Player's jump comes with sticky landing.

Byline: Ron Bellamy The Register-Guard

Not that she doesn't have other things to worry about now - losing an exhibition game will do that to a coach - but Bev Smith had to have been upset about the recent chain of events involving forward Kristen Forristall.

To recap, Forristall left the UO women's basketball program on the day of the Ducks' first exhibition game - which Oregon won - almost two weeks ago.

She'd been at Oregon's practice that morning, then wasn't at the game that night, leading to speculation that she learned she wasn't in the starting lineup and took that as the last straw in what she later described as "irreconcilable differences" with Smith, her coach.

The timing wasn't the greatest, given that the Ducks were already depleted by the loss of center Gabe Richards, who returned to Australia for personal reasons, and could scarcely afford to lose another player who had accepted a scholarship for the coming season.

But, playing a college sport is a huge commitment of time, energy and emotion, and if the situation was intolerable for Forristall and she believed she was being treated unfairly - or if she simply came to the difficult and sad decision that this was no longer what she wanted from her college athletic experience - who are we to say otherwise?

The following Monday, Forristall formally announced that she was quitting the Oregon basketball team. And a day later, volleyball coach Jim Moore offered her a spot on his roster, effective immediately.

There was lots of background. Forristall was a standout prep volleyball player at Oregon City High School, she worked at the Oregon volleyball camp last summer, and she's developed a rapport with the Oregon volleyball players. She wanted to play both sports this year - and would have been part of the team even before this amazing breakthrough campaign - but postponed that because Smith wanted her to focus on basketball in anticipation of a major role in Oregon's more up-tempo offense.

If she's that good in volleyball, you can't blame Moore for getting her on board before she transfered elsewhere, though a suitable period of sympathy for his colleague might have been longer than one day.

See, by immediately offering Forristall a volleyball spot, Moore and the athletic department appear to send a message, however unintentionally, that her feelings in regard to the basketball coach were justified.

Or, at least, that they really don't care that she just quit the basketball team if that can help volleyball.

Many UO non-revenue sports share a corner of the Cas Center roughly the size of your spare bedroom - Smith and Moore report to senior associate AD Renee Mack Baumgartner - so this is going to make for some interesting pass-bys, not to mention a frosty climate around the punch bowl at the Oregon staff Christmas party.

In a quest for damage control, Oregon athletic director Bill Moos said Tuesday he's met individually over the past two days with Smith, Moore and Forristall.

He's mulling over whether it's appropriate, and potentially an unwise precedent, to allow Forristall to compete in volleyball immediately given her abrupt departure from the basketball team and the potential impact of a new player on the chemistry of a volleyball team fighting for a berth in the NCAA Tournament. Alternatives include allowing her to simply practice now with the team, with two weeks left in the regular season, or not at all until spring conditioning drills.

Presumably, Moos will, at some point, also find out for himself why a player who came to Oregon with Forristall's star credentials in basketball would walk away from that program two years later.

Moos said he will announce his decision today.

Athletes leave programs every year, for many reasons.

Forristall may have left a sport in which she was a bench-warmer last season for one in which she could be a star.

But the right thing, in this situation, would have been for Oregon administrators to negotiate a transition to volleyball for next season, not this one.

Meanwhile, things were already difficult for the women's basketball program, though that's Smith's responsibility, not Forristall's. Nor Moore's.

Given the circumstances, and Smith's history with former Oregon players Shaquala Williams and Brandi Davis, a former in-state star like Forristall leaving the program at this juncture was going to be highly sensitive for the coach and the program, period.

That being said, Smith got her nose rubbed in this, and Oregon owed her better than that.