011. There are no infractions, cases on tap, no penalties because of a lack of academic performance."
Sports on 02/02/2018