We've been pretty hard on our Athletic Director, in general. We've derided his lack of grasp for UCLA traditions, such as football shoulder stripes and basketball center-court circles. We've pleaded with him to market the UCLA brand, and we've mocked his lame attempts at doing so.

We've also chided him for being out of touch and for failing to involve others in his decision processes. Well, come to find out, we've misjudged him in at least one instance.

The instance I'm talking about has to do with the replacement of the center-court UCLA block-letter circle with the football-helmet UCLA script. We mocked Dan's hypocrisy at "preserving tradition," while he summarily relegated this symbol of UCLA greatness to comical locations, such as the underbelly of a scoreboard and the floor of a retail shop.

Well, we were wrong about Dan's not listening to others. It has come to my attention that the UCLA script was not Dan's first choice for a new basketball centerpiece. Apparently, some underlings managed to dissuade Dan from his preferred center-court symbol in the new Pauley. We should be grateful that we got the script logo, instead of Dan's first choice: