Former UL Track Coach out at Arkansas in at Florida
From The Northwest Arkansas Times:
NOTE: Coach Booth recruited and coached UL all-americans Hollis Conway and Neal Guidry. Conway is still the American high jump record-holder."Good enough at the University of Arkansas to be named the U.S. Men's Olympics jumps coach in 2000.
Good enough assisting John McDonnell, Arkansas' former track coach who won 40 national championships, to coach 45 individual national championships and 137 NCAA Indoor and NCAA Outdoor All-American honors in the fields events.
Good enough to help propel a program without a previous indoor or outdoor conference track and field championship to unprecedented Southwest Conference and Southeastern Conference dominance.
Good enough to be voted into the UA's Sports Hall of Honor.
Just not close enough to Northern Iowa.
So, bye-bye Dick Booth. You and your 27 Arkansas years are kicked to the curb.
Chris Bucknam, the Northern Iowa coach hired to succeed McDonnell in the summer of 2008, announced Booth's non-return Thursday night after informing Booth Wednesday afternoon.
"He said, 'We had an extremely close staff at Northern Iowa and you've got your way of doing things and it just wasn't as close,'" Booth said Friday. "He said, 'You did a great job for me, but something was missing.'"
Boom! The premier field events coach in the nation is fired into the field of the unemployed.
"I was thinking how can a 27-year career end in a five-minute conversation? But that was it," Booth said. "I have to put it behind me and get busy finding a job for next year."
Not easy when 65 and fired in mid July with most contracts set for 2010.
"I decided this would be an appropriate time to move in a different direction within our coaching staff," Bucknam was quoted in the release.
Well, guess straight down is a different direction.
That's the direction field events coaches tend to take when measured against Dick Booth.
"How do you fire, one of the greatest coaches ever to coach the sport," asked Melvin Lister, the former Razorback, whom Booth coached to four NCAA championships and two Olympic appearances.
Apparently that's not the point.
"There is no question that Dick Booth is one of the outstanding field event coaches in the country. He was a contributor to the success we enjoyed this season," Bucknam was quoted in the press release.
Bucknam's successes for 2009 lie foremost in Arkansas winning the SEC Indoor and SEC Outdoor.
Those successes are as interrelated with Booth's successes as ham and eggs. In fact the U.S. Track and Field Coaches Association named Bucknam and Booth as Regional head coach of the year and Regional assistant coach of the year.
The Hogs don't win either conference meet without the field events points led by Alain Bailey, the SEC Indoor long jump champ and SEC Outdoor long jump and high jump champion, blending with the distance runners Bucknam coaches and the sprinters coached by Doug Case.
Nationally, the Hogs' field events didn't fare as well.
Booth certainly expected more than the seven points his jumpers netted at the NCAA Outdoor, but that's seven more NCAA Outdoor points than Case's sprinters produced.
Case, accompanying Bucknam from Northern Iowa, is back, as he should be. But Booth is out.
Northern Iowa ties apparently are more important than Arkansas ties to Arkansas track.
No surprise. Since Jeff Long replaced longtime athletics director Frank Broyles, any ties but Arkansas ties seem an advantage to be hired or retained.
Still, booting Booth surprises.
The well-documented respect Bucknam established with all facets of his team lay in strong measure to the mutual respect displayed among the new coach and Booth and McDonnell plus Bucknam's own strong credentials.
It seemed a big tent working, but apparently to Bucknam it wasn't. And as Booth said both in the press release and again Friday, the head coach needs to be comfortable with his staff.
However one of these UA newbies might consider how uncomfortable many lettermen are getting with an athletics program some are ceasing to recognize as theirs.
"I'm speechless," said Mike Conley, arguably the greatest ever UA athlete as the Booth recruited Olympic gold and silver medalist and nine-time NCAA long jump and triple jump champion. "It's something I never thought I would see in my lifetime at the University."
Lister said Booth assuring him Bucknam "is a good coach" doesn't mollify ill feelings.
"I feel like we are being pushed out," Lister said. "Taking Coach Booth away - I always thought I was a Razorback and always would be welcome to be a Razorback - but that's not the way I am feeling right now."
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Quote
Booth lands on his feet at Florida
