Arkansas Gets a Coaching Mulligan, Names John Pelphrey

University of Arkansas Names Former S. Alabama Coach the New Boss Hog

Two weeks to the day after handing former coach Stan Heath (now at South Florida) the pink slip, and one week after inroducing Creighton coach Dana Altman as the new coach only to have him return to Omaha, NE the next day, the University of Arkansas will reportedly name South Alabama coach John Pelphrey the new Boss Hog.

Heath, although a fine man, never quite caught on with the boosters and fans, who stayed away in droves through much of his tenure. A lot of "fans disguised as empty seats" dominated the bleachers, even with a pretty good home record. The problem was Heath was such a low-key guy, with his teams often playing as though they were sedated for much of the game.

After the fire-breathing style of former national championship winning coach Nolan Richardson and his "forty minutes of hell" style of frenetic, pressing, uptempo basketball, the plodding, half court style of Heath never captured the fans' imagination. Richardson burned out and clashed with the administration for a few years before being fired in 2002.

Recently, the same administration that badly bungled the firing of Nolan Richardson, once again showed their incompetence by firing Heath prematurely, thinking they had a deal with Texas A&M's Billy Gillispie. Gillispie seemed to be slow-playing ancient Arkansas Athletic Director Frank Broyles, stalling to see what Kentucky was going to do in their coaching search before accepting another job. One can't blame him, especially since Kentucky hired Gillispie on Good Friday. The UA couldn't even get Gillispie to return their phone calls.

Now, enter John Pelphrey, a member of the Kentucky basketball Hall of Fame and one of only 29 former Wildcats to have their jersey retired in the basketball crazy Bluegrass State. Pelphrey, who played for Eddie Sutton and Rick Pitino and coached under Billy Donovan at Marshall and Florida for 8 years, draws raves from both of his mentors as a rising star in college coaching circles.