Will Wade had to know it would end with him receiving a “Dear Will” letter and a pink slip.

He had to realize it on April 14, 2019, when he agreed to an amended contract so he could resume duties as LSU’s head men’s basketball coach following his almost 1½-month suspension for refusing to speak to LSU administration after he was discovered with aspiring agent Christian Dawkins on FBI wiretaps discussing buying prospects.

The amended contract said the university could fire him with cause for merely being named in alleged NCAA Level 1 rules violations whether they prove to be true or not.

LSU President William Tate IV said as much when he nailed Wade and assistant Bill Armstrong to the cross, firing both coaches Saturday after their names were sprinkled among the eight alleged Level 1 rules violations in the Notice of Allegations LSU received early this week from the CCU of the NCAA’s Independent Accountability Resolution Process (IARP).

“Our decision to terminate Coach Wade and Coach Armstrong is not an acknowledgement of agreement with any of the allegations,” Tate and athletic director Scott Woodward said in their public “Dear Will” letter on the LSU athletics website. “The University will determine its positions on the allegations after an exhaustive and objective examination of the relevant facts and applicable NCAA regulations.”

The timing of the firing is curious coming the day before LSU will receive a bid to play in the NCAA tournament for a third time in Wade’s five seasons, something never accomplished by any other LSU hoops coach in history.

Sadly, the 39-year old Wade might be the only major college head basketball coach ever fired the day before his team earns an NCAA tourney at-large bid.

“We can no longer subject our University, Department of Athletics, and—most importantly—our student-athletes, to this taxing and already-lengthy process without taking action,” said Tate/Woodward in the “Dear Will” missive. “Our responsibility to protect and promote the integrity and well-being of our entire institution and our student-athletes will always be paramount.”

The bottom line is Wade had to know he and Armstrong were doing whatever it took for LSU basketball to suddenly become seriously considered by five and four-star prospects. The sad part is what was illegal even a year ago – a coach putting together a financial package to buy a player’s scholarship signature – is legal now under the NCAA’s new NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) rule that took effect last June.

All a coach has to do to directly divest himself of a direct financial arrangement is to let a rich, enthusiastic booster know through a conduit what players that coach is trying to sign and how much money it may take.

The NIL rules are so wide open that an athlete being signed to an NIL deal can do something as simple as wearing a “Gordon Gets It Done!” T-shirt to get paid as several LSU athletes already do by Baton Rouge attorney Gordon McKernan.

Also, since LSU football was also tagged with a couple of NCAA rules violations for which the school already penalized itself a year ago near the end of the 2020 COVID season, Wade is a convenient sacrificial lamb. His firing is a not-so-subtle message to the NCAA from LSU that the school appears earnest in its effort to completely drain the swamp.

The shame of all this was Wade’s program was headed in the right direction.

In his last four recruiting classes (2019 through 2022) while supposedly being scrutinized by the NCAA after the FBI tapes went public, Wade signed four 5-star and six 4-star recruits not to mention plucking three players from the transfer portal including 2022 SEC Sixth Man of the Year Tari Eason.

The Tigers’ 48 SEC wins in the last four seasons tied for the second most victories by a league team in that period.

Though he never played basketball in high school or college, Wade began learning the coaching business as a student manager as a Clemson University freshman in 2002. Twelve years later at age 31, he became a NCAA Division I head coach at Chattanooga. Then at age 33, he took over as head coach at Virginia Commonwealth and two years later at LSU when was just 35 years old.

Wade has always been on a fast track. Maybe that was why he amended his contract even though he knew he broke recruiting rules as they existed at the time. Maybe he wanted to bank three years of salary before his career went over the edge of a cliff like a flaming wagon.

LSU also could have fired him anytime in the past three years but didn’t. Possibly because the school would have had to pay the remainder of his contract (which is required when firing without cause) or maybe they let Wade improve the program for the next coach.

The Wade-LSU relationship sounds like a lyric from Bob Seger’s first and biggest hit, “Night Moves," that said: “I used her, she used me but neither one cared, we were gettin' our share.”