Houston Cougars Hire James “Tricky” Dickey

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The University of Houston is a fine institution of higher learning renowned for its business and law schools. Current presidents and CEO’s of such companies as Delta Air Lines, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Neiman Marcus, Shell Energy, Kmart and BMC Software are among some of the graduates of its business school.

Houston has a proud basketball tradition as well. Clyde Drexler, Hakeem Olajuwon, Elvin Hayes and Don Chaney are among the more famous former players that have played at Hoffeinz Pavilion, the Cougars’ home court.

So it befuddles me that the school continues to make the worst decisions regarding its basketball program.

Houston has named James Dickey as its head coach, replacing Tom Penders (and his Buddy Lembeck style perm).

Dickey was the former coach of Texas Tech before Bobby Knight took over, taking the school to a couple of NCAA tournament appearances in the 1990’s, including one Sweet 16 appearance.

Also during the 90′s, the university was placed on NCAA probation due to a “culture of fraud” in regards to academics at Texas Tech, which included the Red Raiders basketball program, coached by, you guessed it, James Dickey.

Of course, he was not “directly” involved in the academic scandal (cue the Calipari wink).

The Houston area is a goldmine of talent that has been poached for years by other programs.

Instead of hiring a coach who will recruit the area and establish a solid relationship with the local high school players, they get a coach who can get the early bird special at Luby’s and has a dubious past, to say the least. We won’t even talk about the substandard facilities.

So while Conference USA is seemingly getting stronger, Houston has taken a huge step back. Personally, I can’t wait to see the Memphis Tigers crush the Cougars next year.

Sadly, there will be more Tiger fans in Hoffeinz than Cougar fans, and that isn’t saying much since there are only about 1,000 of us here in Houston.