There’s no acceptable excuse for not putting Richardson’s name on court

It should be clear even to the University of Arkansas’ esteemed board of trustees that it’s beyond time for Nolan Richardson’s name to be on the floor at Bud Walton Arena.

For an athletics department that has waited until the bandwagon got rolling, then jumped under it for over a decade, you get the feeling that decision is out of their hands.

On a day when they celebrated a national championship won over a quarter of a century ago, the best the athletics department could muster was trotting everybody connected with the team out to midcourt of a game with Ole Miss for applause and a Hog Call.

While some see it as a nice gesture, others could see it as a promotional stunt for ticket sales. The announced attendance was over 17,000.

I’m not the Razorback scholar a lot of my longtime friends in Arkansas are, but I can’t recall a coach in any other sport that’s won a national championship that doesn’t have some sort of highly visible recognition.

It was suggested in one space that statues of Nolan and his predecessor, Eddie Sutton, should be erected at the arena. Sutton may have built the foundation, but he never got close to getting to the top. Nolan did — two national championship games — and won it all once.

It’s not the same and if you can’t see that, you are the one with the problem. Athletics ultimately is about wins and championships.

Nolan covered all those bases with the Hogs more than any other coach in one of the major sports. John McDonnell won a bunch and has a statue outside the facility that bears his name, but — right or wrong — track and field is not considered a major sport.

There are some claiming to be donors that reportedly have said Nolan’s owes them an apology. If they truly believe that, then they should state their name and what in the world Nolan owes anyone an apology for. I would love to hear the answer.

For his part, Nolan tried Saturday morning to downplay the whole thing. There has been one student group put something together to try and get his name on the floor, but that never should have even been required.

“If you have to petition to name something, I don’t particularly care to have anything of that nature,” Nolan said before a gaggle of media at the basketball practice facility before the game.

He’s right about that. It should be embarrassing to anyone connected with Razorbacks athletics that it hasn’t been done years before. You got the feeling talking with Nolan he wasn’t that surprised.

“The thing about Nolan Richardson is that I never go into anything expecting anything to come out of it for me in a way where somebody names something,” he said in that press gathering you can hear in its entirety here.

Any comments the university or athletics department makes about putting Nolan’s name on the floor is politically-correct doubletalk that says the whole matter is something they either don’t want to deal with (the board of trustees) or doesn’t have the authority (the athletic department).

If there is a booster or two that has a problem with putting Nolan’s name on the floor at Bud Walton Arena, then that information should be made public. If you’re going to let a couple of individuals who give a little money control something that affects an entire state, well, that should be public information.

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There are several things named for Nolan … in his hometown of El Paso, Texas.

“I’ve lived in Arkansas over 30 years,” he said Saturday. “All my claims of working major college, 17 years here, happened in Arkansas, basically.”

He would never expect his name to be put on the building because of the respect he has for Bud Walton, but he knows why it was built and anybody else that’s followed Razorback basketball knows it, too.

“It’s Bud Walton’s arena, he paid his money to have that arena built,” Nolan said. “I know that our teams had a lot to do with it. I know when I came here there were 8,000 or 9,000 seats in Barnhill and then it went to the point of 19.6 with five to six thousand on the waiting list. That was incredible.

“In fact, when they were talking about building it, I was suggesting 15,000 and I wanted 15,000 so we could host — maybe — an NCAA Tournament. In those days you had to have an arena to at least seat 15,000, but when they went up to 19.6 — and we’ve had 20,000 in the building at times — that was incredible.”

If it’s true there are some boosters preventing Nolan’s name from going on the floor, you figure sooner or later some news organization is going to chase it down as that is public information and in this day and age nobody can duck questions forever.

Shoot, they may be in plain sight at every home game, but I don’t know that.

Nolan’s players, who were in town for the celebration, were unanimous about the lack of respect that screams loudly about the fact Nolan’s name is not obvious.

They didn’t call it “a lack of respect,” but that’s exactly what it is.

You wonder if they’ll be able to put one of these celebrations together again without putting Nolan’s name on the court. You wonder if the players will come for another one.

It also makes you wonder if this obvious omission affects basketball recruiting.

Finally, you wonder if the board of trustees is close to fulfilling it’s responsibility of keeping the best interests of the state’s largest and most visible institution first in every decision.

That’s a lot of questions and if there is a valid answer, we’re considerably past the time for that to be known.

Mainly because there’s not an acceptable excuse.

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