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Articles
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Did Emmert keep the athletics
program from imploding?
In retrospect, two of his controversial hires, Todd Turner and Tyrone Willingham, may have saved the athletic department from crashing and burning. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that Tyrone Willingham was a questionable fit for Washington when he was hired in December 2004. Notre Dame had allegedly fired him for not winning enough games, and those close to the Irish program said he was a poor recruiter, this in a very competitive environment. Why hire a controversial coach who had been fired from his last job and give him a five-year contract worth $1.4 million per year? On the surface it sounds crazy, but life wasn’t that simple at Washington. Simply put, on the face of it, Willingham seemingly was a public relations hire, as was athletic director Todd Turner – their personas apparently trumping their abilities. Reference the following table for a review of the turbulent era surrounding their hires. Also, reference the appendix below. Table. The scandal-plagued times and a 4-year probationary period that led to the employment of Turner and Willingham. Note that school president Dr. Mark Emmert was hired in April 2004.
We all knew that Keith Gilbertson, who followed Rick Neuheisel as head coach at Washington, would be an interim coach. A prominent bay area sportswriter even told us Gilbertson wasn’t head coaching material. However, the Huskies athletic program had to lie low. It was on probation because of the NCAA violations occurring in the basketball probe, and the outcome of the gambling investigation awaited resolution. It wasn’t the time to bring in a big-name coach or a younger coach with less wisdom. Furthermore, the prescription drug dispensing scandal haunted the athletics program beginning in October 2003 and wasn’t resolved until a UW report was published in April 2004. Because of their built-in aversion to big-time college football and their dwindling revenues, the local media played up the 2003 scandals beyond what was warranted by the facts. In the midst of the reverberation from these episodes, the university hired Dr. Mark Emmert in April of 2004 as its school president. Two months later, he hired Todd Turner to assume the role of Washington's athletic director. Turner came to Washington with a Bachelor of Arts degree in religion and had directed Vanderbilt's athletics program for the previous seven years. His position was dissolved in September of 2003 when the Vanderbilt athletics department was restructured and placed under the direction of the newly-created Office of Student Athletics, Recreation and Wellness. In my opinion, he was hired to clean up the messes that led to the resignation of Barbara Hedges five months earlier. He was well respected by the NCAA and had served the NCAA as chair of the NCAA Management Council's Working Group on Incentives and Disincentives tied to academic performance. In October 2004, the NCAA extended Washington’s probationary period until February 2007 as a result of its investigation of the gambling incidents and, in my opinion, another period of flying under the radar began. Also click on this link. One month later, in the midst of a terrible season, Gilbertson announced his resignation. But still it wasn’t time to bring in a young, enthusiastic coach in the mold of a Steve Sarkisian, say, because of the possibility of incurring more NCAA violations. After all, Neuheisel, 33 years old at the time of his hiring at Colorado, arguably had been too young for the job. The conservative Turner hired Tyrone in December 2004 for his honesty, integrity and the respect he carried at a national level. Parlaying that respect, Willingham was later elected president of the American Football Coaches Association in 2008. And there were those at Notre Dame who said he was unfairly fired, that he was given only three years to accomplish his mission while past coaches at the school had been given five years. Willingham was 65-51-1 when he came to Washington, with two fawning books written about him. In 2002, he was named the Home Depot National coach of the year after his 10-2 regular season record at Notre Dame. Still there were those nagging doubts about Willingham’s coaching competence, the national hoopla notwithstanding. Some fans thought they were being sold a bill of goods; yet, their mouths were mostly muzzled at that time because of Willingham’s national reputation and the fact the NCAA death penalty was a possibility under the light of further shenanigans on the part of Washington. As the miasma clouding the athletic program slowly lifted, thanks partly to the squeaky-clean Willingham, his track record on the field began to surface, sparking wonderment and dismay. Why had he been hired fans wanted to know, forgetting that in some quarters, Washington was known as rogue football program that had “cheated” and apparently had either excused or overlooked criminal conduct on the part of a few of its players in the past. See Victory and Ruins. As the criticism and losses mounted, the proud, taciturn Willingham partially vanished from view, shrouding the football field with a veil of secrecy. Who could have known how he would react to losing and its intense criticism. His 0-12 record from 2008 is indefensible and, perhaps, speaks of neglectful recruiting. Some say the team packed it in after the fourth game of the season when Jake Locker was lost to the season with an injury. Tyrone was given four years to get the job done. He didn’t. On a personal level there isn’t a nicer man; there is no reason for fans to hate him. Back in 2004, the “puritanical” Turner hired a man in his image, and apparently not a fully competent head football coach – although I’m sure Turner thought otherwise. In addition to the clean ship Turner and Willingham skippered, supportive fans hoped to keep the football program from further crumbling under a litany of firings and new coaches. At the conclusion of the 2007 season, which went 4-9, they were willing to give Tyrone one more year. Sometimes you get lucky, but as far as winning goes, the odds were stacked against Willingham, his personal shortcomings being one of them. Ironically, he was a Lisfranc fracture away from going to a bowl game in 2006, thanks to a cadre of Neuheisel recruits led by Isaiah Stanback. There are those who will say that he was the right man for the job, that he was a just an interim coach right along, just as Turner was an interim athletic director, and that both of them righted a sinking ship, which is why they were hired. At the time of Willingham's hiring in late 2004, Washington’s administration and lower campus were still reeling from the scandals of 2003 and the NCAA probation and its extension that would last until February 2007. They had an intense fear of the NCAA, for that reason having jettisoned Neuheisel, and were embarrassed by the gambling, drug-dispensing, basketball and fruit-basket scandals, the latter occurring in 1992/1993. Criticizing Mark Emmert and his search committees for the hiring paths they chose in 2004 ignores past history and a wayward athletics program that was on NCAA probation.
Appendix.
The turbulent era at Washington surrounding the hiring of Turner and
Willingham.
April 27, 2010 -- Mark Emmert resigns as school
president to assume the role of president elect of the NCAA. Richard Linde can be reached at malamute@4malamute.com |
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