Letters to the Goliard re. John Mackovic,      Original Story

Dear Goliard,

I'm assuming (with your Help) that La BM will self-destruct in the near future. He is without question the masterful architect of his own demise. Why Livengood ever hired La BM to be the most overpaid public employee in the history of Arizona is beyond imagination. This brings me to the next Livengood hurdle, The Gipper or for those of us who have endured the misery of Pacific Northwest winters and know of him, Mikey Price. Livengood's buddy must be drooling to get his chops in the public feedbag after being fired by the U of AL. What kind of message will Livengood send to us in the hiring of Mikey? Does this guy have a character flaw? There are a number of good young coaches out there that a competent AD could lure to UofA, Pat Hill for one. What I would hate to see is have Jimmy Livengood reload and send us Mikey, the gipper. Or, is it win 1 for the stripper? - Sand at AZ

Sand, Thanks for writing. All we know about Price is that he was able to get players to go out to the middle of nowhere that is Pullman Wa. and play football to a Rose Bowl level. We're not surprised that life on the high prairie of far Eastern Washington led a man to become more than a little familiar with the bottle. And while we're not endorsing a successor to La BM at this point we will say that at least Price seems like he has a sense of humor. Character may be another issue but if we were to condemn a man for the things Price has allegedly done we wouldn't be very good Goliards. We agree though that you would think there would be some young talented men out there who would relish and deserve a shot at the Arizona job. Hopefully Livengood would take a look at some of them before we settle for someone like Price. If Livengood were to hire Price and some Alabama scale debacle ensued that would be about it for him in these parts we would think. - Ed

Goliard Eds,

Thank Gawd someone is leading the charge on this Mackovic thing. Can you believe he is still sticking around? Where does the guy get off? Did you see that after the Purdue game he was whining about the other team running up the score when they were using their third and fourth string players? What were the Purdue kids supposed to do when they finally got a chance to play just lie down like his kids apparently have? This isn't the NFL. The kids are on scholarship (or in the Purdue case probably walk ons) to play the game they love and they finally get in and Mackovic expects them to take a knee so he doesn't look any more ridiculous than he already does. This guy is a bad loser and an embarrassment to the program. Keep up the good work and maybe we can go back to loving our team. Carlin Taves - Solomon, AZ

CT - We're not exactly leading any charge but merely voicing our opinion and our displeasure with the man and his coaching style. As we (and the letters below) have pointed out, it is not necessarily about wins and losses but more the integrity and pride we used to have in our program that is now gone. The feeling that things, regardless of result, were being done with some semblance of class and in the spirit in tune with the rest of the University's sports programs. Andy Lopez wins and loses with class. Joan Bonvincini does. Rick Larose does. Mike Candrea and Lute do (although they mostly win so it's hard to tell) Dick Tomey did. Jerry Kendall did. This guy does not belong on that list. - Ed

goliard,

i would just like to say as an arizona alumnus, i am disgusted by what this
man has done to our football program. but i hold jim livengood equally to
blame. he hired mackovic and thats his legacy. cedric dempsey built our department.
livengood inherited a perennial top 10 sears trophy school and has merely
sustained it. but hes taken our football program back decades.  long live dick
tomey! - jm - az

jm - Here here. We don't know that much about Livengood other than he hired La BM, once hired Mike Price and seemed to have some egg on his face after last years Men's Final Four although we can't remember the exact details. Something about scheduling Mormon schools on Sunday. We have been told that Lute likes him and Peter Likens supports him but really don't have much to go on. We wished he would have supported Tomey obviously but maybe Dick was fed up with the situation and didn't want support. We'll see how it plays out. Just based on the fact that he hired Mackovic and has put us in a situation where we are hog tied by the high salaries of two men who aren't coaching here anymore. Tomey, who is in the last year of his contract, and Mackovic who is reportedly on campus somewhere but obviously not earning the money. - Ed

Editor,

It would be great if the Goliard caught up with a few of the graduated UA players who endured La BM over the past two years. Swearing to protect their identities - if they even care - you could ask them: "Having played for (La BM) and knowing what you know of the experience, if you were a high school senior being recruited by U of A by the current coaching staff, would you consider attending the U of A?"

Also, it would be a great service to the community if you could obtain the names of some of the players actually being recruited by the U of A right now. Swear to protect their identities and then ask them for their views about the program as presently configured and whether they are seriously considering the U of A.

If you actually got any kids to say they are planning on playing for La BM, it would be interesting to note their high school positions, as well as their heights, weights and times in the 40 - and their GPA's.

This sort of data would be very useful in underscoring your spot-on views of "La BM." No top tier athletic or intelligent kid could possibly consider coming to play at U of A under this regime. Hammer that point home in the words of the kids themselves and the university can do the math concerning the black money hole the football program has become under you-know-who.

So long as the coaching equivalents of cancer cells - and there are more of them besides La BM floating around in big time college sports - are allowed (paid huge sums) by schools like the U of A to get their hands on hopeful young people and destroy them by subjecting them to such corrosive rot, the term "higher education" becomes a sick oxymoron.

What we have here is not the higher education of the kids who are trying to enjoy school and life by playing a game. It's a lower degradation of them - day after day, week after week and, in the case of UA, year after year.

The hell with the lopsided scores. They will pass into memory. It's the damage being done to the kids. They will have to carry these negative experiences with them for the rest of their lives.

John Harrington - Founder Editor, Writer, Researcher, Handyman saltzone writing and recording co-op

John - You make some excellent points and we agree there is much work that could be done and multitudes of angles of offense in the La BM situation that we could exploit if we wanted to put in the time to make our point once and for all that this man is doing perhaps irreversible damage to the University not to mention the lives of the young men that have to endure his bait and switch regime. Having access to limited resources however, we at the Goliard are hoping that something happens soon so that we won't have to do any more than we already have. It is worth noting however that as the letter below mentions, the man is the highest paid state employee in Arizona and is doing the most damage. It's like the return of Evan Mecham. If there is any sense of justice, he will either leave on his own accord or be shown the door very soon. If this does not transpire, we may be forced to do some of the very things you suggest and carry the torch of dismissal into the streets to the people. We've received enough letters like yours to know that the groundswell exists in the community to get the man out. Time is of the essence however since the damage is ongoing and we agree that it is not the losing or the lopsided scores but the man's ascerbic, condescending and disrespectful presence that we find infuriating to the point of taking action. - Ed

Dear Goliard,

I assume the "M" in "BM" stands for Mackovic?  How about the "B"?

The "La BM" article is absolutely hilarious.  It neglects to mention one important item which is the icing on the stupidity cake.  If I'm not mistaken, Mackovic is the highest paid Arizona state employee.  You've got to be kidding.  Citizens who aren't football fans should be outraged from a simple economic standpoint, especially in light of the current state budget crisis.   We citizens that are football fans should also be outraged, for all the reasons nicely articulated in your article.

The bottom line is we stink.  We stink worse than anyone ever could have imagined. It won't get better until La BM is gone.  Rumor has it Mike Price is already in line to replace him.

Keep up the good work and let's get this alleged coach out of here. - John Leader, Attorney
Tucson, AZ

John - Thanks for pointing out that we are being fleeced by La BM in yet another way as UA football fans and as Arizonans. We at the Goliard can't complain to loudly however about La BM moneywise as we just banked another couple C-Notes on today's Purdue game. Despite the bookmakers growing awareness of how bad a coach La BM is, he continues to sink lower than expected and fail to even come close to covering the spread on a weekly basis.

Thanks for reading and writing. Oh and if memory serves the term "La BM" originally was taken from the French phrase meaning "The overdressed Bowel Movement."  - Ed

Livengood should go also 

Dear Goliard, 

I completely agree with your assessment of La BM. Moreover I'd like to see you come out with a screed aimed at Livengood. That moron should have supported Tomey. A few years ago if he had had a punter he would have finished at least .500. But seriously, Tomey did a great job. Think about it. Other than the Florida schools nobody can stay at the top for long; Colorado, USC, Notre Dame, et al. can recruit anyone they want and they can't stay on top. Tomey and the U of A has to make do with good but questionable players, and he did a great job. Remember when Tomey came in, he was hailed as an offensive genius with the run & shoot, and remember how he had to change to a conservative defensive team to contend for the Rose Bowl. Tomey knew about offense but he couldn't get those players. (One year, if memory serves, he converted a bunch of potential offensive stars to the defensive side and Desert Swarm and the team that led the nation in defense against the run was born.) How is La BM going to get these offensive weapons? (It is silly the way programs flip flop from defensive oriented coaches to offensive oriented coaches and vice versa.) Finally, La BM was not a world beater at Texas where he could easily recruit. He had one good year, some mediocre years and a losing year. Check the facts, but I bet that Tomey has a better career record. 
I say Fire Livingood. He is also part of the problem. 

Sincerely, Jaye Shraeder