Goodbye, Ernie!

There's been a lot of parting shots taken at Ernie over the past few weeks and months out in cyberspace. And its been completely unneccessary, as his fate has been sealed for quite some time. Ernie did a good job here and should be thanked for his time on the way out the door, not berated about not living up to my personal expecations during the last years of his tenure.

I was a student, at U of O, 13 years ago when Ernie replaced Jerry Green. If you asked any Duck fan then, if we'd take the results of the last 13 seasons, we would have enthusiastically said yes.

Consistancy was a problem, and the reason that he's no longer our coach. But here's what he accomplished while here.

1 Pac-10 regular season title:
Arizona, Stanford and UCLA each had more. Cal & UW each had 1 also.

2 Pac-10 tournament titles:
Tied for the most with UCLA and Washington

2 trips to the Elite 8:
Arizona and UCLA have done better. Tied with Stanford for 3rd.

Recruited 4 McDonald's All Americans
Produced 4 1st round draft picks
Top APR in the conference and top 10 nationally

All of these, with the possible exception of the APR (which didn't even exist) would have been thought practically impossible at Oregon when I was a student.

The program he was building outgrew him, but there's no shame in that and Duck fans shouldn't take it as if personal injury had been done to them. He coached here one year too long, but he took Oregon basketball to hieghts we didn't think possible a decade ago and paved the way for us to have an even brighter future.

Ernie's last 2 seasons have been failures that cost him his job. However, the Ernie Kent era was a huge success and should be thought of as such as we move on without him.

Goodbye Ernie, and Thanks!