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Thursday, June 20, 2002
Updated: August 29, 4:25 PM ET
Moral Dilemma

By Bob Ley
Special to ESPN.com

Weekly Outside the Lines
Show 162: Sunday at 10:30 a.m. ET on ESPN

Somewhere between human compassion, the budgetary bottom line and a university's image is that place decisions about Mike Price and Larry Eustachy are made.

Sunday, I'll talk with Kevin Mackey. Once upon a time he built Cleveland State's basketball program into a mini-powerhouse, eliminating mighty Indiana from the NCAA tournament in 1986, and advancing to the Sweet 16. Four years later, at the height of his popularity, Mackey was arrested on drug and alcohol charges. The school fired him.

	SUN., MAY 4, 2003
	Host: Bob Ley, ESPN Guests: Bill Curry, former Alabama head coach (read his comments about Price's firing); Jim Livengood, athletic director, University of Arizona; Kevin Mackey, former Cleveland State basketball coach; John Konstantinos, former Cleveland State athletic director.

Mackey will be here along with the athletic director who fired him.

There's never been more money in coaching, nor more scrutiny of coaches, and those are surely two reasons Larry Eustachy will have to fight to keep his job at Iowa State. It's obvious his explanation -- some say excuse -- that he's an alcoholic is not enough.

Days after that admission, Alabama confronted misconduct in the Tide's holy of holies -- the head football coaching job. Whether Mike Price simply enjoyed boys' night out, or there's more to his behavior than that, his conduct cost him his job. He says, unfairly.

Price argued that it would have been the right thing for Alabama to let him learn from his mistake.

Right and wrong were exactly what the school invoked in letting him go.