Apparently, Miles Simon does talk to the media. Well, at least to good friend Doug Gottlieb of ESPN.
On Gottlieb’s ESPN.com blog, Simon said UA athletic director Jim Livengood called him into his office more than a week and a half ago and told him his contract would not be renewed. Official word through UA came Friday.
Simon said Livengood told him the university was “going in a different direction.”
Simon, who had been on staff at UA for three seasons, went to head coach Lute Olson but got no explanation. According to the school’s human resources department, UA doesn’t have to show “just cause” for those with year-to-year contracts, as all assistant coaches at Arizona have.
Livengood has said he does not talk about “personnel issues” and Olson has declined comment, saying only he wished Simon well in a news release.
“It really hurts,” Simon told Gottlieb. “I bleed Arizona and this is how it ends? They have given me no explanation, no closure . . . I have known Coach O since I was 17, and this is not a side of him that I know.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if Simon, 32, ends up being a college basketball TV or radio analyst.
Simon, again, did not return a call to the Citizen on Tuesday night.