Bruce Weber was fired yesterday from his position as the men's basketball head coach at the University of Illinois. After a successful start at the beginning of his tenure, including a run to the national championship game in 2005, he was unable to maintain that level of excellence. His teams had missed the NCAA tournament in three of the past five years, and his record in conference play since the graduation of his predecessor's recruits was a mediocre 55-66. By all accounts, he is a very nice man who loves his family and runs a clean program. Unfortunately, all those things do not cover a multitude of losses.

I have nothing personal against Bruce Weber, but it seems pretty obvious that it was time for a change. The players weren't responding to his coaching, and the new director of athletics had no reason to hang on to a stumbling coach that he didn't hire. Sometimes, a relationship runs its course, and no matter how great things were at its peak, the best thing for everyone involved is to move on.

*****

I saw a movie called The Grey a little while back, about a group of survivors from an airplane crash trying to fight off the wolves and cold of the Alaskan wilderness. Near the end of the movie, the main character - exhausted, desperate - makes a plea to the heavens. "Do something! Show me something! I need it now! Not later! Now! ... I'm calling on you! I'm calling on you!"

The sky remains clear and quiet, and there is no answer.

"F--- it," he says, "I'll do it myself."

I also read a book review recently about a young woman who loses, in short order, her mother to cancer, any meaningful relationship with her family, and her marriage to divorce. Her response to this, irrational as it may seem, is to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, and somehow try to find deliverance in the 1,100 miles of physical penance.

Before the hike, she writes about being in her mother's hospital room. "I prayed to the whole wide universe and hoped God would be in it, listening to me. I prayed and prayed, and then I faltered. Not because I couldn't find God, but because suddenly I absolutely did: God was there, I realized, and God had no intention of making things happen or not, of saving my mother's life. God was not a granter of wishes. God was a ruthless bitch."

*****

Things resonate for a reason. There are times and there are situations that cause me to wonder. Yet still I wait.