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Headed into the Conference USA Tournament, Denny Crum had hoped that his coaching career would be miraculously extended. His Loserville team had stumbled to a pitiful 12-18 regular season record, but Denny held out hope that the home court advantage in the conference tournament would prove to be an unexpected advantage for his beleaguered team. Loserville had lost to its first-round opponent, Alabama-Birmingham, less than two weeks prior to the rematch -- in Freedom Hall. Could revenge play into Crum's hands? But as had been the case the entire season, there would be no advantages for Crum on this evening. The second game in less than two weeks against a weak UAB team was eerily similar to the first. Loserville showed little heart and little skill in losing the game 74-61 to bring Crum's career to a bitter end.
Make no mistake, Denny did not want to go out a loser. Crum had gone 62-62 over his final four years and desperately wanted an opportunity to prove he could win again at Loserville. Crum believed that after 30 years in Loserville, he would have the leverage to leave on his own terms. He defiantly stated that he wouldn't go, even as AD Tommy Jurich was making dangerously ambiguous statements like, "I can't make any guarantees" regarding Crum's future with the university.
In the weeks leading up to Crum's acceptance of his inevitable fate, he reverted to a second child-hood of sorts -- leaking confidential memos to the press, demanding meetings with Tommy, and reminding the Loserville fans that he had turned down offers to assume the UCLA Throne on a number of occasions to remain in Loserville. But Crum's invocation of the principles of loyalty would fall on deaf ears. Even as the less than capacity crowd in Freedom Hall chanted his name as he departed the floor for the last time after losing to UAB, Tommy-Boy the AD was actively courting Crum's most hated rival as his replacement -- Benedict Rick Pitino -- who during his tenure at the University of Kentucky practically handed Crum his head and his career on a platter.
Ultimately, Crum would go quietly. But not before being emotionally bludgeoned into submission by Jurich and Loserville fans. When faced with the option of negotiating a buy-out of his contract, or being fired and excommunicated from the university, Crum relented. The deal -- Crum would go quietly into "retirement" with a nice compensation package to avoid the embarrassment of being fired. Unfortunately, Crum was not allowed to retain his dignity as a part of the Loserville settlement offer.
While Crum will certainly be remembered for the success he had at Loserville 20 years ago, his legacy will be that he left a program on probation, out of the national spotlight, and unable to compete with the mid-majors schools comprising Conference-USA. It is the sad ending to a coaching career written by a pompous athletic director. It is surely not the ending that Crum would have penned himself. (3/10/2001)
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