Lute Olson Receives Honorary Degree From Joe Sweeney’s Alexander Hamilton Evening Law School

• Joe Sweeney, Dean of the Alexander Hamilton Evening Law School

Former UA basketball coach Lute Olson stopped by the annual Christmas party of the Alexander Hamilton Evening Law School to receive an honorary law degree on Saturday, Dec. 18.

The Alexander Hamilton Evening Law School is an unorthodox legal institution created and run by Joe Sweeney, the perennial congressional candidate who regularly campaigns against illegal immigration. (For more on Sweeney’s law school and political background, you can click here.)

Sweeney says he was delighted to have Olson as a guest at the school.

“We wanted him last year and he had to put it off, so we got it this year,” Sweeney says.

Olson joins what Sweeney calls the “elite group of the Alexander Hamilton Evening Law School,” whose honorary graduates include Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Ted Turner, Paul Newman and John Kromko.

Sweeney says finding students for the Alexander Hamilton Evening Law School can be challenging.

“These kids are all hooked on the cyberspace,” Sweeney says. “I tell them, ‘Look, you’ve got to have an outline. You can’t just go to the phone book and look at the Yellow Pages. You’ve got to have some depth.'”

This article appears in Dec 16-22, 2010.