Hlas: Better to have loved and lost a coach than ...

So what does it all mean, Iowa State Fan?

What does it mean when Mr. Cyclone himself, Fred Hoiberg, didn't view being the head coach of ISU men's basketball as his destination job?

It doesn't mean anything. Other than Hoiberg has spent more of his life in the NBA than in college basketball, and he likes the NBA better.

Forget the money, though it's a mighty significant part of this equation. This is about going to Chicago to work for people he knows and trusts in the Bulls' front office, and of working in the best basketball league on earth.

This is not a thumb in the eye to Iowa State. This is someone taking on a challenge he has always wanted to face. This is someone who wants to match his own ability with the best coaches in the sport, and who wants to coach a world-champion.

Anyone who begrudges Hoiberg this move is selfish and maybe a little delusional.

He took an Iowa State program that was going nowhere, and within five years made it something that grabbed a lot of people in a lot of places.

Winning NCAA tournament games in three straight seasons (over the likes of Connecticut, Notre Dame and North Carolina) was no small thing. Nor was capturing the Big 12's postseason tournament the last two years.

That adds up to earning your keep and then some. Iowa State got more than it could have reasonably asked from Hoiberg.

The what-might-have-beens of the future? They don't matter. We don't get to decide what fulfills someone else. We should never be anything but happy when someone who is deserving gets a chance to realize a goal.

There are so many college coaches who would have been thrilled just to have their names in the mix for the Bulls' opening. For five years, Iowa State had one of the sharpies in the sport. It should always be happy about that.

Life is about options. Tell me there isn't another job or lifestyle situation you wouldn't take in a heartbeat if it were offered to you.

It's amusing how the 'we” concept seems to be adhered to more by fans than by the people doing the actual competing, the players and coaches.

Be it collegiate sports or the pros, the athletes and coaches aren't looking for some tribe to forever call their own. They're individuals trying to do the best they can for themselves.

A Boston Red Sox center fielder signs as a free agent with the New York Yankees. Does he look at it like he's a sellout who is stomping on Boston's heart? Of course not. He's making a business decision.

Chip Kelly left Oregon to coach the Philadelphia Eagles. Was he an ingrate, or did he see a professional challenge he couldn't refuse?

The fans stay in one place, while the names on the jerseys of their beloved teams change, and change again, and again and again.

It's just sports. It's just entertainment. It isn't Good (us) vs. Evil (them), not matter how much so many of us pretend otherwise.

If you watch the handshake lines after games, you seldom see anything but respect and friendship shown by opponents to each other. They know the team concept is a lot looser than the outside world wants to admit.

This year's team is different than last year's team, and next year's team will be different than this year's. Everywhere.

To some degree, everyone is alone out there. They have to get what they can while they can get it. If that means changing teams at inconvenient moments, that's life.

‘Tis a far, far better thing to have a coach leave you because he's a success than for you to part ways with a coach because he was a bust.

And nowhere is it written that Hoiberg's Iowa State successor can't reach even greater heights.