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In a dugout in Orem, Kyle Whittingham peeled off his uniform and quit our baseball team.

What does something that happened 36 years ago have to do with current events? A lot, actually. Feeling respected — or not — always has been a big part of Whittingham's game.

My point is not that he's a quitter. Yet after more than four decades of observing him from various vantage points and now trying to process his future as the University of Utah's football coach, I keep coming back to the argument with our Provo American Legion coach and how Whittingham just handed him the uniform and impulsively walked away.

That's not to say he will leave Utah this month, necessarily. But I could see it happening.

Do I believe Ute athletic director Chris Hill has disrespected Whittingham? No. But I believe Whittingham believes so.

That's an important distinction, although it doesn't solve the problem. Hill shouldn't get all of the blame here, but he's caught in a public relations dilemma, choosing not to respond publicly. Whittingham may be overreacting, just as he did that day in Orem, but that's how his mind works.

Whittingham earned a degree from BYU in educational psychology. I took intro psychology classes from a high school wrestling coach and an eccentric Utah State professor, and claim to be an expert on the subject.

Whittingham is an intriguing personality study. To me, he's a classic case of an athlete and coach who has thrived to a certain degree on being written off, underestimated or challenged. But when the condition becomes what he perceives as disrespect, which is part of the Fred Whittingham Sr. family DNA, that's another matter.

The dots are pretty easy to connect. In his BYU football career, Whittingham was an undersized, overachieving linebacker who became the Western Athletic Conference defensive player of the year. He played fullback as freshman before establishing himself as one of the most productive defensive players in school history, even without NFL size.

He's well established now at age 55, but his coaching career never has been easy, either. Whittingham's full-time employment began during an 0-11 season at Idaho State and five more losing years followed with the Bengals, until he joined the Utah staff. Each of his first three seasons as the Utes' head coach required a salvage operation after slow starts. Whittingham did some of his best work in those years, responding very well to tough times and all the criticism that came with them.

He's always used such situations to his advantage, getting his players to join in the fight. We all decried Whittingham's onside-kick call against Wyoming with a 43-0 lead in 2007 as his response to the opposing coach's "guarantee" of a win, but maybe that's missing the bigger point. The way the Utes performed in building that lead shouldn't be overlooked, rallying behind their coach who felt personally offended. It all worked in Utah's favor.

That story illustrates how there's such a fine line with Whittingham. He motivated himself and everyone else in the program this past season, amid the pressure created by two losing years and Hill's decision to not extend the contracts of the holdover assistant coaches.

That is sound business practice on Hill's part; any athletic director in the country would make that choice. But in knowing how Whittingham's mind works, I understand how he might view that stance, and how it would affect his relationship with Hill. I also believe he would take another job only if his new employer is scheduled to face Utah every year.

So the program may be disrupted, even beyond the required replacement of offensive and defensive coordinators. Those vacancies may reflect both the difficulty and demands of working for Whittingham and some uncertainty about his future.

Everyone's waiting for Whittingham to say something about his status, particularly those of us who remember him as a high school sportswriter known for using big words and clever phrases. Whittingham moved on to greater academic pursuits after his junior year. I followed him on the newspaper staff and never left.

After he quit the Legion team, one of the lineup combinations that filled his vacancy as a power-hitting outfielder included me, batting ninth and playing second base when Kevin King pitched. So that makes two times in history when it could be said that I replaced Kyle Whittingham in an important job.

My pledge: That's not happening ever again.

Twitter: @tribkurt