By all accounts, Todd Lickliter is a good guy. He's intelligent, well spoken, mild-mannered and courteous - all great qualities in a person you're hiring to do your taxes. But for a big-time college basketball coach, those traits tend to get you chewed up and spit out on the side of the road.
Lickliter's firing by the University of Iowa on Monday came as a surprise to absolutely no one, the now former coach included. It was the worst kept secret in sports, with word of the move trickling through the pipes as early as last Wednesday.
What went wrong? The better question would be: What went right?
The Lickliter era will be remembered as the worst stretch in the 100-plus year history of Iowa basketball. Three losing seasons, highlighted by a school-record 22 setbacks this winter, and an attendance drop-off that would be comical were it not so sad. Lickliter's system - commonly referred to as the "Butler way" - was methodical, to put it nicely, and more boring than an afternoon spent staring at a white wall, to put it a little more bluntly. There were player defections, crickets chirping in the aisles of Carver-Hawkeye Arena and more humiliating blowout losses than anyone who bleeds black and gold cares to remember.
But don't feel too bad for the now unemployed coach. He's already siphoned off $2.6 million from the Iowa athletic department and will haul in an additional $2.4 million over the next three years. In other words, he's not exactly being booted out the door in the dead of winter without his coat and boots.
Iowa Athletic Director Gary Barta now has the unenviable task of hiring another coach, but he should be quite familiar with the process. It hasn't even been three years since he brought Lickliter into the fold.
In other words, Barta is about to take Lickliter's place on the proverbial hot seat. He can't afford to screw this up again, otherwise the next midday press conference on the U of I campus may be to announce his departure.
And let's not kid ourselves into thinking this is a job a lot of coaches covet. Is it a good job? You bet. But is it a top 10 or even top 20 job? Nope.
Iowa City is a tough sell to big-time hoops recruits. It's cold...dang cold...in the winter. Carver-Hawkeye Arena doesn't exactly scream Cameron Indoor Stadium. The practice facility situation is embarrassing, at least until the new building is finished next year. Simply put - I promise Hawkeye fans to do this quick, kind of like ripping off a Band-Aid - coaching at Iowa ranks near the bottom of the Big Ten.
The next coach needs to be able to multi-task. He's got to be a master of the Xs and Os, he's got to be a top-flight recruiter and he needs to have a Ph.D in public relations.
Iowa's biggest problem right now in terms of fan support isn't anger. It's apathy. People simply don't care, which is why actual butts in seats were less than 6,000 on average for the Hawkeye home games this season. And when people don't care they don't support the team by buying season tickets or handing over fistfuls of dollars in donations.
Whoever fills Lickliter's seat has got to bring the fans back to the table. He needs to be part cheerleader, part frat brother to the student body, and he's got to be able to go out on the speaking circuit in rural Iowa and make the good ole boys feel like he's one of them now and forever.
Is there anyone you can think of that meet these criteria?
Barta's first call, and maybe his second, third and fourth calls, all need to be to the 865 area code (that's Knoxville, Tenn., if you don't want to bother doing a Google search) - the home of one Mr. Bruce Pearl.
A former assistant coach at Iowa under Tom Davis, Pearl is everything Iowa is looking for. He's charismatic, he's experienced and he runs an up-tempo system that Hawkeye fans have been clamoring for since they first laid their eyes on the "Butler way."
Pearl once painted his chest orange with a giant "V" for Vols in the middle and sat in the student section to show his allegiance during a Tennessee women's game. Now who in their right mind wouldn't want to see that kind of entertainment in Iowa City?
The odds of landing Pearl are long at best. He's set to make an average of $2.3 million per season through 2013-14 at Tennessee, so he's not going to be on the street begging for spare change. But Barta has to at least make the call and give the sales pitch of his life. He has to throw the kitchen sink and then some at Pearl and make him believe that the University of Iowa simply won't be able to function unless he returns to campus.
Iowa's got the money to at least peak Pearl's interest, too. The Big Ten Network is printing money on a daily basis, and a nice-sized chunk of those profits lands on Iowa's doorstep, which is why Barta was able to show Lickliter the door without worrying too much about a financial backlash. Jamie Pollard at Iowa State must be envious.
How much money would Pearl need to paint his chest black and gold? Barta should at least ask the question.
Besides Pearl, the list of candidates is long and less than sterling. Keno Davis is thought to be on the short list, but he had only one strong year at Drake with his father's players and has since laid an egg in two years at Providence. UTEP head coach Tony Barbee has been mentioned along with the likes of Duke associate head coach Chris Collins, Dayton head coach Brian Gregory, Oregon State head coach Craig Robinson and a slew of head men from the Missouri Valley Conference - Ben Jacobson at UNI, Dana Altman at Creighton, Gregg Marshall at Wichita State and Tim Jankovich at Illinois State.
A couple names not on that list make my ears perk up: Scott Drew from Baylor and Josh Pastner from Memphis. Drew took Baylor from its deathbed to back-to-back 20-win seasons and a No. 3 seed in this year's NCAA tournament, and Pastner has ample experience working under Lute Olson at Arizona and John Calipari at Memphis. I'm not saying either is interested in Iowa at all, but they shouldn't be brushed to the side either.
Whoever the next coach is has his work cut out for him. And make no mistake, Barta's star will rise and fall with the person he hands the keys to.