Kevin O'Neill did something last week that won't be remembered by many people outside of the Northwestern men's basketball program.

Actually, nothing done by the Wildcats is remembered much by anyone outside of Evanston, Ill.

But when O'Neill resigned from his head coaching spot at Northwestern to accept an assistant coach's position with the New York Knicks, his players remembered.

The juniors and sophomores remembered the troubling times and struggles of recent years.

The freshmen remembered in-home recruiting visits by O'Neill and his staff promising better things when they get on campus.

The fact is that no one recruited by the coaching staff last year was coming to play basketball for Northwestern University.

The six freshmen coming to play basketball this season were coming for Kevin O'Neill.

But what's troubling is that O'Neill isn't the exception, he is becoming the norm.

Ask Lon Kruger.

He left Illinois last season for a large bag of money and a head coaching job with the Atlanta Hawks.

Ask John Calipari, who left UMass after resurrecting the program from the pits of the Atlantic-10, ran into trouble coaching the New Jersey Nets and now finds himself trying to do the same thing at Memphis that he did at Massachusetts.

Or ask the NCAA who allows coaches to leave schools whenever convenient by not putting any restrictions on them.

The situation is completely different for a player.

If a player isn't comfortable and wants to transfer to another Div. I school, he has to sit out a year, lose a year of eligibility and then work his way into the starting line-up the following season.

But a coach has it much easier.

He promises incoming players a great education, an exciting college experience and a figurehead that some of these players have never had in their homes.

And when the money comes calling for the coach, or he finds a better coaching job, all of those promises don't mean a thing.

These coaches don't realize they are giving their word to 18-year-old kids about their futures, not only academically, but also athletically.

O'Neill, Kruger and others have to start realizing that sometimes the idea of loyalty is more important than the comfort of wealth.

I don't want to make the impression that coaches should be locked into their jobs and that no unforeseen circumstances come up that warrant departure.

Or that a coach doesn't have a family to feed and a life to live.

But it is becoming painfully evident that a lot of coaches do not care about the promises they make to players concerning their futures.

Last season O'Neill was promising his recruits an upstart program and a better Northwestern team that wasn't going to be embarrassed every night in the Big Ten.

When he was making those promises, he didn't know he would be an assistant NBA coach by the end of the summer.

When All-American honorable mention nominee Jitim Young verballed to a struggling Northwestern program over Notre Dame, Penn State and Michigan State, he wasn't thinking of winless Big Ten seasons.

He didn't have another struggling year on his mind for his freshman year.

Young was picturing what O'Neill said during the recruiting visits to his Chicago home.

But now with two months before the Wildcats first exhibition game with the California All-Stars, Northwestern finds itself without a head coach, an extremely young squad and a program that hasn't had a good season in recent memory.

This season will not be any different.

I promise.