No Shortage of Thoughts on Bruins’ Situation

Ongoing NCAA investigations of Coach Jim Harrick’s Georgia and former coach Jerry Tarkanian’s Fresno State men’s basketball programs should prompt Bruin fans to be thankful for and proud of UCLA Coach Steve Lavin’s clean record.

An honestly played losing season beats a winning one where corners were cut, even if it includes the coveted national championship.

Ruben A. Vassolo

Santa Barbara

Doesn’t a team reflect a coach and his personality? If so, then this current team is a perfect caricature of Steve Lavin. Inconsistent, immature and uninteresting. This team and the senior leaders have grown up as much as Lavin has -- zilch.

Egging on fans, poking public ridicule at his superiors, and making embarrassing statements are not what his predecessors displayed, even in the face of adversity.

Coaches shouldn’t respond to hecklers, and a UCLA basketball coach should appear above it all. John Wooden did and so did the others.

Goodbye, Lavin. Now let’s get a classy coach.

Tim Wagner

Torrance

The search for UCLA’s new coach should end before it begins. Mr. Guerrero needs only to look at the man responsible for bringing championship basketball back to L.A. I don’t mean Phil, I’m talking about Michael Cooper.

Robert Henderson

Corona

For those UCLA fans who lament the day Jim Harrick was fired for falsifying expense reports, take notice of what is happening at the University of Georgia -- another NCAA scandal brought about by the missing “integrity gene” in the Harrick DNA strand.

I have been a Lavin basher for years -- and am very glad that he will be gone in a few days -- but I hope this puts an end to any lingering dispute about Harrick’s firing by Pete Dalis. Now what we need to do is find a coach with Harrick-type basketball IQ and Lavin-type hair. (Did I just describe Pat Riley?)

John Germaine

Tucson

Coach Wooden gave us the “Pyramid of Success.” Coach Lavin has given us the “Funnel of Failure.”

Don Fisher

Encino

During UCLA’s search for a successor to Wooden, Joe B. Hall, who succeeded the legendary Adolph Rupp at the University of Kentucky and was vilified before being driven out, was asked who he thought should replace the Wizard of Westwood. His response: “They should hire me. Why ruin two lives?”

David Macaray

Rowland Heights