Lickliter out

[Quiet Man],

Thanks for your very nice letter and comments. I enjoyed reading your letter and appreciate your interest and support.

Best wishes for a great year and thanks again for your kindness.

Todd Lickliter

I received that email about a week after sending Todd Lickliter a supportive fan letter. Is it a form, customized and sent by a secretary, or genuine? I hope it’s the real thing — that Licky read my letter and was so moved by it (which is probably a biased hyperbole) that he wrote me a personal message, however short — because I want to think he knew there was at least one diehard Iowa men’s basketball fan still fight fight fighting for him and Iowa.

Today, in the wake of a 10-22 season, Lickliter was fired.

Fired isn’t the right word, I think. It’s technically correct, but Licky was too good of a guy to get fired. I know hundreds of Hawkeye fans would disagree — they would say he deserved it after three seasons of failing to make a slow, intricate, and unentertaining offensive system work in the physical Big Ten — but to me it just didn’t work out. I wanted to think he was the right fit, the “savoir” of Iowa men’s basketball, but it wasn’t to be.

My dad called me when Lickliter’s hire was announced. I was buying shorts at the Westminster Mall, and I thought, “Who?” Today, dad called me over lunch to confirm the early CRG report that Lickliter was out. It was, I suppose, a fitting way to bookend the Lickliter era for me.

Personally, I wish Lickliter had been retained another year. The team’s young starters are the most experienced freshmen and sophomores in the conference, a decent recruiting class committed (and will hopefully stay committed), and Lickliter’s system seemed to be on the cusp of working; the players were jelling and becoming comfortable. A fourth year may not have saved his job at Iowa, but it would have at least given him an opportunity to finally do things his way; the tough transitioning, prolonged by player defections, would have been over. He would have left behind the fractured and crumbling ruins left by a certain coach in Albuquerque and been able to build on his own solid foundation. But it won’t happen.

Though I love college basketball, I despise the ruthless and impatient business of it. As much as I wanted Lick to have a fourth year, I felt all the speculation and frustration of the past week could only be put to bed by letting him go. It’s a sad and unfortunate parting, precipitated by the swirling storm of uncertainty, disappointment, and rumor. If the Hawks show marked improvement next season, which I’m sure they will, it will be under new leadership.

Best wishes for the future, Coach Lickliter, and thanks for your effort. I’m sorry it had to end this way.