It's weird getting fired.   On the one hand its a black mark against you.  Friends automatically think you were a victim while strangers want to know what you did wrong to get fired.  Sometimes the truth hurts though and in truth at Arizona State we didn't get it done.  There's lots of reasons why.  Some were within our control, some weren't, but at the end of the day it's done and it's time to move on.

Moving on is definitely what ASU is doing and if getting fired is weird, so too is meeting the guy coming in after you, but that's what I had a chance to do last week when I had lunch with Bob Bowman.  I walked away both optimistic and a fan and we all should as well.

The reason is because there is a lot of a change in Bob's hire.  When was the last time you heard of an Athletic Director going after a big name in our sport?  When was the last time you heard of a department listening and mostly saying "yes"  to a coach about the laundry list of items the coach needs for success.

There's a lot riding on Bowman's hiring - for Bob of course, but also for an ambitious athletic director and for our sport.  In hiring a CEO, in citing the creation of "the most expansive developmental swim program in all of collegiate sports" and in making ASU swimming "an invaluable community asset" Arizona State is giving us a model that can make us unassailable.  

Think about it - if you're team is helping pay your own way, if you're developing roots in the community, if you're producing great grades and great people, you'll be doing what we couldn't when I was at ASU, namely getting it done.