March 22, 2002

By MELISSA NELSON
Associated Press Writer

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Nolan Richardson threatened to destroy the university's reputation one day before he was fired as basketball coach at Arkansas, athletic director Frank Broyles said in a memo released Friday.

On the eve of his firing, Richardson said he would cause a disruption that would bring "troops and tanks" reminiscent of the state's 1957 desegregation crisis.

According to notes compiled after a Feb. 28 meeting with the coach and Chancellor John A. White, Broyles said Richardson remarked that "he didn't really want to hurt the university, but he may have to."

The university fired Richardson on March 1, four days after Richardson said for a second time that he wanted to be bought out, criticized fans and reporters and said he was treated differently because he is black.

The university released the documents Friday, saying they were also providing them to Richardson's lawyer, civil rights attorney John Walker, who had asked for them. Walker has said Richardson might take legal action in an attempt to fight his dismissal, which was upheld by the UA System president Thursday.

Broyles' account of the Feb. 28 meeting tracks closely with White's, which was previously released. Walker said Richardson used the military reference as an example of what the coach was trying to avoid if he ultimately was fired.

Federal troops were dispatched to Little Rock in September 1957 to ensure that nine black students could attend Central High School.

"He (Richardson) said it would be 1957 all over again. There would be troops and tanks on campus. The university would be virtually destroyed," Broyles said.

"The university will be ruined with troops and tanks keeping peace and order from the marches he will have here," Broyles wrote in his memo, paraphrasing Richardson.