Enrique Carrasco, Editor

The day is Monday, March 21, 2022. My flight from Guadalajara, Jalisco had just landed in my hometown of Ciudad Juarez at 9 a.m. MT. After turning off airplane mode on my phone I receive a plethora of texts from friends with the most amazing news I have ever seen: the words “Howard’s gone” with the link to a tweet stating he had been fired. I was overwhelmed with joy at reading this news, and as a previous doubter of the Athletic Department, I can finally say that they made the right move.

I have been an avid critic of Ashley Howard ever since my team got cut, have shown this hatred throughout my articles during the semester and have been a known hater of the basketball team

But at the end of the day, my hatred was not for the team, but rather the coaching staff. How is it that a man who is getting paid $750,000 a year, gets 95 percent of the athletic budget and had a record of winning championships can produce something as miserable and terrible as Ashley Howard has? How is it that this man has every single thing set in place for him to win, fails to do so, embarrassing an entire school in the process? La Salle went to the Sweet 16 only six years before, so some sort of winning culture still existed within the program, some sort of pride in the team. This man drove us from a respectable team to second to last or last within the A-10s.

For years I had been dreaming of the day that Howard was gone, and the rumors I heard earlier in the year that stated that he would be fired next year if he did not win only helped hype this dream on. I dream of a basketball program where people have to camp outside the stadium simply to get tickets for the games. I want big wins at home, I want a respectable basketball program, something that can only be done without Howard at the helm of the program.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I have no expectations for next year’s team to do any better, but at least not having Howard at the helm of things will make it easier to bear. Various other coaches across the nation are prime candidates for this position, and, if given the right incentives, might be making their coaching debut at 20th and Olney some time soon.