Admittedly, I am a little late to the party on this. Ernie Kent officially resigned as head coach at the University of Oregon (such as it is) more than a week ago. He did it in a press conference that started with the words, "this might be the last time you talk to me." While I'm pretty sure that isn't true, it was still a rather surreal experience nonetheless.

Ernie Kent reflects on his time at Oregon

Kent has been the coach at Oregon for as long as I can remember. He took a program that was, quite frankly, bad, and turned it into a perennial contender in what is usually one of the best conferences in America (this season notwithstanding). He brought in names like Luke Jackson, Luke Ridnour and Aaron Brooks, two of which actually hail from Washington state. He even went to Chicago and Detroit to sign guys like Tajuan Porter.

Kent is the winningest coach in Ducks' history, with 235 of them in just 14 years. In 2002, Kent's team escaped the first round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time in more than 40 years. Think about that - a Pac-10 program going that long without an NCAA win. He took the program to the tournament five times, advancing to the Elite Eight twice.

Kent coached four NBA first round draft picks. He also played at Oregon himself way back when. When he said there was no one bigger than that basketball program (not named Phil Knight at least), he was wrong. He is. His that program.

Now, he is the victim of the expectations he created. And that is quite possibly the most frustrating thing about athletics.

Before Kent, Oregon was nowhere. The year after he leaves, the Ducks will move into the most beautiful arena in college athletics. He built Oregon's program into what it has been and helped make Mac Court one of the toughest venues in college basketball.

Sure, Kent was about to hit a wall. The program had been down some and he hadn't had great recruiting success recently. I attribute that more to the fact that the conference now has names like Ben Howland, Mike Montgomery, Herb Syndek, Lorenzo Romar and a guy just down the road who has some relation to fella named Obama. It is hard to out-recruit that, let alone nearby foes like Mark Few at Gonzaga.

That's the thing about Kent, though, he'd have just gone elsewhere. He plucked Malik Hairston and Porter right out of Detroit. His recruiting resume reads a lot more like someone from Seton Hall or Villanova than Oregon. Name an inner-city school that doesn't know Ernie Kent. You can't. (By the way, watch out for the Seton Hall job and Kent up here in the near future). One thing I'll say for sure, even if Oregon were to get Few, they would not be upgrading from Kent.

A few years ago, Kent was embroiled in a mini-scandal the the Uw Dawg Pack turned into an annual party. This post from one of the leaders of the Huskies' student section can explain it, but what it also does is show some respect for Kent. These students were referencing a serious family issue, in a fun way mind you, and Kent took it in stride. No middle fingers like that other rival head coach, Dick Bennett. Students had to respect that. Players had to notice how the black male role model handled himself.

The University of Oregon is going through some growing pains right now. It is evidenced by the police reports coming out of the football program and the leadership turmoil in the athletic department. It is trying to take the step from mid-level major program (different than mid-major), to serious force in the two big money sports. I'm not sure that, despite having facilities rivaling the best pro teams, they'll ever get there. Recruiting to Eugene is not recruiting to Los Angeles or Seattle. The rest of the department doesn't exactly field great programs (outside of that whole track thing, of course).

What the school needs to realize is that it had two of the best coaches in the business in Kent and Mike Bellotti. Be careful what you wish for when pushing them out the door. Don't forget who built that door in the first place.

A couple of years ago I happened to be working for the Oregon Sports Network during a football game in Seattle. If you can avoid these guys, do it, because they are the biggest homers in sports. There were times I wanted to push the play-by-play out of the press box. Anyway, Kent was up in Seattle for the game and sat next to me in the booth. They just sat there shooting the breeze for a while, but before I could leave he stopped me and talked to me for a minute. We talked hoops and Eugene and the rivalry and Brooks-Ryan Appleby (this was the fall after Brooks punched Appleby in the face) for a while.

The thing we forget about coaching, despite the high salaries and the vilification in the media, is the fact that these guys are human. Sure there will always be whispers about paid players and whatever else - such is the nature of the beast. But Kent seemed to be a genuinely nice guy who I hated on principle because he coached at Oregon. I don't feel bad about that at all. He's a Duck, let's not get crazy. What I do feel bad about is that the guy lost his job not because he wasn't good enough, but because he was far too good. That is a shame.