Another canary, another mine

 I remember Jim Larranaga from almost 20 years ago now, when the Final Four came to Indianapolis and Larranaga's George Mason Patriots were wearing the glass slipper. 

And not just wearing it, mind you. Dancing the freaking tango in it.

They were the Cinderella of Cinderellas, those Patriots, a team whose tallest starter was 6-7 and whose last game before the start of March Madness was a loss to, um, Hofstra. And if the mossy adage about such teams is they're just happy to be here ... well, the George Masons weren't gonna lie. They were ecstatic to be here.

"We're a bunch of no-name guys playing in the biggest event in the world and loving it," declared Larranaga, who was 56 at the time and thoroughly enjoying the most spotlit moment in his then-35 years as a coach.

"I'm having a blast," he went on, revealing to the assembled Final Four media that he'd told his team he was going to have more fun than any other coach in the NCAA Tournament, and he wanted his team to have more fun than any other team.

It's been 19 years since Jim Larranaga said that.

Suffice it to say the fun departed awhile ago.

Now he's 75 years old and the landscape of college basketball is all different, which is why Larranaga, now the winningest coach in University of Miami (Fla.) history, announced this week he's stepping down. And not at the end of the season, either.

Like, right now.

"I'm exhausted," he explained the other day. "I've tried every which way to keep this going. And I know I'm going to be asked a lot of questions and I want to answer them before I'm even asked. What shocked me, beyond belief, was after we made it to the Final Four just 18 months ago, the first time I met with the players, eight of them decided they were going to put their name in the (transfer) portal and leave. 

"It's become professional."

And so, like 55-year-old Tony Bennett at Virginia and 60-year-old Jay Wright at Villanova before him, he's getting out. The game's not their game anymore. All the familiar landmarks are gone. March Madness might still be a wonderful thing, but now it's all madness. Sheer, undiluted madness.

And, sure, you can say the Larranagas and Bennetts and Wrights all have a continent-sized blind spot here, because if the players are all chasing NIL paydays like professionals now, they got there honestly. College basketball and football, after all, went professional in everything but name decades ago. It's why Jim Larranaga and Tony Bennett and Jay Wright et al were paid so handsomely by their institutions of higher learning to teach a game.

Now, however, the paycheck's in the other wallet. And frankly they've got no one to blame but themselves.

None of this changes the fact Larranaga quitting mid-season is the latest canary in the mine signaling there's poison in the air in big-deal collegiate athletics. When a man who so clearly loves what he does can't stomach it even for another three months, that's a problem. When accomplished coaches in the prime of their careers say "To hell with it" and walk away, that's a problem.

And now I'm back in the old Hoosier Dome again 19 years ago, and here comes Jim Larranaga, head coach of the joyous George Mason Patriots, zooming past on a golf cart. He's on his way to yet another media scrum. And he's, yes, having a blast.

"More of these?" he cries, pretending to be exhausted.

Two decades later, sadly, he's no longer pretending.