Here's another article shooting down the theory some people are clinging to that basketball is the only reason UC is in the Big East:

<a href='http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050703/COL03/507030353/1082/SPT' target='_blank'>UC has Goin to thank for Big East future </a>

By Paul Daugherty
Enquirer staff writer

Forget for a minute Nancy Zimpher vs. Bob Huggins for the heavyweight championship of Cincinnati. Remember instead a smooth, self-effacing, candid, folksy, fox-dumb man who is less than a year from retirement. Without Bob Goin, there is no Richard E. Lindner Varsity Village. Without Varsity Village, UC isn't going to the Big East.

In the middle of the Zim-Huggs feud that has sadly overshadowed what should be the athletic department's finest hour is the guy who made the finest hour possible.

If only the administration and the basketball coach had Goin's way with people.

(If only the dopes on Fountain Square Friday had celebrated the occasion instead of using it to boo the university president. Classy gesture, fans. But we digress.)

Find me another athletic director who could keep the peace with Huggins the way Goin has the past eight years.

With that alone on his résumé, the 68-year-old's next move should be to the United Nations.

He'd make a great country lawyer.

Goin is the Matlock of the locker room, equal parts fishing buddy and CEO. He pitched and wooed Richard Lindner to the tune of $10.2 million for the $80 million sports complex that bears the businessman's name. When Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese expressed concern to Goin about UC's sports facilities, Goin told him: "Don't worry about that. We've got that covered." Then Goin went back to Lindner and said he needed more money. "My credibility was on the line," Goin said Friday.

"I wouldn't let Rich Lindner say no," Goin said. "I knew if he came on board, others would follow. I used him as my point guard."

Being an AD involves more than schedules, TV contracts and keeping coaches happy. At the big-time level, it means being able to look a donor in the eye and say, "I need a million dollars." Or, in Lindner's case, $10 million.

"A lot of people in fund raising are afraid to ask," said Bill Mulvihill, UC's senior associate AD for development, the department's head fund-raiser. "Bob's not afraid to ask. He can lay the vision out. If somebody says no, or not quite yet, he'll work through that."

Goin has a visionary's ability to forget what happened yesterday. "When Monday gets past and I get to Tuesday, I don't go back to Monday," was how Goin put it. Mulvihill said UC's courting of Lindner began 20 years ago, when the school asked him to put its athletic schedules on Thriftway grocery bags. It stepped up almost as soon as Goin arrived, in 1997.

"I don't annoy people," Goin said. He persuades them, gently and firmly and persistently. Think of Sheriff Andy Taylor, persuading Barney to take the bullet out of his gun. "I give you the vision. We did a very good job of showing (Lindner) what his contribution could do."

Or as Mulvihill put it: "Bob made it very clear this project would not work without (Lindner) stepping up. His first response was good, but not quite as good as we wanted. But he saw the vision, and each time his contribution got a little bigger."

They got along. Everyone gets along with Goin, even as he's making sure they do what he wants. That's not just good management style. It's a gift. Goin and Lindner shared a belief in second chances for deserving kids, and first chances for everyone. Goin played to Lindner's belief in investing in young people.

"We're not dinner-eatin' friends," Goin said. "But there is a mutual respect, and I enjoy his company."

Once Tranghese was convinced the facilities would improve, UC's entrance to the Big East was all but approved. It helped that Tranghese and Goin had been friends since 1991, Tranghese's first year as Big East commissioner. "I didn't have to tell him what we expected from Cincinnati," Tranghese said. "We knew we had a pro here."

The pro has achieved everything he set out to do eight years ago. Varsity Village will contain training facilities and offices that Goin says will keep UC sports competitive for years. The move to the Big East assures better competition and more prestige.

The athletic department is in good shape, even if its relations with the administration are not. "I've always had a vision of what (UC) should look like," Goin said. "When you walk through the Richard E. Lindner (Varsity Village's) front door, you're going to see professionalism, top to bottom."

Maybe you'll remember who made it possible: a folksy, old pro who never let small stuff cloud the larger picture.