The man who never wanted to be the UCLA coach, at least not this way, continues his unofficial farewell tour of the Pac-10 this weekend, as the Bruins head off to the Arizona desert.

Steve Lavin, winner of one in a row after UCLA's victory at Georgetown last Saturday, said earlier this week he's at peace about one of the most bizarre endings at a high-major job for some time. Unless the Bruins can overtake Washington and/or Oregon State for eighth and earn the last spot for the Pac-10 tournament, Lavin's seven-year tour of duty in Westwood has eight games remaining.

Lavin is privy to the worst-kept secret this side of Joe Millionaire's financial situation. Lavin knows he's out at the end of the season. He won't go on the record that he'll be fired, but he comes close to using the 'F' word in almost every discussion.

	“	It's like the last days of the Clinton White House where I'm going to pardon everyone. I'm approaching every game as if it's the last time somewhere ... This is as good as it gets with a good divorce. ”
		— Steve Lavin, UCLA head coach

Apathy has reigned over UCLA this season. New athletic director Dan Guerrero has already fired football coach Bob Toledo and made a new hire. And Lavin's walking papers appear signed, just not delivered, with the Bruins making history for all the wrong reasons in a 5-14 season.

UCLA had lost nine straight games until its trip to the nation's capital (UCLA's longest since Jackie Robinson was also hooping in the '40s). Barring another late-season miracle by Lavin, the Bruins will finish with program's first losing record since 1947-48 (12-13). At least they won't likely finish with the school's worst season -- that honor goes to Caddy Works' 4-20 group in 1937-38.

All this gives Guerrero the green light to show Lavin the door in March. But, strangely enough, Lavin isn't bitter about the departure. He's seems at ease with it, and the extended stay on the job for the rest of the season has actually allowed him to plan his next step.

"It's like the last days of the Clinton White House where I'm going to pardon everyone," said Lavin, who has obviously kept his sense of humor through the turmoil. "I'm approaching every game as if it's the last time somewhere ... the last time at Haas Pavilion (at Cal), the last time at Mac Court (at Oregon). I've got a lot of good memories and experiences.

"This is a lot different then the (Jim) Harrick situation. There was bitterness. He felt like the rug was pulled out from under him a week before the season."

Harrick, who Lavin coached under for five seasons, was fired in November of 1996 for an expense report issue during a recruiting visit with the Collins twins (Jason and Jarron) who ultimately went to Stanford.

"This is as good as it gets with a good divorce," Lavin said. "I've got such a good relationship with the chancellor that I'm sure I would maintain my friendship. And Dan has come in here and done a great job so there is no bitterness there. I'm really close with a number of people in the department over the last 12 years (as an assistant and head coach). But we're having a difficult season, and UCLA is in a revenue-driven climate."

Lavin's entrance onto the UCLA stage was unique, to say the least. At the time, he seemed like the right guy, in the right place, at the right time.

Former assistant Mark Gottfried had left for Murray State the previous year, and would have been tapped to replace Harrick if he were still on the Bruins' bench. Former assistant Lorenzo Romar left just six month before Harrick was fired, leaving in April of 1996 for Pepperdine. Romar certainly would have been offered the job if he hadn't already packed up and headed off to Malibu. Sources have also confirmed that then-athletic director Pete Dalis tried to convince Romar to leave Pepperdine and take the UCLA job, but Romar wouldn't do that to a school that had given him a chance to be a head coach. Had he left Pepperdine for UCLA, he would have bolted before ever coaching a game for the Waves.

All this left Lavin, who had just been bumped up one of Harrick's top assistants, with the keys to Pauley Pavilion. The interim tag was upgraded mid-season to fulltime on Feb. 11, 1997, with the Bruins owning a 13-7 record and tied for first-place in the Pac-10 with a 7-3 record. Lavin finished that season in the Elite Eight. It would be the first of five trips to the Sweet 16s in six seasons.

"I never planned on coaching at UCLA," Lavin said. "But I couldn't say, 'no'. I thought I would go to USF or Long Beach State or Pepperdine or Cal State-Fullerton and get on that track. But we've had an incredible run here. But there is a lack of a normal life.

"I've had death threats, threats of extortion, the Pitino crisis (more on that later), constant damage control. I look forward to normalcy. We'll see what happens. All you get here is the constant scrutiny of your job and your job status. Harrick has had a normal situation at Rhode Island, at Georgia."

If Lavin made the wrong choice by accepting the interim job in 1996, he says find a coach who wouldn't have done the same. Lavin said no coach, no matter how young (Lavin was 32) would have turned down the chance to be the head coach of UCLA -- even a coach, like Lavin, with no head coaching experience.

"But you can't script life, go back and rewind it," Lavin said. "I'm grateful for all of it. I've learned a lot. But since (John) Wooden left, a year doesn't go by where the headlines aren't about the coaches' job. It dominates the talk radio and it becomes a distraction. The head coach spends so much time managing it and that's why other programs have an edge.

"(But) there is continuity. The most continuity they have had here since Wooden was the last 15 years (eight with Harrick and seven with Lavin, since no other UCLA coach had lasted more than three seasons). The university went on average pulling the plug on the head coach every three years."

Through it all, Lavin considers himself fortunate to have coached on Purdue and UCLA staffs during his 15 years in the business. Even the latest nine-game losing streak gave him even more appreciation for winning.

This season got away from Lavin from the beginning when the school wouldn't admit McDonald's All-American Evan Burns. He eventually got eligible for San Diego State this season. That left the Bruins without an impact freshman for the first time in Lavin's career. The losses to San Diego and Northern Arizona led to the demise of this team, which is young, lacks a true star point guard or big man, but has a core of young players in place for the Bruins to be a decent team in transition next year.

Lavin won't be around for that transition, but he should be fine -- certainly financially in the spring. The Rick Pitino fiasco -- when Dalis courted Pitino two years ago -- helped Lavin get a better buyout. Lavin said it was after that in-season discussion Dalis had with Pitino about the UCLA job (although there were denials at the time that there was any direct discussion on the job, but rather general thoughts on it) that got him a better exit deal.

"The old contracts were when you got fired you got your final year and that's it," said Lavin, who has joked with Gonzaga's Mark Few that he's on the short list with Pittsburgh's Ben Howland, UC Irvine's Pat Douglass and UCSB's Bob Williams as his replacement. "But there was no logic in that because you could be making $700,000 and paying $250,000 in taxes, but then your salary would drop to $150,000 and you still may have to stay in your house and make payments. So that's when they changed the contracts.''

Lavin and Toledo got $1.3 million buyouts put into their deals. Toledo's was exercised and Lavin's will be likely, as well.

"When and if it happens I'm ready for it, but there won't be any bitterness," said Lavin, who ironically has been working out more than ever during this season as a way to cleanse his mind and prepare for the post-UCLA life of less stress. "There would have been if I had lost my job during the Pitino thing. I would have ethically felt violated. I would have had a grudge. But, after that, I was excited to come back for my last two years knowing that I had gone past the average career life span at UCLA."

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.