Arizona’s Olsen the Topic of Much Discussion

Garry Parrish of CBSsport.com has a fine article about Luke Olsen, his troubling off-the-court issues, and  the way that the players, fans and coaches at Arizona are dealing with the whole thing. In case you haven’t heard, Lute Olsen, the long-time coach on one of the greatest basketball programs in the nation, the Arizona Wildcats, has been the rock hard core of his program. His white hair and suit have been the steady, intelligent hand behind some of the best teams the game has ever seen.

However, in the past couple of years Lute has had some family issues that have begun to enter the public arena. Olsen even took some time off last year to deal with them, but they have started to resurface, and there is quite a big hullabloo about the whole mess. It got even worse when Lute and his wife both called into a local sports radio show last week.

This is certainly getting dramatic. What does the Final Four Blog think about all of this? Well, we like to think that nobody is immune from having family issues. It’s unfortunate that Lute happens to be such a public figure, so his dirty laundry gets paraded around town, unlike what would happen if this blogger- or you the reader- had some issues to resolve. So let’s cut the guy some slack. Maybe he’s made some mistakes in bringing the issue to the public, but we hope that despite those things, and despite the fact that people are naturally curious, that Lute and the Wildcats can get along fine in the future. Lute, we wish you the best of luck, and we hope that it all works out. We’ve loved your coaching for a long time, so let’s make sure you end your career with some success stories.

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Permalink - Posted in General on May 8, 2008 - Post a comment