Duck, Duck, Goose?

Let me apologize up front for the title of this most recent post. I'm not really quite sure what it even means, to be honest, I just thought I'd make an attempt at a funny and/or clever pun given the current situation. Based on your sense of humor, you can decide if I exceeded or not. But as most of you already know by now, our head coach is leaving the program to take the head coaching job at Oregon. Phil Knight, Nike headquarters, a brand new arena, the PAC-1o, and an absurd combination of jerseys and colors await him. I wish Coach Altman nothing but the best. He's a great coach and an even better human being. Many people aren't happy with the way things ended here with him at the helm, but I would have loved to play my four years here with him as the head honcho.

Everything kind of came as a blur yesterday. I was sitting on Facebook when a friend of mine who is studying abroad in Spain, and who I literally haven't talked to and/or seen in about a year "facebook chatted me." He told me what he had been hearing and asked if I knew anything, so I just figured this was another stupid rumor about Altman being a candidate at Oregon a la people saying he was a candidate for the coaching position at Wake Forest a couple of weeks ago. I assured Gregg it was fine and all was well here in Omaha. Then Gregg gave me a link to an article on Fox Sports, and I was caught quite off-guard. I still didn't give it much thought until another one of my friends, Brad, again "facebook chatted me." He linked me to an article on cbssports.com and now it all started to sort of catch my attention. My phone had been charging in the other room and when I went to pick it up I had countless texts and calls from friends wondering what the deal was. We were supposed to play pick-up at four at the Qwest so I assured everyone I would find out then.

I don't think I've ever been excited or thrilled about going to play pick-up, but Saturday I was given the circumstances because I wanted to find out what was really going to happen. The coaches didn't show up until past four, and even then it was only our grad assistant Mike Jones and our athletic director Bruce Rasmussen. We were all skeptical when Ras showed up. We were expecting him to break the news to us. However, all he told us was that coach Altman was offered the job, and that he needed 24 hours to decide what the right decision was for him. We played our pick-up games with reporters and photographers trying to get in on the action. (Creighton pick-up games usually garner a ton of attention, so this isn't anything unusual.) After pick-up, myself and Matt Dorwart were walking out to my car when we stepped outside and three or four reporters were videotaping us and asking us if we knew anything. My initial instinct was to pull a Randy Johnson and yell, "GET THE CAMERA OUT OF MY FACE," but I got cold feet. Very awkward with them following you and videotaping you. Beyond awkward actually. I was wearing a dry fit cut-off and just looked like a total goober. It is what it is.

Later in the evening, I received a text from coach Jones saying that Ras wanted to meet with us in the locker room at 8:30. This time, we knew. Ras confirmed that coach Altman was leaving, and it all became pretty surreal. We all took it upon ourselves to go into coach Altman's office and thank him and congratulate him. He was very emotional, and it was tough to see. That's the nature of the business though. Money makes the world go round. A chance to do something very significant is always calling us. He told us he was going to Eugene Sunday to meet with his new players. I have a pretty good feeling what he told them...Simple plays, fellas, simple plays.