Emotional Livengood did not want to leave UA
Despite a healthy budget AD is now working for UNLV
RELATED LINK: Longtime Tucson sportswriter Steve Rivera’s memories of the Jim Livengood years at Arizona
| By Anthony Gimino and Javier Morales
Make no mistake, Jim Livengood wanted to end his athletic director career at Arizona and retire in Tucson. Working at the school became a way of life for him and his wife Linda. However, when it became apparent that the Arizona administration, headed by president Robert Shelton, wanted to go in a different direction, he had to find a job. According to sources, Livengood was baffled by the lack of support he received from the administration, especially this year. It bothered him so much that he became emotional about it — he loved his job and Tucson that much. |
The timing of Olson’s retirement and Livengood’s departure is only a year apart, and that is not a coincidence. Olson was a staunch Livengood supporter as are most of the Arizona coaches. With Olson no longer an obstacle, Shelton — who never has given a specific reason for not renewing Livengood’s contract — saw the green light and is now in search of his own person. …
Shelton said that Livengood’s 16 years at Arizona is “a long, long run for an athletic director at a major university.” That is true but some athletic directors have lasted more than 20 years. In a Bloomberg.com report at the start of 2009, the average length of service for an athletic director was seven years. Some notable AD’s have become fixtures at their respective schools: Texas’ DeLoss Dodds (27 years), Boise State’s Gene Bleymaier (27 years), and Utah’s Chris Hill (22 years). All three operate the largest budget out of the schools in their respective conferences. Therefore, length of service really has no bearing on the issue. The bottom line is Shelton wanted a change. …
The reports of Livengood potentially bringing UA offensive coordinator Sonny Dykes with him to be UNLV’s next football coach are only based on assumptions. It’s not going to happen. UNLV has lined up two interviews — with Montana coach Bobby Hauck and former Texas A&M and Alabama coach Dennis Franchione — in the next three days for its vacant head football coaching position, according to the Las Vegas Sun. Hauck, who looks like Mike Stoops and has similar coaching potential, led the Grizzlies into the Football Championship Series title game Friday night in Chattanooga, Tenn., where they finished the season 14-1 with a 23-21 loss to Villanova. He will be in Las Vegas on Sunday for an interview, while Franchione will be in Las Vegas on Monday for his interview. A Missoula, Mont., native, Hauck is 94-17 in seven seasons with the Grizzlies, including three berths in the FCS championship game. Prior to coaching at his alma mater as a head coach, Hauck served as an assistant under Rick Neuheisel at both Colorado (1995-98) and Washington (1999-02). … Speaking of Neuheisel, he was a guest on the Dan Patrick Show this week. Patrick asked the UCLA coach about the incident against USC in which coach Pete Carroll called for a deep pass although the his team was up by two touchdowns with less than a minute to go. Neuheisel said if he was in the same position as Carroll in that game he would have called a run to force his team to burn its timeouts. Neuheisel later took a jab at Carroll, asking Patrick: “Why don’t you have him on so he can break down the Emerald Bowl for you?” …
With the Holiday Bowl expected to be a defensive duel between Arizona and Nebraska, and both teams having had more than three weeks to prepare, it seems like a perfect time for both offenses to break out something new or try some trick plays. “It is,” UA offensive coordinator Sonny Dykes said after Friday’s practice. “You have a little bit more time to get prepared and watch tape and all that stuff. The big thing is sometimes you get too creative and do too much new stuff. And, really, the bowl game is all about getting our guys to play fast and execute. There is always a balancing act between enough new stuff and being able to execute the stuff you do.” That said, Arizona has all kinds of available tricks/options with backup quarterback Matt Scott healthy after a late-season rib injury. With Scott stuck behind fellow sophomore Nick Foles, you wonder if this is his last game at Arizona before a transfer. …
Nebraska’s offense became more conservative over the course of the season; its spread offense was ineffective and the Cornhuskers simply decided to grind out games and let their defense do the heavy lifting. Arizona became more predictable late in the season because it didn’t have running back Nic Grigsby to break long plays and run to the outside. Grigsby, having mostly recovered from a shoulder injury, will play in the Holiday Bowl. “I think Nic has progressed well,” said coach Mike Stoops. “I think we’re closer to turning the corner and getting this thing behind him.” Grigsby’s pursuit of Trung Canidate‘s school career rushing record took a hit with this season’s injury. Still, he was 2,416 career rushing yards with a potential for 14 more games. Canidate’s record of 3,824 is not out of the question. … Arizona had the worst Pac-10 record of the decade (30-54) and you can point to the both lines as the main culprits. The Wildcats were the only school this decade to not have a first-team All-Pac-10 defensive lineman and had only one first-team all-conference offensive lineman (Eben Britton, 2008). The Wildcats’ best two seasons of the decade — 2008 and 2009 — came when they had their greatest strength on both sides of the line. …
How valuable is the television exposure for one of those ABC prime time college football games? The Arizona-Oregon game on Nov. 21 drew a 3.8 rating, which translates to about 6.1 million viewers. Not bad. That was actually about the average for any college football game on ABC this season. Arizona’s Dec. 5 day game at USC — a contest that meant little in terms of national interest considering the Trojans weren’t playing for big prizes — drew a 2.2 rating and 3.18 million viewers. … What will Arizona junior defensive end Brooks Reed miss most about coordinator Mark Stoops, who is leaving for Florida State? “Oh, man, his intensity,” Reed said. “You can see him and Mike (Stoops) just jumping up and down like a bunch of cheerleaders (on the sideline). I’ll miss that the most.” … The most promising aspect of Baltimore standout point guard Josh Selby, the No. 4 ranked player by Rivals.com, visiting Arizona Jan. 8-9 is that his mother Maeshon Witherspoon will be along for the ride. Witherspoon has known UA assistant coach Book Richardson since the days Richardson coached AAU ball in New York. She is also an avid basketball fan. She might be more in awe of the jerseys of Mike Bibby and Sean Elliott on display than her son. No question: The UA coaches will be trying to impress her as much or even more than the talented point guard. … The potential irony exist that Santa Rita point guard Terrell Stoglin will attend Maryland (near where Selby lives) and Selby will travel to Tucson to play in college. …
Where are they now? Former UA receiver Jeff Fairholm, who enjoyed a prosperous career in the CFL from 1988 to 1996 remains in Canada as president of ROI Resources Inc., an office furniture company based in Montreal. He has held that title since 2003. One of Fairholm’s best plays at Arizona was his 67-yard touchdown pass from Alfred Jenkins in 1986 with 4:45 left to rally the 10th-ranked Wildcats past the winless Buffaloes in a nonconference game at Boulder, Colo. Fairholm is one of the fastest receivers to play for the Cats, especially afer he made the catch … New UA co-defensive coordinator Greg Brown is the son of longtime sports broadcaster Irv Brown, who at one time was a basketball referee in the WAC when Arizona was part of that conference. Irv Brown, a popular radio personality from Denver, was a referee in six Final Fours. He serves as a motivational speaker these days. … One of the top UA basketball recruiting stories of the decade included the signing of Nigerian-British basketball player Ndudi Ebi, who opted for the NBA draft in 2003 instead of playing for the Cats. Ebi never realized his NBA dreams and is now playing professionally in Italy. One of his teammates is former Oregon standout Luke Jackson with Carife Ferrara.
Tags: Greg Brown, Irv Brown, Jeff Fairholm, Jim Livengood, Ndudi Ebi
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December 19th, 2009 at 5:50 AM
Great article, Guys….anything more than speculation about Matt Scott? Wouldnt surprise me if he transferred…
December 19th, 2009 at 9:25 AM
A little random but i’m actually from Missoula and go to U of Montana, and a lot of this town was after Bobby Hauck last night after he lost his third championship this decade. A lot of people don’t like him here, but he does win in the regular season (against bad competition), and can’t seem win the big one. Not sure he would fit at UNLV, but this is the first I heard of him interviewing. And i have always thought he looked like Mike Stoops too…
December 19th, 2009 at 11:10 AM
Scott transferring? That’s part of why I think Dykes would be smart to have a series of option plays for Scott. As I’ve said before he would be perfect running the option. It seems foolish to waste his talent.
December 19th, 2009 at 11:58 AM
Why doesn’t Neu-weasel beat Carroll first before he wants to talk about what bowl USC is in?
December 19th, 2009 at 12:02 PM
“The bottom line is Shelton wanted a change”
Or DeConcini put the squeeze on him. DeConcini was overly critical of the Sean Miller hire. Due to an evident lack of clear leadership (No Likins, Olson, a lonely Livengood, and an aloof president), AZBOR and DeConcini have appropriated control of UA athletics. It wouldn’t surprise at all if DeConcini tried to gut the entire basketball program…That’s how deep his anti-athletics sentiment runs…
(End chicken little diatribe.)
December 19th, 2009 at 12:09 PM
vegasallen,
I agree with you about having a set package of plays for Scott every game. I think that’s smart on a number of levels. Scott could see the field in a variety of ways, but if his heart is setting on being a full-time quarterback, he simply is going to have to look elsewhere.
December 19th, 2009 at 4:42 PM
Jay, I don’t want to sound like a party pooper here, but here we are looking at December 19, 2009, and the only ’10 recruit we have in the fold is Bejarano, and from Arizona. A darn good one no doubt, but that’s it. Yes the Book Man has delivered NY, partially, somewhat, with the signing of Parrom (’09), Jones (’09) and Johnson (’11). And Selby from back east, another Book mark in b-ball parlance east of the mighty Mississip, is a possibility. OK, I’ll play along for the fun of it…one more time.
But what shows you that this isn’t another case of Pastner claiming to know Texas yet not fully delivering Texas? Don’t get me wrong. I, just like the next ‘Cat fan, enjoy reading about the prospects of this highly rated recruit and that even higher rated recruit coming, maybe, perhaps, possibly to Tucson. But at what point do we look at what’s real and start going after a decent JC recruit or two, a transfer or two, who can come in right away and jump start this thing? Seriously. Just asking. Just wondering.
Is there a handy dandy list of this kind of recruit – the JC or high major instant-eligible transfer? Street & Smith’s, in the olden days of college basketball, way before the advent of the internet (aging myself here), did a pretty good job of finding these hidden gems and publishing their whereabouts, their stats, their choices in schools they’d be transferring to semester to semester or year to year. S & S even rated them, ranking the best of the best in places east, south, west and north, and the rest of the near best region to region. It made for a comprehensive, useful read for a b-ball junkie like, well, you, me, all of us. I loved it and would look forward to making the yearly trek to the local magazine shop for the latest edition. How about giving us the WILDABOUTAZCATS.com version, babe?
December 19th, 2009 at 6:17 PM
SC drubs Tennessee and ASU beats SDSU….
uh… so much for AZ finishing in the top half of the conference!
UW, Cal ASU, SC, UA? How’s this thing gonna finish?
It looks like it’s gonna be a while before we are in contention for anything.
December 19th, 2009 at 6:37 PM
You might want to put Wazzu and maybe even Oregon before us.
UW, CAL, ASU, WAZZU, SC, Oregon, Arizona.
Wow.
December 19th, 2009 at 9:42 PM
It’s painful to see just how backwards the Pac-10 is this year.
Bottom 3 teams:
Stanford 0-0 - 5-5
Arizona 0-0 - 4-5
UCLA 0-0 - 3-7
Top 3 teams:
Washington State 0-0 - 9-2
Washington #21 0-0 - 7-2
Arizona State 0-0 - 8-3
December 20th, 2009 at 5:20 AM
I have to back what AZgood says also…. at some point you have to do your homework with recruiting. Forget the 4-5 star players that the recruiting services have tagged and go find yourself some players.
Watching SC it ticks me off that they look to have a very servicable pg already. Supposedly SC was routed by their issues in player personnel and they already have better talent than us. THAT ticks me off.
Miller and staff need to start closing the deal in recruiting. I’m tired of hearing all these guys “considering” us, only to be turned down in the end.
Do your homework and go find your own players. Book being the east coast connection thing is not really working.
December 20th, 2009 at 8:45 PM
lutefan…they have been at this since what? April…time my friend…give em time
December 20th, 2009 at 9:46 PM
lutefan and PC2, first, I’m not saying Book won’t work out, but it seems we’re putting all our eggs in one basket. We’re going after the blue chipper and we should, but what about the JC and ready-made transfer? Olson had to do it when he first landed and had to do and undo the mess he faced. Why not Miller? We go for the HS **** and ***** and nothing else at our own peril. Yes, they’ve been at this since only April, so we’re losing valuable time not even looking at the JC or transfer player. Talent begets talent, yes, but in this day and age winning begets talent before anything else. The ‘Cats need an infusion of quick-ready talent, experienced talent, talent that’s been on the court in a college – JC or D-1 – game, and how! Rebuild it, win and the Chols and others will come. Because they’re not exactly knocking down the doors of McKale to get in right now, are they? Until UA broadens its recruiting scope we get what we got…another hopeful, if dreamy, story. Still, nothing really wrong with that, but time is of the essence, especially when you all of a sudden have SC beating 9th ranked Tennessee.
December 21st, 2009 at 5:27 AM
exactly AZgood. Did you guys watch Flannigan, the pg for SC. And looking at SC’s overall talent, they are better than us. How can this be so given their noted collapse? We better end up with more than one recruit next year even if we don’t get Lamb, Selby, McCallum, et al. Bring in some big bodies and find yourself a smart pg and get it done. Chris Hill might be a good start. I don’t know but I back what AzGood is saying, don’t put all your eggs in the blue-chippers basket.
And I’d just flat-out tell Garland Judkins to hit the road.
December 21st, 2009 at 9:43 AM
Wow.
UA should have just hired some of you posters as head coach. Instead of hitting the panic button, realize that the transition is obviously more difficult than we had hoped. Miller’s track record is proven. Howland’s first year at UCLA was not good. But then he recruited the athletes he wanted and voilà, he made three consecutive Final Fours! I have no doubt that Miller will attain that type of success. So let’s not hit the panic button yet, and just hope for improvement throughout the year. I for one hold out promise, because we’ve yet to utilize Parrom, and I feel come Pac-10 tourney time, we’ll have a legit shot at winning it.
At least, that’s what I hope…
December 21st, 2009 at 10:51 AM
Wow, two games (SC v. Tenn and SDSU v. ASU) and everyone is in panic mode. We have easily played the most difficult schedule so far among Pac 10 teams. Yes, we had real problems in the two true road games, but what Pac-10 team hasn’t? We will almost certainly finish in the top half of the league, and maybe by year end will have a good shot at winning the Pac-10 tournament.
Tenn looked like they wanted to be anywhere other than playing against SC. Look at the rest of SC’s results: they are terrible. ASU has not been terribly impressive overall, and beating SDSU at home is not that great of an achievement. 26 is probably not going to happen, but lordy, what a bunch of whiny titty babies posting here.
December 21st, 2009 at 1:05 PM
Guys…. I understand what you are saying. And it was me preaching patience after SDSU. But I’m getting a little worried with our recruiting tactic/strategy. It’s one thing to say we won’t take anybody who is not AZ good. It’s another thing when those “AZ good” recruits keep shooting us down. Perhaps I am panicking. But I can’t help but wonder what happens if all these 5 star talents turn us down. Watching what SC put together in half the time Miller had, after we raided their closet, makes me wonder if we should settle more.
December 21st, 2009 at 1:10 PM
BTW…. just reading on GoAZCats.com that Doran Lamb just visited KY. Although he says he has no leader and will be visiting AZ next month, based on his comments he really likes KY. And everyone knows Wall is gone next year.
And… some guy by the name of Fontan just committed to SC.
December 21st, 2009 at 2:53 PM
I think everyone needs to realize that there has been a shift in the mindset of recruits the last few years. A lot of the blue chip guys are waiting to commit until the late signing period. Kids are not signing early anymore because they want to see how these programs are going and where they will fit in to the rotation. The coaches have had to adjust not only to kids committing later but kids leaving school early as well. We can’t pressure a player like Lamb, Shelby or McCullem to sign early if they don’t have the desire to do so. And filling a roster spot with a player of Zane Johnson’s caliber because you need to find a good fit will not make this team better.
I say continue to go after these recruits, show them why they would be a good fit in the program and community and then let them make the decision that they feel is the right one for them. We are going to miss on some recruits, its going to happen. Paul Pierce, Kyle Singler, the Collins twins, were all some of the misses he have had in the past. We were able to get great recruits in the past and we will be able to get great recruits in the future, we just need a little patience.
December 21st, 2009 at 3:03 PM
That Fontan, lutefan, is a top-notch JC PG out of some JC back east somewhere, I believe. Javier mentioned in an earlier piece SC and Arizona, and UCLA of course, where hot on his trail. Looks like O’Neill got to him before Miller and Howland could. But how with this offense that has…me…falling…a…sleep…
Zzzzz?!…
And talking of SC and all things O’Neill, I’m sitting here watching the replay of the Volunteer-Trojan game on FSN and three things grab me:
1) The SC players don’t look any happier than the Arizona players looked playing for this guy, and they’re up 15 to the 9th ranked team in the country!
2) Volunteer Prince is still just that. If he volunteers to play, well fine, but if not, like today, good luck! Look up the word slacker in the dictionary and you’re liable to find this guy’s picture right there next to the word. If not, try “underachieving” or “unfulfilled promise” or some similar words.
3) If this is the 9th ranked team in this country, what country is this? What team?
OK 4 things…
4) Thank God Livengood had the wisdom to not pursue Pearl!
December 21st, 2009 at 3:36 PM
JT, Frank and IronyAbounds, would you say that no matter the year or season, by conference play certain things must be ironed out? And that when you’re rebuilding, if you can help it, you do so not with all freshmen but with a mix of new and old players, players who’ve been there and done that together with players who don’t quite know what they’re doing or why? Olson brought in JC recruits Pete Williams and Eddie Smith to bolster the frontcourt early on and transfers Chris Mills and Brian Williams to move the program further along. It shouldn’t be beneath Miller and Arizona now to do more of the same. Valuable time is being wasted, I think, in trying to exclusively convince ***** to come here as opposed to UNC, U Conn or Michigan St.
If you stop and think about it, UA couldn’t persuade Famous to come to the great southwest, the PAC-10 rather than go to, ho-hum, South Florida, Ferguson decided on something called Florida International and his man Zeke, and Odom said adios to the Old Pueblo and howdy to Nashville and Vandy, hardly a basketball school. I say we stop spinning our wheels and get to what’s real before it’s really too late. Rebuild, win and they will come – again!
December 21st, 2009 at 4:24 PM
AzGood – you may be missing something. By next year, other than Wise being gone, all of our players will be one year older, and quite a bit more experienced. The freshman will have a full year under their belts playing against much better competition than JC level basketball. A JC point guard? Perhaps, but we can get Selby, McCallum or another high rated point guard (a true point guard, not some combo guard), I think we’ll be in fine shape. The JC route would have made the most sense in the first year, but Miller really didn’t have that choice. I think things worked out best as could be expected. I’m not as pessimistic as you are about being able to attract top level talent, although I would like to see a greater push in California.
December 21st, 2009 at 4:28 PM
Fontan is a soph point gaurd at Fordam University. He was thinking about transferring at the end of last year but he went home to Puerto Rico and played for the national team there. He decided to give Fordam another chance but something happened and he left school before the season started. They fired the coach and he still did not want to come back and he ended up at SC. I don’t know if AZ even called him. It was his AAU or High School coach that said he expected Arizona to call, but all of the recruiting sites never had AZ as a school of intrest. He is a very good player though and SC will be a good team with him. I hope that O’Niel was up front with Fontan about the kind of coach that he is. He has a track record of alienating players with his demeanor on and off the court.
December 21st, 2009 at 4:39 PM
AZGood,
If the coach was established in the program and had a system that the returning players were accustom to runnung; then yes, things should be ironed out by conference play. But nobody on the team has played in this system, so look for things to gel in mid January. Parrom should help things once he gets into the rotation and has been given some time to get into game shape.
December 21st, 2009 at 4:43 PM
AZGood:
The point you are trying to make (which by the way is not a bad point, just a different view from mine and others) suffers when you say that we missed out on Ferguson. Ferguson is not a JC player; he is a **** high school player, the very type of player you are ranting against. You can’t say we need to get a JC player, then in the next breath cite that Ferguson is one of those we missed out on.
I completely understand the frustration, but I’ll stand by what I said earlier, that it is too soon to push the panic button.