Yes, I intentionally wrote a suggestive headline – inspired by a combination of my boredom and the cheese dip heavy on jalapeno juice my roommate made a little bit ago.

And, really, I figured it's about time to wade through all the crap that's gone on and discuss what's happened with this AD situation. It's been a week, but I've been busy tending to my mental well-being by basically taking a week off to go to Memphis in May and then camping at Devil's Den State Park. Back in Conway, I figured I could take a stab at this mess.

When the story first broke and then became official, people went flying off the handle this way and that, spouting off a bunch of emotion-driven drivel that ran the gamut. Depending upon who you were listening to, Vance Strange was the greatest man alive or the biggest moron to walk the planet. Some said he "IS" UCA athletics, while others said he "IS" a blithering idiot.

While people who are at each extreme probably have valid evidence to support their position, it's not people like that who I really choose to listen to when making a judgment call on Vance Strange the man and Vance Strange the athletic director. Those extremists fly off handle and spout irrational junk and you don't know which parts are truth and which parts are agenda-driven.

I do think that, if everybody had just kept silent for a week or two and waited to discuss the matter, that Vance wouldn't have been hailed the greatest or worst of anything.

Vance was AD at UCA for three years and did a commendable job for the most part. He did some really good things, he probably fumbled a few things, but then again so does everybody. But he didn't re-invent the wheel, cure cancer, or find a feasible fuel alternative. To say he is UCA athletics and, that with him no longer on board, the ship will sink is a bit ridiculous.

UCA athletics existed and prospered before Vance Strange, UCA athletics existed and prospered during Vance Strange, and UCA athletics will exist and prosper after Vance Strange. Granted, the success will likely be less after Vance Strange – but that's because of the move to Division I ... a move that many are quick to hail Vance and Vance alone for.

Vance was instrumental, yes. But he didn't do it alone. Not even close. Vance is an old coach, and coaches are the first to tell you they often get way too much credit for successes and too much blame for losses. When you're in a high-profile position like athletic director, it's essentially like being a coach. You're going to get too much credit and take too much blame.

Just about everybody who worked on this Division I transition is still in place. Vance is the only one missing. Yes, it's a significant piece, but it's not going to cripple anything.

Vance got people excited about UCA athletics, corporate sponsorships increased during his time, he did a good job of getting out there and making appearances and drumming up the enthusiasm and all that. You couldn't be around the guy for 10 minutes and not be ready to go. When he was on top of his game, he was engaging and infectious.

But, he wasn't always on top of his game. There were times he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. And sometimes, it seems, it was the wrong people.

For the most part, Vance was always good to me. He went out of his way to make some accommodations and concessions, would talk whenever I or anybody else from the paper needed an audience with him, and so forth. Yes, he was being smart in making sure media members were taken care of ... but he went above and beyond what he really had to do.

Were it not for one thing, my biggest complaints about Vance would have been how he'd sometimes stand over you and not say anything – making for an awkward silence; and how – from time to time – he'd get a little overzealous in his "suggestions" for story ideas. I wasn't about to let the guy become my editor, but really, you can't hold it against somebody for trying their best to push their agenda and get what they want. That goes with the territory. Some suggestions were good, others not so much. But if we didn't do what he had suggested, he never came crying about it or making any real demands or ultimatums.

But then there was that one other thing that was a big more troublesome than those other minor things. It relates back to this book. Note the disclaimer at the top of the page. That is there because of Vance. One afternoon I stroll into class, and my coworker Kai Caddy meets me and tells me to spin around because we have to go to the office of Jack Gillean over in the President's Office.

We were summonsed over because the athletic director wanted to know why the athletic department wasn't getting any of the revenue off those book sales. Now, the obvious answer was because well ... there was essentially no revenue. We might've made 50 cents or so, depending upon what kind of envelope Kai stuck the things in. The more obvious answer was because well ... we aren't affiliated with the athletic department.

But maybe Vance thought we were, and maybe he thought he was missing out on a couple dollars.

I could understand worrying about some legality issues and if there was any violation of NCAA rules or property rights or whatever. But it wasn't about any of that. As it was relayed to us, it was simply wondering where the athletic department's piece of the pie was.

But you know, a good businessman watches his product and his bottom line. That's all good and well. However, a better businessman probably sees where somebody else is doing something he's not but easily could, and would then contact his own corporation's photographer who has hundreds of photos from many of the same games (and probably of higher quality) and put out his own, university-sanctioned book. Or, you could always take your relatively deep pockets and just contract out the students who did the existing publication to make a similar or better one, and let the university market/sell it and rake in the profit, and have said students sign an exclusivity agreement where they can't go out and sell them on their own while under university contract or whatever.

But hey, I'm just a Mass Communication major who has taken 6+ years to get a bachelor's degree. What do I know?

Anyway, all that being said, Vance did nothing to warrant deification or villification during his time here. Solid guy, did a solid job, but life goes on. And, in the end, it was his choice to up and leave. He didn't like the decision made by his boss, and left. You can either look at it as him being an upstanding guy with a lot of pride, not willing to have people going over his head to get what they want. Or, you can look at it as a guy whose ego may have gotten out of control, getting upset, saying "I don't need this" and taking his toys and going home. I've heard both. It could be somewhere in between, or one of those could be dead-on. Most of us will never know.

And you know what? It doesn't matter.

UCA has moved on – everybody else might as well fall in line. Wasting little time, the university named John Thompson as Vance's successor Wednesday. Like Vance's resignation, this was a move met with much applause, much booing, and much questioning.

What are his qualifications? What does he know about administration? Why did he move here a few months ago with no job, start appearing at some UCA functions, and now has the AD job? Can he stay anywhere for more than a year or two? How long until he has a desk in Denzil Cox's office?

Those are the things people want to know. Having never been a head coach, particularly at the Division I level, I don't profess to know everything they do and do not have to do. But I do know it's more than coaching a football game. Head football coaches are administrators with 100+ subordinate employees. They have to deal with a lot of matters outside of the lines. It's just as bad, if not worse, at the Division II level. Somebody go follow Clint Conque around for a week and see what kind of things he has to oversee.

There are basic facets of management that you take with you from any setting – athletic administration, coaching, newspaper, construction, etc. You gain skills in managing people and tasks, and having a lot of responsibility and being a point person. Obviously the nuances from one setting to the next are different and you'll have to pick up some new things, but having management skills coming in is a big plus in having a good foundation. So I don't worry about that with Thompson as AD. I don't think he'll be in over his head at all.

It also sounds funny to a lot of people that a guy would pack up his family and move to Conway with no real job prospects ... then BAM! he's Athletic Director. Sounds fishy, doesn't it? Well, it might be. Or, it might be that he had plenty of money saved up (you can do that when you've been making a couple hundred thousand a year for some time), wanted to come to Conway and get away from the high-profile coaching gigs. You know he'd have found a job somewhere in due time, so it's not like he was really sacrificing the family's well-being or anything. He'd been around at a few UCA functions, and there had been rumors of bringing him on in some capacity anyway. Then, this fell into their hands. Coincidence? Could be. Complex conspiracy to force Vance out and make way for Thompson? Could be.

If it were the latter and Vance knew it (and he'd have to know if it it were coming, right? It'd be fairly obvious), wouldn't have he been better served to force the administration's hand and make them come up with a good reason to terminate him?

Anyway, I'm not buying the conspiracy theory. I don't think that Thompson ending up as an athletic administrator or AD at UCA is mere coincidence ... but the fashion in which it played out very well could be.

And Thompson's travels have been well documented. He's saying the right things about wanting to put down deep roots. His history would naturally lead anyone to be skeptical, but he does have history with Conway and UCA. It's not like he just took over the AD job at Idaho State and went on about wanting to put down the roots. So I'll take the guy at his word and see how it plays out.

And really ... what does it matter? He's already hired and you can't change that. And when he leaves, he will already be gone and you can't change that. You just hope he does a fantastic job while he's here.

Honestly my biggest concern would be that he might get an itch and try to get involved with the football team and lend his defensive expertise. Thompson's been one of the best in the business for awhile. When you've done it so long and so well, it's hard to stay out of it.

Depending upon how he goes about it, it might not be real hard for Cox and/or Conque to view it as Thompson's being meddlesome and not just helpful. Heck, it might be taken that way no matter how he goes about it, since it'd be an outsider coming in. It could lead to problems, and then egos start to clash, people get mad and then it's on.

Or, they might all be one big happy family. But, you just never know. He might never say a single thing about football defense to anybody. But the possibility's there. Coaching is one of those things that's tough to totally remove yourself from.

Whatever the case may be, I would suspect that a hire wouldn't be made in extreme haste at such a critical juncture for the athletic department – especially when such care has been taken with it to this point. You don't sacrifice all that and put it in the hands of what you think might be a shoddy hire just for personal reasons. You've got to have faith the braintrust would make a good, reasonable decision. I think they've done that in the hiring of Thompson.

Without pretending to know much about Thompson, I will say that his name recognition alone should be of great benefit to the university. A lot of people also wanted somebody with solid UCA ties. Thompson brings that. He's dealt with budgets, he's dealt with managing people, he's dealt with media, he's dealt with NCAA rules, he's dealt with the people of Arkansas. He presumably has ties all over the South, and there's no telling when he can use some of those to help he and UCA out in his new role.

Would a three-month, nationwide search have been good? I guess it couldn't hurt ... unless you pussyfoot around too much and realize your best candidate was the one you had at first, but the long process found him seeking and getting another job in the interim.

Also, if you've truly got your mind made up, why waste everybody's time with a perfunctory search? Make the hire, quiten the madness, and get back to business. That's what has been done, and that's fine by me.

Back to enjoying my summer.