Nancy Zimpher claims to be concerned about such things as what the University of Cincinnati stands for. Things like its image. Its integrity.

And she should be. Especially today.

Today, if you're a UC employee, you see clearly that if a bus is coming around the corner - headed down that one-way street called Loyalty - Zimpher's is the hand you don't want to feel in the small of your back.

Today, if you work at UC, you understand that when the president gives you an option - like, say, you can keep your job through the final two years of your contract - you should not make the mistake of assuming she really means it.

Today, if you're trying to do the best job you can for the University of Cincinnati, you realize that you should not take for granted that the lady upstairs will actually allow you to.

The University of Cincinnati is where, at a luncheon for academic scholarship candidates, they decorate the tickets and tables with basketballs and the front of the room with an ice sculpture of a basketball player. It's where they hold public rallies to celebrate admission into the Big East Conference. It's where they fire the coach that took them there.

The University of Cincinnati is where standards are so important that they're doubled. It's where hypocrisy holds the highest offices.
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If the university had fired Huggins before his graduation rate began to turn for the better, we could have grudgingly accepted that. If it had fired him swiftly after the DUI, we could have grudgingly accepted that. If, on high ground, it had fired him when the Bearcats were having their way with Conference USA, we could have grudgingly accepted that.

But this is unacceptable. This is dirty. This is stupid.

This is wrong.
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Incidentally, what must the Big East be thinking today? Would it have been so eager to bring on Cincinnati if it had known that the impresario of the university's flagship program would be slashed before basketball season? In a bath of blood? In a barrage of bad publicity?

Would it have been so eager to bring on Cincinnati if it had known the administration was so disingenuous, so cruel, so clumsy?

And what about you, Bearcats fan? If you had known what you know now about the school in which you've invested your rooting interest, would you have followed it so fiercely all this while? Would you have given it so much love and money?

Probably so, because Huggins earned it over 16 years. You gave him what he deserved.

The same, sadly, cannot be said for the university.

--Lonnie Wheeler - The Cincinnati Post

She...

Must...

Be...

Fired...