There is a problem on this campus, and that problem is a coach.

This coach has turned in the same kind of results season after season after season, making basketball fans ashamed of their teams, and yet we stand idly by. With every passing year, this coach’s actions have made the Welsh-Ryan faithful re-evaluate the standard by which they determine success, and no longer can we allow such mental anguish to prosper.

It’s time to make a stand. It’s time to fire Kelly Amonte Hiller.

This so-called “champion” has done nothing but raise hopes and expectations since arriving in Evanston seven years ago. With the athletic department standing pat as the basketball teams’ records continued to worsen, I assumed it would take action when a coach started winning.

Northwestern must be looking for a way to oust the four-time American Lacrosse Conference coach of the year, if only to restore the natural order that basketball fans have come to expect.

But when I asked Amonte Hiller about this, she said, “I think that the reception by people around the university has been really positive. I’ve never really heard that (I should be fired).”

Things started out right for Amonte Hiller’s Wildcats, posting a 13-18 record over their first two years as a Division I squad. But then something terrifying happened: They started getting better.

In 2004, Amonte Hiller’s third season, NU went 15-3 and made the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament. Such “improvement” was new and confusing for Cats hoops fans. The low point came in year four, when Amonte Hiller led NU to a perfect 21-0 season and won the national championship.

She has since captured two more crowns, bringing the total to three-straight, while compiling a 73-2 record since 2005. Now, the Cats are 11-0, ranked No. 1 in the country and the overwhelming favorite to earn their fourth title in as many years.

“We do expect to win every time we step out on the field,” Amonte Hiller said.

How are the basketball teams supposed to deal with an attitude like that?

Think about it: there may be graduating seniors who have witnessed an NCAA championship every single spring they spent at NU. People actually expect the Cats to win the national title.

Over the same period, the men’s basketball team has gone 50-71, including a mark of 8-22 in 2007-08. In coach Bill Carmody’s eight seasons at NU, he has shown season-to-season improvement just once – from 2000-01 to 2001-02 – and made a grand total of zero NCAA tournaments, let alone won a title.

Or three.

Then there’s women’s basketball, which is 24-95 under Beth Combs over the past four years and this season ended on a 1-19 skid.

Amonte Hiller’s crew has won 32 straight games. I’m just saying…

Lacrosse’s brilliance may make basketball look embarrassing by comparison, but you won’t hear Amonte Hiller talking about that.

She even praised Carmody and Combs, defending her colleagues by saying, “I think it is a lot harder to come into a program where there is a culture then to start a culture” as she has.

So how can we amend this total disregard for NU basketball? Why, by firing the one person at the root of it all: Kelly Amonte Hiller.

OK, so maybe the solution isn’t firing Amonte Hiller. Maybe it’s making sure her attitude spreads to the basketball program so it might see the success that has befallen women’s lacrosse, women’s tennis, men’s swimming, men’s soccer, softball and wrestling.

Or we could just fire her and avoid that whole ordeal. Yeah, let’s go ahead and fire her.

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Assistant sports editor Ben Larrison is a Medill junior, who asks that you please don’t fire Kelly Amonte Hiller. He can be reached at [email protected].