So Where Does Ron Zook, a True Nice Guy, Go From Here?

A funny thing happened on the way to Illinois cleansing and ridding itself of the Ron Zook era. Honestly, as someone who has written numerous pieces for The Sports Bank about how much Zook needed to be fired over the years, I just didn’t see it coming. I felt bad. I really did. (guest post from Paul Schmidt) There’s a fundamental problem with dancing on the grave of any head coach, but in particular one like Zook, and it highlights the biggest problem with letting a coach like Zook go from a program like Illinois: I really liked him. I thought Zook was, for the most part, very genuine. He was a little uneasy and defensive with the press mainly because of the treatment he received in Florida where he was constantly abused, and that’s ok. He was a kind man who genuinely cared about his team- evidenced by the sheer number of players that showed up at his fnal press conference and lamented his loss on Twitter. In fact, Vic Koenning, Illinois’ interim head coach,...