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wvgirl
 Posted:
Wed Dec 19, 2007 10:49 pm |
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Florida assistant interviews for WVU's head coaching positio
ESPN.com: College Football [Print without images]
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Florida assistant interviews for WVU's head coaching position
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Associated Press
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Florida assistant coach Doc Holliday was back in Gainesville on Wednesday, one day after interviewing for the head job at West Virginia.
Holliday, Florida's safeties coach and associate head coach, met with West Virginia officials about succeeding Rich Rodriguez.
"I went up and talked to them and that's about the extent of it," Holliday said after practice Wednesday. "I've known those guys for a long time and had a chance to spend a little time with them.
"I have no idea [what the status of the search is], to be honest with you. I haven't heard from anybody up there."
Rodriguez left West Virginia to take over at Michigan.
Holliday is a West Virginia native and was a linebacker for the Mountaineers before spending 17 years (1983-99) as an assistant coach under Don Nehlen. Holiday also was a graduate assistant there in 1979-80 and a part-time assistant in 1981-82.
Holliday was an associate head coach and receivers coach at North Carolina State (2000-04) before joining coach Urban Meyer at Florida in 2005.
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| wvgirl
Posted:
Wed Dec 19, 2007 10:50 pm |
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ESPN.com: College Football [Print without images]
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Associate head coach to prepare Mountaineers for Fiesta Bowl
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Associated Press
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- West Virginia associate head coach Bill Stewart was named interim coach as the administration starts looking for a permanent replacement for Rich Rodriguez. Stewart will also take over recruiting.
Stewart is the second-longest serving assistant coach in the program. He was retained by Rodriguez when he replaced Don Nehlen for the 2001 season.
Stewart was promoted to his current title this season and coached special teams and tight ends. He relinquished his role as quarterbacks coach, which he held since 2000.
West Virginia departs Morgantown on Dec. 26 and will face Oklahoma (No. 4 BCS, No. 3 AP) in the Jan. 2 Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Ariz.
Stewart and WVU athletic director Ed Pastilong didn't immediately return telephone messages Tuesday.
Stewart has been an assistant at Marshall, William & Mary, Navy, North Carolina, Arizona State and Air Force. He became head coach at VMI in 1994 and went 8-25 over three seasons.
After a stint in the CFL, he joined the West Virginia staff in 2000.
Rodriguez announced that he wasn't going to coach West Virginia in the bowl game out of concern that it would create too much of a distraction. That would make him the first coach to get a team to the BCS but not coach in it.
To complicate matters for West Virginia, Rodriguez introduced two of his top assistant coaches at his Michigan news conference and said he would like to bring more from Morgantown. Offensive coordinator Calvin Magee declined comment at the news conference on his immediate plans and didn't immediately return a telephone message Tuesday.
Secondary coach and recruiting coordinator Tony Gibson, whose WVU contract runs through June, said he planned to remain with the Mountaineers for the bowl game.
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| wvgirl
Posted:
Wed Dec 19, 2007 10:57 pm |
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The Blame Game and Rich Rodriguez
By Jude
2007/12/19 6:34 pm
In the wake of former WVU Football Coach Rich Rodriguez's stunning and stupefying decision to accept the head coaching position at Michigan, varying accounts of the last hours of Rodriguez's tenure at WVU have surfaced, each shifting the blame for the break-up between the University and Rodriguez, but recent accusations made by boosters with regard to the behavior of the University and its administration are ill-advised, misinformed, and detrimental to the well-being of the WVU football program.
Bob Reynolds, former CEO of Fidelity Investments and big-time West Virginia University donor, placed the blame for Rodriguez's departure squarely on the shoulders of the University in this now-infamous Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article from yesterday.
Quote:
"I tell you what, I've never seen anything mishandled as much as this was. Here's a university that made a $200,000 decision -- it probably could've cost less than that [to keep Mr. Rodriguez] -- and it's going to cost them millions" in booster support, potential bowl money and revenue from football success.
"I've had calls from at least six major contributors to the program, and they're all done [donating] because they know the Mickey Mouse things that have gone on there," Mr. Reynolds continued. "I've been in business 36 years, and it's the worst business decision I've ever seen. I've been the COO of a 45,000-person company. When somebody's producing, you ask, 'What can I do for you to make your life better?' Not 'What can I do to make your life more miserable?' They have no idea how big this is. It's frightening."
Reynolds and others, including Earl G. "Ken" Kendrick Jr., "a part owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks and benefactor to the WVU College of Business and Economics" and Wheeling, W.Va., lawyer Dean Hartley, criticized the University for failing to cave to Rodriguez's new list of demands, made after Rodriguez had flown to Ohio to meet with Michigan officials and obviously holding an offer to become the Wolverines' coach in his pocket.
The article states that the donors all pointed to Rodriguez's key points of re-negotiation, which were made in "separate meetings with Athletic Director Ed Pastilong, Chief of Staff Craig Walker and, finally, late Saturday night with newly installed President Mike Garrison," in which Rodriguez requested:
Quote:
• Allow at least an additional $100,000 in bonus money for his assistants.
• Allow scholarship players to retain possession of textbooks at the end of each term, which meant they could have sold them, as apparently happens at other programs.
• Waive a $5 ticket fee for each high-school football coach attending Mountaineer home games, a fee that generates an estimated $5,000 for the university each season.
• Hire seven graduate assistants and a new recruiting coordinator, to ease the duties performed by secondary coach Tony Gibson.
This list did not include another demand that was made by Rodriguez, included in this Times-West Virginian article, that the University would be forced to build a suite for his wife and family, which was also rejected by the University.
This Post-Gazette article updating yesterday's story with regard to potential donor loss reports that:
Quote:
As of last night, there was an organized group of at least seven West Virginia donors who had informed university administrators that they would no longer make gifts to the school.
Such gifts come with escape clauses, enabling the discontented benefactors to renege on donations already pledged.
Robert Reynolds, a former Fidelity Investments chief operating officer, and Ken Kendrick, part owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, already have withdrawn university-wide donations totaling roughly $12 million, which Mr. Kendrick called "the tip of the iceberg."
For their part, West Virginia University shot back with a press release later yesterday afternoon detailing a statement made by Stephen P. Goodwin, chairman of West Virginia University's Board of Governors, in which Goodwin declares that the University "went to the ends of the earth" to keep Rodriguez happy, including:
- Increasing his salary by 70 percent
- Increasing his assistants’ salaries
- Building a $2 million academic center for the team
- Starting construction on a $6 million locker room renovation
Reynolds closed his statement by saying that:
Quote:
There were some very minor issues that [Rodriguez] raised with the administration – and people were working on them. I think you will agree that the things that are being talked about are pretty minor in comparison to what has been done already.
But he clearly was looking for an excuse to leave—he looked last year and again this year.
But when he went to visit another team and then came back to campus with demands based on those minor issues, University officials simply told him they would continue to work on the issues. He was asked to focus on the student-athletes and the upcoming bowl game. There’s a long off-season coming up to work out those sorts of minor issues. Whoever comes in as coach will know that they can count on support from WVU on big issues and small issues.
Clearly, the University felt that it was at the end of its collective rope. And who could blame them?
"I'm not saying I'm leaving, and I'm not saying I'm staying. All I'm saying is that your situation would look a lot better if I had 500 dollars in my pocket right now."
Listen, we know that the world of collegiate athletics and the contracts signed by coaches is a crazy one. We know that.
But in case some of you have forgotten the recent history of contract negotiations with Mr. Rodriguez, let me re-educate you.
- June 26, 2006- After WVU wins the Sugar Bowl and finishes ranked #5 in the nation, Rodriguez signs a contract extension through the year 2012 following rumors that he is listening to offers from other Universities with regard to their head coaching positions. His salary is increased to over $1 million per season, and his demands of higher salaries for his assistant coaches are met, as well as promises to build a new student center for athletes.
- December 9, 2006- Rodriguez suddenly finds his heart all aflutter with another NCAA team, the Alabama Crimson Tide. Rodriguez goes to administration officials with a head coaching offer from Alabama in his pocket and makes a list of demands, despite signing a contract extension just SIX MONTHS EARLIER. The University steps forward AGAIN and meets those demands by giving Rodriguez another extension (this time through 2013) which includes an astronomical pay increase (up to almost $2 million), fulfilling promises to improve some facilities and begin construction on others, and increasing compensation to assistant coaches even further.
- December 14, 2007- Word leaks that Rodriguez, despite agreeing to a contract extension less than one year ago, has met with Michigan officials to discuss its head coaching vacancy.
- December 15, 2007- Rodriguez AGAIN goes to the administration to re-negotiate his contract, AGAIN holding a head coaching offer from another major football program. The administration tells him that everything he asked for has either been done or will be completed in the future.
- December 16, 2007- Rodriguez is announced as the new head football coach at the University of Michigan.
So to recap, Rodriguez either re-negotiated or attempted to re-negotiate his contract with WVU three times in 18 months, each time with an increasing list of demands. The last two times, he held a definitive offer from another major program as he entered those negotiations, essentially holding a gun to the University's head. "Give me what I want or I walk."
To what extent, exactly, is the University expected to tolerate yearly extortion by a coach during the course of re-negotiating contracts on which the ink hasn't yet dried? At what point is enough... enough?
Clearly, the administration has to walk a fine line with criticizing comments made by donors who contribute to the well-being of the University as a whole, as well as the football program.
But I don't.
Blasting the administration in the print media following Rich Rodriguez's decision to flee to Michigan couldn't possibly be more detrimental to the very interests these boosters claim to have in the program.
What is the purpose of these attacks? To embarrass the University? To ridicule the Athletic Director? Do these donors really think that painting West Virginia University and its administration as "arrogant, mean-spirited and intellectually bankrupt" as Kendrick did in the Post-Gazette will help the school in any way whatsoever, in finding a new head coach or in any other endeavor undertaken by the University in the near future?
And most importantly, do you really think that NOW is the time to withdraw your financial support for the University? They're going to need it more than ever! If these donors hope to sustain excellence both on and off the field at West Virginia University, withdrawing their financial support in its greatest time of need doesn't strike me as the most noble idea in the world.
Obviously, I've never given $12 million to the University. I don't know what its like to place that much of your own hard-earned money into a program and feel like it's going in the wrong direction. But I do know one thing about giving that much money to a university (or anyone, for that matter)- it buys you an open ear. Something tells me that these attacks, issues, and criticisms could have been brought directly to President Garrison and Ed Pastilong's attention without embarrassing the University and its administration publicly in the process.
But that wouldn't get you in the news, would it?
So no, I'm not familiar with what it's like to give that much money to West Virginia University. But I know what it's like to pay it tuition. I know what it's like to pay for season tickets and (much more minimal) Mountaineer Athletic Club donations out of my own hard-earned money.
And I know that trashing the school and its administration because you feel jilted that your precious football coach wasn't allowed to extort his way into his third contract extension in 18 months is just flat-out dumb.
There's no sense in throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
It's too bad that these guys have it the other way around.
Read Jude's weBLog | Comments (19)
An Open Letter to Rich Rodriguez
By Jude
2007/12/17 11:07 pm
Dear Rich Rodriguez,
We don't know each other. I've met you a couple of times at various fan events like the Spring Game and the Coaches' Carousel, but the same could be said for thousands of others. I just thought I'd drop you this letter to let you know specifically what residents of West Virginia and West Virginia University fans think about your decision to leave WVU to become the new head football coach at the University of Michigan.
See, we West Virginians are a prideful bunch. You probably know that, considering you're from here, as is most of your immediate family. And despite the running jokes and insults spewed by stereotyping windbags across the country, we know that what we have here in West Virginia, what we have here with West Virginia University, is special.
We don't expect outsiders to really understand. That's why when John Beilein fled for Michigan a year ago, people largely wrote the experience off to an outsider that was just climbing his own personal coaching ladder. He wasn't from here, he didn't have any intrinsic connection to the program other than as an employer, and he wanted to move on. Before long, a native son risked his career and reputation nationally to leave a great gig at a Big 12 school to take Beilein's place, and the program was made better for it in the long run. We had a guy who wanted to be here more than any other place in the world.
But you, Rich... you were our native son, coaching the most beloved team of them all.
Honor among thieves.
As much as we dislike being spurned by outsiders, we really dislike one of our own sneaking out the back door and leaving our program, our state, in a state of disrepair. You said at your press conference this morning that hopefully we'd understand that you left our program in a better state than you found it. That might be true.
But you didn't mention the fact that you were actively taking steps to harm the program for your own personal benefit by contacting recruits and attempting to talk them out of their commitments already made to WVU. You didn't address the fact that according to Dave Poe of the Parkersburg News and Sentinel, you had your recruiting director contact Josh Jenkins to ask him to renege on his verbal commitment to WVU and follow you to Michigan. The Detroit Free Press is quoting Terrelle Pryor, the No. 1 high school football recruit in America who had previously narrowed his list to WVU and Ohio State, as saying that you called him and asked him to switch to Michigan before you even announced you were Michigan's coach.
Who knows how many other recruits you've already talked to or turned away? That work you were doing recruiting for WVU really represents unearned salary if you're going to travel on the University's dime, get paid for the University's time, and then sabotage your loyal employer to help you win at the next level.
Those aren't your recruits. They don't belong to you.
You also didn't mention the fact that you stand to irreparably harm the program by placing the players in a state of disorder before the second BCS Bowl game in program history. Your former players were going to have a tough task in front of them anyway facing a team that might be playing the best football in the country in the Oklahoma Sooners. Now they get to do that without their head coach. They will have to answer endless questions about you in the weeks leading up to the game. And you have abandoned them.
Even after the debacle against Pitt (which, make no mistake, will be the defining moment of your career as the head coach of the Mountaineers), your former team, the players you recruited, the players you coached, stood a very good chance of starting next season in the Top 5 and poised to make another championship run if they could represent themselves well in the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma. And this isn't to say that they won't, because let's face it, the crop of players that will take the field on January 3 will probably have no problem running your offense even without you. (I mean, how hard can it be at this point for Pat White to run the halfback option and thirteen or fourteen bubble screens?) But there's no way they'll be as focused as they should be. There's no way they can approach this game in a business-like manner. And that's your fault.
You'll have to forgive us as fans for looking at you as a villain. It's certainly understandable, considering that the University gave you as much as it could after your flirtation with Alabama last year, pricing many true fans out of the stadium in the process. Many, like myself, paid for such a salary increase this year with a massive jump in ticket prices that was probably more than many could afford. In a roundabout way, the desire to keep you at West Virginia took money out of my pocket. And it shames me to realize that I thought it was worth it.
But it wasn't enough for you.
And you certainly didn't do yourself any favors by keeping your (now) former President and your former Athletic Director in the dark during your negotiations (which, by all accounts, weren't authorized) with Michigan. This included handing your resignation in to WVU Athletic Director Ed Pastilong after you'd already accepted the Michigan job. And according to this article from the Charleston Daily Mail, you didn't even do it yourself- you had a graduate assistant deliver it.
Maybe there were problems between yourself and the athletic department as has been rumored since your exit, and as reported here, in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Maybe giving you more than they could afford and giving you nearly every facility improvement you asked for wasn't enough for you. But why, then, did you sign a one-year contract extension earlier this year, signing on as the coach of the Mountaineers through 2013? What happened for you in that course of time? (Other than your colossal failure to prepare the team for the Pitt game. We know that happened to you.)
And what of your word?
Just last December, you stated that "When the details come out, you'll see that I'm committed to West Virginia University for a very, very long time." (Source- Previously linked article)
Three weeks ago, you told media outlets that there wouldn't be any coaching carousel in Morgantown this year, saying, "We're not done here ... you're stuck with me."
Shortly after this picture was taken, the two men conducted a seminar on what it's like to lose to your rival in the biggest game of your life.
Fortunately, we in the Mountain State will be just fine, despite your best efforts.
The immediate future for the players of your former team should be solid, as there are plenty of galvanizing forces on the team that will allow them to represent themselves well in the Fiesta Bowl. Patrick White, Owen Schmitt, Eric Wicks, et. al. will see to that. They have too much pride to be defined by their coach's decision to sacrifice the welfare of his team in favor of his own ambitions. They'll play. They'll play hard. And they'll be a source of pride for all of us in Mountaineer Nation.
More generally, WVU football and its fans will be just fine, as well. (Again, not that you're worried about our future. If you were, you wouldn't have put yourself before the team by declaring your departure before a BCS bowl, and you wouldn't be presently trying to talk kids out of their previous commitments to WVU.)
Yes, Michigan is a prestigious program, but so is West Virginia. There will be another successful coach to follow you, and with success both on and off the field, he will be revered in all the ways you used to be. I can say this because WVU isn't the stepping stone to the big time. It is the big time. It was before you, and it will be after you, despite your best efforts to sabotage our immediate future in the process.
Unlike Michigan, there won't be 107,000 fans in the seats in Morgantown next year. We don't have the winningest program in the history of college football at WVU either, though 17th is certainly respectable.
But the 60,000 that will fill Mountaineer Field long after you are gone all understand that what we have at WVU is something special. Something to be very proud of. And we'll keep it that way.
Meanwhile, you're off to Michigan as a mercenary. A hired gun. Make sure to beat Ohio State every year, or they'll run your carpetbagging ass out on a rail after two seasons. You can play 6 degrees of Bo Schembechler all you want, but you won't be given credit for being a home-grown product if you go 28-21 in your first four seasons, as you did at WVU.
You'll be unemployed.
So while Michigan may be a step up the coaching ladder nationally and may be the winningest program of all time, it will never be home.
And now West Virginia won't be either.
Like I said, we West Virginians are a prideful bunch.
Very truly yours,
A Mountaineer Fan
http://www.wemustignitethiscouch.com/modules/weblog/index.php?user_id=2
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