Dana Altman is to be Commended

If Dana Altman is to be taken at his word (and I'd understand if Arkansas fans don't want to), then the former Creighton, then Arkansas, then Creighton again head coach is a pretty self-aware and stand-up kind of guy.

He took the job at Arkansas, then backed away from it, and went back to Creighton, where they were more than happy to have him back. There are two ways to look at Altman's actions here:

1) He jumped at the money and the higher-profile job, then went back on his word, lying to the Arkansas people, damaging their program (though Arkansas' original decision to fire Stan Heath without a realistic replacement in mind, you could argue, did way more damage) and dragging his own name through the mud.

Or, 2) Dana Altman realized that he made a mistake by valuing money and a higher-profile job over feeling appreciated and loved at Creighton. He reconsidered uprooting his family and then was willing to risk his own reputation and take the inevitable media abuse by admitting his mistake and attempting to fix it.

If you believe Altman (and I see no reason not to, but that's just a general "benefit of the doubt" type of thing, not any concrete evidence I have that Dana Altman is truly a stand-up guy), then it's #2 that's true. I think that's something to be commended, not scorned.

In a moment of weakness, in a desire to sate his own ego, he jumped at a "better" job. But he looked back to Creighton, where he spent 13 years building a more-than-respectable program, he looked at moving his family, he looked at what his heart and his sense of loyalty told him. And with all of that, he decided to own up to a mistake and go back to Creighton, where he knows he has to rebuild some relationships.

That's commendable. Every program should be as lucky as Creighton, to have a coach with that kind of loyalty and commitment.