KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In the 23 years since Norm Stewart's 32-year tenure at the University of Missouri ended in 1999, Mizzou has churned through six men's basketball coaches (including interim coach Melvin Watkins in 2006). Soon, it will be on to a seventh in the aftermath of Cuonzo Martin being removed Friday evening.
We figure Martin's life will only get better now, whether it's on to another coaching job that's a better fit or in some form of what we believe would be a higher calling to inspire and serve others. Not to mention buoyed by an apparent buyout of $6 million per his contract, the terms of which Mizzou said in a statement that it would honor.
Less evident is whether MU basketball will get better now.
Given the frequent flux and periodic chaos of nearly an entire generation, during which Missouri has faced NCAA sanctions as many times as it advanced as far as the Elite Eight (twice), Mizzou could stand to look in the mirror and say ... it's not you, it's me.
Something has gone awry, over and over, either in hiring decisions made or how those hires are supported (or not) by fans and resources.
That's how one thing has spiraled into another and, presto, a once-proud program has a 63-115 league record with no NCAA Tournament wins since joining the Southeastern Conference 10 years ago.
Blame administrators. Blame coaches. Blame fate. Blame the game and what it often takes to recruit beyond what meets the eye, a matter both more legitimized and more murky in the name, image and likeness (NIL) era.
Put it all together, and first-year athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois faces a daunting task in replacing a man she admired but whose program had stalled out after five seasons.
Her pedigree and vast experience at a number of schools suggests she is well-connected and will have a fresh approach that could serve MU well. Where she'll turn or how she'll go about this is anyone's guess, but there was a pattern during her four years as AD at UNLV: Her seven hires, according to a website that covers Las Vegas sports, trended young. That included now-Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger (then 41) and his promote-from-within replacement, current UNLV coach Kevin Kruger (37 at the time.)
Moreover, Martin was 39 when Reed-Francois led the search committee that hired him at Tennessee in 2011.
Whatever the age, though, finding someone who can navigate the NIL and transfer portal that have become the currency of the game and build a program instead of a season or two and connect with Show-Me fans turned apathetic and who will see Mizzou as a destination location will make for an ambitious search ... and a find that no one has been able to sustain or truly capture since Stewart.
Each rise and demise has been its own story, of course, with three men now fired (Quin Snyder, Kim Anderson and Martin) and two who left for other jobs (Mike Anderson and Frank Haith).
And all of it underscored by some of the names Missouri went after but didn't hire for one reason or another.
Like Kansas coach Bill Self, then at Tulsa, who was passed over for Snyder. "Hey, I wanted the Missouri job; they didn't hire me," as Self put it in his office in 2013.
Like Purdue's Matt Painter, whom Mizzou was virtually certain would take the job in 2011 ... only to spurn MU just as it thought it was closing the deal and leave it hiring Haith.
Like former Wichita State coach Gregg Marshall: MU went after him in 2014, as chronicled by PowerMizzou.com, but he turned the school down and the school turned to Kim Anderson.
Marshall now is a good example of the "careful what you wish for" scenario Mizzou now finds itself in after ousting "a man of high character," as Reed-Francois put it in a statement.
Knowing what you know now about Marshall, Mizzou fans, would you have wanted him then? Do you want someone like that even now, when he should be nuclear?
The point is less about Marshall in particular than an entire way of thinking for Mizzou.
Some will say it's time to pay whatever the price, whether in dollars or reputation or both, to hire someone who wins by any means necessary — including with coaches accused of abusing people or the rules.
We figure Mizzou shouldn't stoop to that and want to think it can find a candidate more comfortable with the fluidity of the transfer portal that chagrined Martin, and who can both embrace the NIL ... and enjoy the support of donors to the cause that Martin for one reason or another didn't get nearly enough of.
Determining who that person is, not to mention being able to hire him and bolster that person's ability to succeed, will be a steep challenge for Reed-Francois. She'll need to be able to galvanize and preserve all that has eluded her modern predecessors for a variety of reasons, including some certainly beyond their scope or control.
But until demonstrated otherwise, that trail is why we can be more certain of Martin's future prosperity than MU's at this crossroads.
Even though it's unclear what he'll do next, few are more adaptable and resilient or bear a more inspiring presence than Martin.
He grew up in some grim circumstances in East St. Louis, Ill., where as he once put it he saw "stuff at 15 years old that only men should see." Twenty-five years ago this November, he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, something we spoke about at length a few months later at a camp he was co-hosting in East St. Louis.
When he found the softball-sized mass between his chest and lungs and he got the diagnosis, he first thought, "If I die, let me die in my sleep, because I don't want my family to see me die."
Then he briefly wondered, "Why me?" before his mother, Sandra, reminded him he was no exception.
Over time, in fact, he came to think, "Why not me?" and just hoped to live long enough to see his then-three-month-old son Joshua live to graduate from high school.
Now, Josh is in his 20s and Martin continues to be in remission as he lives on in what he has called "bonus time." A new frontier of that is ahead, something Martin perhaps subconsciously has been girding for for some time.
After the murder of George Floyd two years ago, Martin was one of the panelists on The Kansas City Star's forum on the intersection of race and sports hosted by my colleague, Blair Kerkhoff.
At one point, Martin said that working toward racial equality is what must now drive him most.
"From this point on," he said, "this is who I am."
Indeed, he's always known who he is, and that it's all about a lot more than basketball. He stayed faithful to that integrity through the end at Mizzou.
It's been a long time since Mizzou could say the same about its own sense of identity when it comes to the plight of men's basketball, a descent many years and contributors in the making that we hope Reed-Francois can reconcile, or at least reverse, at last.
