It was the day Nolan Richardson's outspoken ways finally caught up with him.

With a hard-driving personality and an unyielding will to succeed against the odds, Richardson had risen to national championship prominence, fabulous wealth and historic importance in an era when opportunities for black coaches were scarce everywhere, especially the South.

But Friday, Richardson's contract was bought out for $3 million, ending his term as basketball coach of the University of Arkansas, the school he delivered three Final Fours and the 1994 NCAA title to. It was not his team's 13-14 season that did him in, but his strong comments about race relations at the school and in the state.

Nolan Richardson wanted to stay on as coach but Arkansas wanted him gone.(AP)

Arkansas assistant Mike Anderson will coach the Razorbacks on Saturday against Vanderbilt.

"This action was taken after Richardson expressed his desire, publicly and privately, for the University to buy out his contract and after offering him an opportunity to retire," the school said in a statement.

The early evening decision capped a seven-day stretch that saw Richardson dare the school to buy him out, blow up local media and fans, claim he was unappreciated because of his race and finally stage an 11th hour fight to stay at the helm.

That battle was too little, too late.

"We are grateful to Coach Richardson for his many contributions to the program over his tenure," UA athletic director Frank Broyles said. "We believe it is time for a change in leadership for the best interest of the basketball program."

The questions are many, and coaches throughout the nation, both close to and distant from Richardson, are buzzing about what could have caused the trailblazing coach to effectively create his own demise.

Was it a calculated maneuver, an emotional slip of the tongue or a miscalculation of the reaction his comments would cause from Little Rock to Los Angeles?

Richardson, always an outspoken, free-thinking man, had been saying many of the same things for years, but never before had they been this direct, none attracted this much attention.

The genesis of the controversy dates back to Richardson's comments following a Feb. 23 loss to Kentucky. There, unprovoked and unasked by media, he declared while discussing the pressures on UK coach Tubby Smith, "If they go ahead and pay me my money, they can take the job tomorrow."

For a coach who would declare Thursday on the SEC media teleconference he wanted to remain in charge of the Razorbacks -- and who, according to a source with knowledge of his Thursday meeting with chancellor John A. White and AD Broyles, turned down a $3 million buyout offer -- it was a curious thing to bring up without provocation.

Many of his coaching friends believed Richardson was looking for a way out. Another friend thinks Richardson caught wind of a movement within the athletic department's fundraising arm, the Razorback Foundation, to raise $3 million to buy out the contract before the loss to UK.

The accuracy of either theory is not immediately known, but the fan magazine Hawgs Illustrated reported Wednesday afternoon that the athletic department had already raised the $3 million, which seems like an exceptionally quick accumulation of funds if the decision to do so didn't occur until Monday or Tuesday.

What truly did Richardson in, however, were his strong comments Monday, where he criticized the school for treating him differently because he is black, hammered Arkansas fans for not appreciating him because of his race, declared all of the media in the state weren't fair to him because they were white and stated that Fayetteville a less-than-desirable place for black student-athletes to live.

Immediately, a sizeable portion of fan sentiment turned against Richardson. This wasn't the frustration of a 13-14 season but anger at Richardson for implying loyalists were racists. The national media focus that came down on this southern state caused Arkansas residents to once again defend their beliefs on race.

For fans who regularly pack 19,000-seat Bud Walton Arena and supported Richardson as a coach even 17 years ago, when no other Southern school would hire a black coach, that hurt.

Meanwhile, the school had had enough. According to a source within the administration, higher-ups believed the public relations damage to the university overall and the athletic department in particular was considerable and would hurt the future recruitment of black athletes and students.

Others were offended that Richardson had forgotten the school gave him his first chance at the big-time when no one else would, paid him $1.03 million per year with a six-year rollover contract and provided him with all of the facilities and budgets of the nation's elite programs.

Richardson tempered many of those comments following the Razorbacks' loss Wednesday to Mississippi State and made some tactical apologies, but he couldn't put the genie back into the bottle.

So after 389 victories and 14 NCAA Tournament appearances in Fayetteville, chancellor White and athletic director Broyles tried to buy Richardson out at a meeting Thursday, a source close to Richardson said. Richardson rejected it and tried to negotiate a way to return next season.

"I enjoy where I am," Richardson said Thursday on the SEC media teleconference. "I've worked extremely hard. We've got a good recruiting class coming in next year. I had made those promises to the families, and so my interest has always been high in coaching. At this point, I still love the game."

Friday he was effectively fired.

The suddenness of the demise of the trailblazing, spectacularly successful coach is stunning. Richardson, 60, climbed his way up the coaching ladder starting at an El Paso, Texas, high school and moved to Western Texas Junior College and the University of Tulsa before coming to UA in 1985.

While the Razorbacks have struggled this season, they have reached 13 of the past 14 NCAA Tournaments and as recently as 2000 were the SEC Tournament champions. But recent results -- no trips to the Sweet 16 since 1996 -- did not compare with Richardson's nationally prominent teams in the early and mid 1990s.

Part of that is because much around Richardson had changed.

In the last half decade, basketball has become a fiercely competitive sport in the SEC, a league where Arkansas was once one of the few schools truly committed to the sport. Today, both victories and recruits are more difficult to come by throughout the South.

Richardson's success as a black coach in the South also helped the hiring of other African-Americans, a wonderful legacy but one that weakened a recruiting trump card.

In the end, however, Richardson would have been powerful enough to hold off any threats on his job, his past success, as he had argued, enough to survive a down season on the court.

It was his decision to talk boldly and loudly, perhaps more boldly and loudly than ever, that did him in. Ever a no-apologies, strong-minded man, he went too far, offended too many Monday to survive.