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Take Cronin for his word on the situation.
"I appreciate how much he’s reached out," Cronin said of Ono. "We’ve talked a lot about basketball, probably more than he really should. He’s running a major Research I institution. But he cares, so that’s exciting for me. Everything that needs to happen here is going to happen and I’m pretty confident in that.
Also
"That alone sent me a message, along with how much we’ve conversed over the last month. I’m lucky to have President Ono. I appreciate him, but as far as all that stuff, I don’t have anything to sign. I think I’ve made it pretty clear where I want to be. I don’t think I’ve ever wavered on that one."
so Santa Ono expects Mick to be here, and Mick obviously expects to be here, which is great. it is also in line with a guy who's standard line when asked about how he approaches potential job openings elsewhere is that he asks his agent to work on getting him a lifetime contract at Cincinnati. So while the deal is not yet done, it is being negotiated and both parties expect it to get done. There are also a couple of really interesting quotes from Cronin in that article.
"Hopefully that happens someday, but like I said, President Ono is my guy. He loves sports. He cares about our arena situation. We talk a lot lately because I have no athletic director."
The arena situation being that Fifth Third Arena is not long for this world in its current state. Whether that means renovating FTA or working with the owners of US Bank to get that renovated for UC's use is debateable. The Bearcats can probably make due with Fifth Third in the near term, but its obviously no a long term solution.
"That’s really what I’m worried about. As far as me, if that happens for me, great, and my staff as well. But the good thing for me is that he and I have become a lot closer through Whit’s departure and we’ve talked about remaining that way. Look how fast he was able to put everything on the shelf and hire Mike Bohn, not an easy thing to do to find an experienced, veteran athletic director, somebody that’s a veteran and is not looking to pad his resume and get out of here. That was huge.
Shots fired Whit.
