No, the joke is on us! Actually the bottom line is AD Pat Kilkenny, in a bad economy, could not afford to pay off Kent's contract and then hire a new coach. A good basketball coach would have cost the University of Oregon Athletic Department millions of dollars. Like millions of Americans in today's economy the Ducks will have to do with what we have! Go Ducks!
UPDATE: It appears that as a condition of staying on for another year Ernie had to hire former Arizona Assistant coach, Mike Dunlap, as an assistant coach to cover for Ernie's deficiencies as a game day coach.According to Dwight Jaynes blog (former sports reporter and columnist for the Oregonian and Portland Tribune):
Sounds kind of like one of those “head-coach-in-waiting” situations, doesn’t it? But Oregon wouldn’t do something like that, would it, Mike Bellotti?
What with Ernie Kent's oversizes ego this could be an explosive situation for Dunlap !
UPDATE 2
Click on the title above for John Canzano's take on bringing in Dunlap. I hope he is right.I wonder if Dunlap talked to Fred Litzenberger before he took to job. Litzenberger was an assistant that Ernie ran off.
UPDATE 3
Gary Parish of CBS Sports reports:
but sources told CBSSports.com that the job was Few's if he wanted it. In other words, had Few told Oregon athletic director Pat Kilkenny that he would leave Gonzaga for Oregon, Kilkenny would've fired Kent and hired Few. As it is, Few made it clear that he was only interested in staying at Gonzaga or possibly moving to Arizona, so Oregon announced on Wednesday that it's retaining Kent, who really owes Few in a big way.
Thirty percent of his salary sounds about right.
