University of Wisconsin President Ray Cross on Tuesday asked the Legislature's budget-writing committee to approve a new public authority for the UW System, a "dedicated and stable funding stream" and to reduce the governor's proposed $300 million budget cut over the next two years.

Shortly after he finished his testimony, a handful of protesters burst into the room shouting, "No cuts, no deals." Followed by four Capitol police officers, the protesters marched past the table where Cross was sitting to give testimony before the Joint Committee on Finance.

If Park Bank is liable for not spotting Sujata "Sue" Sachdeva's $34 million embezzlement from Koss Corp. and has to reimburse the company, Koss Chief Executive Michael Koss should also be ordered to personally pay the public company he runs, the bank argues in a new lawsuit.

Grant Thornton, Koss Corp.'s former auditor, should also have to pay a portion of any award that may be ordered, Park Bank argued in the latest twist in a long-running court fight stemming from Sachdeva's massive embezzlement.

"Park Bank denies any and all liability to Koss in this case," the bank said in its action. "Nevertheless, should Park Bank be found liable to Koss (Corp.) and required to pay damages to Koss, in this case, those damages will have been the result of a common liability of Park Bank, Michael Koss and Grant Thornton, thereby entitling Park Bank to (a) contribution from Michael Koss and Grant Thornton."(3)

Rick Majerus: Remembering an outsized life

Back in May of 1973, despite only being one month old, I received a letter from the Marquette Athletic Department. It congratulated my parents on my birth, and offered me a full athletic scholarship to Marquette beginning in 1991, when I would turn 18. (It provided funding for “room and board, books, tuition, and an incidental expense allowance for laundry not to exceed Fifteen Dollars per month.”) It was signed by Al McGuire and Rick Majerus.

It was clearly a joke cooked up by Majerus, who was an assistant coach at Marquette at the time, and had been a family friend of my father’s since they were young. But it was only one of the thousands of generous things he would do in a life that ended on Saturday, when his large heart finally had nothing more to give.

Majerus lived an outsized life both publicly and privately, displaying a genius rarely matched in college basketball. He never had a job that offered him the opportunity to compete for national championships year after year, but he was always recognized in the coaching fraternity as one of the handful of best minds in the game.

To many Milwaukeeans, he is still remembered by his childhood nickname, “Whitey.” They watched him grow up at Marquette High School, get cut from the Marquette University basketball team, and become a member of McGuire’s coaching staff. (McGuire often joked that when Majerus played on the Marquette freshman team, he would rather put Willy Wampum – the school’s Indian mascot - in the game than Majerus.)

Milwaukee sports fans remember Majerus sitting next to McGuire in his garish pants and giant sideburns as Marquette beat North Carolina to win the 1977 national championship. They recall Majerus taking over head coaching duties at Marquette in 1983 and leading the school to three straight NIT appearances before being run out of his home town and alma mater – a painful time that he said always haunted him. When he became an assistant coach with the Bucks, it meant he had coached grade school, high school, college, and pro basketball all in the same city.

In 1998, he took an overachieving University of Utah team to a halftime lead in the national championship game before succumbing to Kentucky, just missing his chance to cement his name among the all-time coaching greats. But he had built the school into a national powerhouse, routinely winning its conference and making deep runs in the NCAA tournament.

While Majerus’ coaching accomplishments and his risible public persona are well known, throughout my life, I got to experience much of his personal gregariousness from a front row seat. Sometimes, when I was seven or eight years old, my dad would loan me to Majerus to take with him on dates, so he could demonstrate to potential lady friends that he was good with kids. (After one date at Gilley’s frozen custard, he took me to a cemetery and pretended ghosts were chasing us, peeling around corners in his car at high speeds.) He always had extra t-shirts, shorts and shoes to give me; more than half my wardrobe was comprised of clothes he passed down to me.

When Majerus was working for the Milwaukee Bucks, he once let me go on a scouting trip to Atlanta with him. We worked prospect Cedric Henderson out at a local Atlanta athletic club, where he knew his former Marquette player and then-member of the Atlanta Hawks, Glenn “Doc” Rivers, was a member. After ordering up a hefty lunch at the club, he took the check, signed the name “Doc Rivers,” and made a break for the door.

Later, I would go work for Majerus as a team manager at the University of Utah, and got to see his genius at work. His mind was like a video camera; he could watch a play in practice and know exactly what players did wrong down to the inch. If a player protested, he would pull them into the video room, show them the tape of practice, and always be proven correct.

It was this perfectionism that often made Majerus difficult to play for. Despite his jocular media persona, he was extremely demanding on everyone in his program. Players heading to Utah expecting Majerus to be a laugh a minute often ended up transferring within a year. Anyone who strayed from his directions could be subjected to withering, profane tirades. Players were often compared to certain parts of the anatomy that even physicians might have a hard time identifying. (I was certainly on the business end of my share, usually for good reason.)

But this harsh treatment of players had a flip side; once he had put you through the wringer, he was fiercely loyal, and would help you in whatever endeavor you entered after graduation. He became a father figure to players who either never had a father or lost a parent while they played for him. He was just as proud of his players that went on to become doctors and lawyers as he was the ones that played in the NBA.

Majerus was well aware that he was the toughest boss you’d ever have, and knew it made his players stronger when they entered the real world. (His criticism was also an odd form of flattery, as he only excoriated players he thought had real potential; if he never yelled at you, that was generally a sign that your future wasn’t in high-tops.)

Sadly, he was never able to get his own health under control, missing parts of several seasons with heart problems, before having to permanently quit his job at St. Louis University earlier this year. He had large scars on his leg from where doctors once had to transplant arteries from his leg to his heart during a septuple bypass operation. (“One bypass for each food group,” he used to joke.)

The fans never let him forget his weight or his heart problems. (I recall one fan at Weber State yelling “I hope you have a heart attack!” from the stands.) But his late hours of work and long stretches on the road were not conducive to healthy eating. And sadly, that might end up being what he is most known for.

Instead, he should be known as the coach who had only one losing season in 24 years of coaching. He should be known as the coach that took the University of Utah – a place where it is extremely difficult to recruit - to the NCAA Tournament in 10 of the 12 full years he coached them, including nine conference championships. He resurrected programs at both Ball State and St. Louis University, winning NCAA tournament games in both places.

Yet I will always know him as the guy who never hesitated to help families through tough times. When I was four years old, my older sister (and Majerus’ god-daughter) was killed in a camping accident in Northern Wisconsin. When we returned home, he was sitting there in our house, ready to console my parents – nobody even knew how he got in. But he was there to help us, just as he would go on to help people his entire life.

History will never adequately record how great a basketball coach Rick Majerus was. But to the people who were close to him, he was an even better friend. The world will miss his generosity and honesty.

And hopefully, when passing through the gates of Heaven, he finally gets in before Willie Wampum.

Editor's Note: Purple Wisconsin is a collection of community bloggers with views from across the political spectrum. The Journal Sentinel hosts these blogs as a way to encourage thoughtful debate about the important issues facing Wisconsin and the Milwaukee region. The opinions voiced here are those of the individual bloggers alone; they are responsible for their posts. The Journal Sentinel does not edit or direct the bloggers in any fashion.

Christian Schneider is a freelance writer based in Madison and a regular contributor to National Review Online. He holds a master's degree from Marquette University in political science. His op-eds have been featured in The New York Times, New York Post, City Journal Magazine and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.