During the National Association of Basketball Coaches summit a year ago, Roy Williams and Jim Boeheim and Tubby Smith listened to a California ethicist sell them on an idea: Return to the core values of the profession and inspire a movement to call college basketball coaches "teacher-coaches." They were serious.

	Nolan Richardson III puts to the test the phrase "teacher-coach."

The famous coaches listened. They liked the idea. Yes, they wanted to try it. Teacher-coaches, it was.

As they feared, the rest of us were a little sluggish manufacturing these great educators' enthusiasm. NABC executives wrote a document calling for basketball coaches to take the most daring, unthinkable steps to "honor their full contracts, as well as not recruit players who don't have the ability and desire to get an education. And all coaches are being asked to think about and promote ethical conduct."

As NABC executive director Jim Haney says, "For the vast majority, 'teacher-coach' is pretty well what they already do."

Pretty much.

Like the inspirational story Tennessee State teacher-coach Nolan Richardson III, son of the ex-Arkansas teacher-coach with a zero graduation rate, reminded us this week. He had been angered at one of his assistants, Hosea Lewis, for failing to properly inform the team's players of a Christmas night practice, inspiring a head teacher-coach and assistant teacher-coach confrontation in the gymnasium.

Well, let teacher-coach Lewis tell the story of why he had to smack teacher-coach Richardson with a gym bag that contained a chain, according to the police report statements obtained by the Dallas Morning News.

In his own unique flair, teacher-coach Lewis styled this statement for those tough-grading TSU campus police:

	When Tennessee State suspended Nolan Richardson III, it made Hosea Lewis its interim head coach.

"... my left arm motion return to my body the bag busted after bushing up against his left side of his chest and bicipe area. At this point know punches were exchanged. However, Coach Richardson told me in a very hostile manner and tone by moving his body parts up and down and waving and pointing his finger toward the lobby doors by saying to me 'Wait right here I'm going to my car and I got something for you.' At this point (teacher-coach Christopher) Graves who was standing on the sideline at half court entervine and told me to run that man is crazy and I did that."

As it turns out, running was wise considering teacher-coach Richardson allegedly had gone to his car and returned to the gym brandishing a gun. Before everyone jumps to conclusions here, teacher-coach Richardson hadn't gone to his car specifically for a gun. As he told the Tennessee State police, "Went to my car to get a crow bar and saw my gun there and I took it. But it had no clip or anything."

See, Nolan Richardson III just wanted to get a crowbar.

He ended up with the gun.

Of course, teacher-coach Christopher Graves insisted he spent 15 minutes calming teacher-coach Richardson down, before watching Richardson, attempt to "un-chamber a round" of ammunition out of the gun.

Bad enough teacher-coach Richardson had this unfortunate encounter with his staff, he had been 23-41 as coach and NCAA investigators were probing into these Tennessee State teacher-coaches for possible violations of recruiting and practice rules. Shockingly, the inquiry includes possible unethical conduct by a teacher-coach. Had the coach gone to the NCAA Tournament a year ago, maybe he could've saved himself. No chance now. After a short suspension, Nolan Richardson III resigned Thursday. Maybe this makes college basketball a safer place today.

All-Time Coaching Acts of Sheer Stupidity

1. Bob Knight: He could be No. 1 through No. 5 with the throat grabbing of Neil Reed, the tampon in Daryl Thomas' locker, the chair thrown across the court against Purdue, punching the cop in Puerto Rico, ... You get the idea. 2. Nolan Richardson III: The fact that he told campus police that he had gone to his car to get a crowbar instead of a gun ... Priceless. 3. Strip Free Throw Shooting Drills at Rutgers: If ex-Rutgers coach Kevin Bannon had done this to your kid as a high school coach -- conducting a strip free throw shooting drills where two scholarship players and two student managers ended up running wind sprints nude -- you would've called the cops. 4. John Chaney vs. John Calipari: Temple coach John Chaney storming into John Calipari's post-game press conference and nearly going Woody Hayes on the UMass coach until several players stopped him. 5. Nick Nolte: Before Nick Nolte went dirty in "Blue Chips," he did what every irate coach always dreamed but would've only dared do in the movies: Punted a basketball into the stands. -- Adrian Wojnarowski

This isn't to say college basketball coaches everywhere are packing handguns and searching trunks for crowbars, because let's face it: Had many of these teacher-coaches ever made it into gymnasium with a firearm, one of them would've likely shot some poor freshman still playing man-to-man defense after his teammates had gone to zone two trips earlier down the floor.

Yes, Richardson is an extreme case, but he's par for the course this way: Whatever trouble the kids are getting into these days in college sports, they're too often just imitating those teacher-coaches entrusted to teach them right and wrong.

This isn't to say everyone in college basketball isn't honoring his contract and isn't recruiting kids who want degrees and generally couldn't care less about the kids under his watch. Almost all care, even if it's to varying, conditional degrees. But if you're around this sport -- and see the money these coaches do and can make -- you see a lot of good men go bad, a lot of noble ideals lost in the stampede of greed. And, of course, you see a lot of slimeballs who shouldn't be within three counties of your children.

Even so, it isn't hard to be an honorable coach, a "teacher-coach." It really isn't. Nobody expects saints on the sidelines, but before the NABC gets going again on its movement for us to call them "teacher-coach," and telling us this is "pretty much what they do already," they need stop and ask themselves: Even beyond Tennessee State University at NRA, what exactly are they teaching again?

Adrian Wojnarowski is a columnist for The Record (N.J.) and a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPNWoj@aol.com.