Dear Frank Haith,

It’s not us. It’s you.

Twelve days ago, you left Mizzou basketball and went to work as the head coach at Tulsa. After three years of a committed relationship with Mizzou, you’re gone. From a state away, you texted Mike Alden and told him that you were leaving Mizzou for the Golden Hurricane. And honestly, we were upset.

It all started in 2011, with a blind date set up by Mike Alden. And we were pretty unsure about it. You had a losing record coming from Miami, and it seemed like MU was paying way too much for you to join us. Sports writers around the country tweeted at us and made fun of us. [You were even under investigation for allegedly looking the other way while a booster paid players and rewarded them for injuring other players on opposing teams](https://www.themaneater.com/blogs/sports/2011/8/16/frank-haith-miami-involved-ncaa-rules-violations-a/). Between our past coach Mike Anderson and one of the other candidates for the coaching position, Matt Painter, you looked pretty bad. Our instincts told us to get out fast. I guess we should have listened.

But, as in all relationships, things were good at the beginning. The honeymoon phase was in full swing. Our basketball team became the No. 2 team in the country. We went on to win the Big 12 conference tournament, with a record of 30-5 under our belt. You even won the AP Coach of the Year. It was a great final year in the Big 12 Conference. You got us excited to join the Southeastern Conference.

But then everything started going downhill, and the relationship became complicated. As the NCAA investigation into your negligence while working for Miami continued, the team grew worse each year. Our inaugural performance in the SEC was below par with a 23-11 record and a first-round loss in the NCAA tournament. Then this year, we had another poor record of 23-12, and we didn’t even make the NCAA tournament. Even in the National Invitation Tournament, we lost in the second round. The relationship was on the rocks, and we were concerned about next year.

And then the breakup came.

To tell you the truth, Frank, we were hurting when you left. We were supportive and stood by you through all of your personal issues that you had to deal with. You were hurting us, but we still supported you.

And then it turns out that you were seeing other schools. We had faith in Haith, but you were unfaithful to us.

But we’ve moved on, Frank. We’ve got a new bae, and his name is Kim Anderson.

Kim’s always been here, and we never even noticed it. He was a player and an assistant coach under legend Norm Stewart, one of Missouri’s most successful and most-loved basketball coaches of all time. Kim led his team at University of Central Missouri to a Division II championship last year. He’s applied for this position before. Bottom line: He cares about us more than you ever did. We thought we were out of his league, but we were wrong.

We’ve been friend-zoning Kim for years, and now we realize that he’s the one. He might be a little bit more bland than you were, but he’s the smartest choice for us. We’re not skeptical this time like we were with you. He’s nice, his record’s clean, and we’re excited about him.

If you ask us, we’re winning the breakup. Seriously, Tulsa’s not even that cute. We never worked, and we now can see that we never would’ve worked. We’re sorry it all had to happen this way, but we’re glad you finally ended it.

So, Frank, goodbye and good riddance.

Love,

The Maneater