With Lute as with Bush, mums the word

There is an old saying that you should not talk politicise or religion at work.

In Tucson you can add something to that list, Lute Olson.

When it comes to Arizona’s head basketball coach, they way he handled his leave of absence and everyday since then has created a divide almost never seen. Say the wrong thing and you’ll loss friends. Say the wrong thing and your mom, dad, brother or sister might never talk to you again. That how strong people feel.

The best thing to do is not even talk about it. Keep it to yourself.

It doesn’t matter if your in the camp that says Olson has mistreated his staff. He did, after all, fire both Kevin O’Neil and Miles Simon.

Or if your in the camp that says both O’Neil and Simon got what they had coming. After all, last season was the worst in decades for Arizona basketball.

It doesn’t matter if your in the camp that says Arizona Daily Star writers Greg Hanson and Bruce Pascoe should be getting the silent treatment for digging too hard as to what was really going on with coach O’s absence.

Or if your in the camp that says said reports were doing there jobs and really never said anything that horrible anyway.

The dividing line is similar to politics. You say Lute has done nothing but the wrong thing for the past year, your not a true Cats fan. Sounds familiar, after all if you disagree with the president you must be against America, right?

You support him, your just blindly supporting him right? Just like the president. You must be for everything he does, right? Olson could have killed someone in his infamous press conference and you’d still support him, right?

Of course no one should be or is comparing major political issues like, war, hunger and then environment to sports. It’s no where near as important. But to a lot of people it is just as passionate.

Several recent exchanges on the message board at Wildcat Sports Report slowly turned into name calling and stubbornness by several posters, myself included. One thread even boiled down to if the pro Lute or the anti Lute people are the conservatives or liberal of the Arizona basketball world.

So for now just remember this: don’t talk about Lute at work, with your girlfriend or boyfriend or with your family and you’ll be ok. Maybe I should listen to myself.