$6 Million Dollar Mouth Opens Again

Nolan Richardson Jr., the former University of Arkansas basketball coach who for the 2001-2002 school year was paid $1.03 million plus another $5 million in severance, was back on television Nov. 10. During a taped interview with KHOG-TV, Channels 40/29, Richardson once again played “the race card” with the dexterity of a Texas hold’em dealer at Binion’s Horseshoe Casino.

The state employee was fired April 5 after a series of public meltdowns in which he accused the UA of being a racist institution, without offering any supporting evidence. During the interview with KHOG sports director Pete Gilbert, Richardson said he had been the victim of “a high-tech lynching.”

We would like to compliment KHOG on its hustle to get an exclusive interview and Richardson for coming up with a clever catch phrase. However, not much else came out of what we considered to be a pretty “softball” interview.

Therefore, we would like to pose our own questions to “The Persecuted One,” and Richardson is invited to write a response of reasonable length to be published in this space.

Questions: Mr. Richardson, while the UA was discriminating against you to the tune of $1.03 million per year, your program recorded the worst graduation rates in America. How many of your former players are still in basketball today? How are the rest contributing to society? How do you reconcile the millions of dollars you made off of players with the fact that you did not use your position to encourage them to earn a diploma?

How do you think most of the players who did not earn a degree will fare in life?

And, oh yeah, can we (the fans) have our money back?