Post by elp525 on Jun 11, 2009 5:03:45 GMT -5
June 10, 2009
By Dave Hickman
Staff writer
MORGANTOWN - Rich Rodriguez admits that over the course of the past 18 months he's probably made more than a few mistakes. On the long laundry list of those for which many West Virginians might like an explanation, though, this one ranks pretty far down the list, even for me.
"Someone was asking me about regrets and if I had any,'' Rodriguez said. "And I got to thinking that one of the things I still feel bad about is that the day [he announced he was going to Michigan], I remember seeing you in the hallway and telling you I'd call you later and I never did. So I thought I would.''
And so, out of the blue, my phone rang just before noon Wednesday, just as I was signing over a good part of my shrinking net worth to get the wife and kids into Idlewild Park up near Latrobe, Pa.
"Oh, that's a great place,'' Rodriguez said. "I remember going there six or seven years ago and my kids loved it.''
It was as if nothing had changed at all. Well, except for that whole ugly divorce from his home state that Rodriguez engineered.
"Let's just say it's not been the most fun year of my life,'' he said.
Indeed, for West Virginians it was no fun, either.
Let's be honest here. Perhaps you're in the camp that considers Rich Rodriguez a traitorous piece of slime and that West Virginia's football program is better off without him, no matter how many wins and how much notoriety he brought.
Or maybe you're of the school that says WVU was stupid to let the guy go and that bungling mismanagement is where the wrath should be directed.
No matter which side of the fence you're on, however, the undeniable truth is still that the whole episode was agonizing. And messy. And, for the most part, just plain ugly.
"It was painful last year and it's still painful now,'' Rodriguez said. "But I still have to be honest and say that I'm glad I did it. That's nothing against West Virginia or anyone there, but I felt the time was right. I just wish it hadn't gotten so personal.''
Well, now that's the thing, isn't it? It's hard not to make it personal when you're talking Rodriguez and West Virginia because it always seemed personal. And we're talking about before it all blew up.
Perhaps more than anything else - more than the bitter fight over Rodriguez's $4 million buyout, more than the sniping back and forth in depositions - at the heart of what bothers West Virginians so much about Rodriguez's departure was that it seemed like he couldn't get out soon enough.
Here was a native son who had done wonders for the program and taken it to heights it had never before been able to maintain so long. He was given more and more money, bigger and better contracts and virtually everything else he ever asked for, at least right up until someone drew a line in the sand at the end. And all along he professed his loyalty to the school and state he loved.
Now, leaving after all of that isn't so unusual. Let's face it, coaches do it all the time. Had Rodriguez simply been another of those opportunists, well, he still would have been vilified here, but it would have passed.
The problem was that Rodriguez, as it was later laid out there for all to see in those ugly depositions, had seemingly never stopped looking. If it wasn't Alabama the year before it was his agent, Mike Brown, throwing out Florida State and Texas A&M and almost any other potential opening to create leverage for his client. In retrospect it all seemed not just greedy, but pathological in a way.
Rodriguez won't deny that Brown was always on the lookout for bigger and better deals, and that probably doesn't set well in most corners. But when push came to shove on the job for which he did wound up leaving West Virginia, his agent wasn't even around all that much.
"Mike Brown wasn't involved in this situation almost at all,'' Rodriguez said. "Now the Alabama thing, yeah, he orchestrated that. But the Michigan thing happened so quickly that it was basically just me and them. I had to make a decision and it was a hard one to make, but I did what I felt was best for me and my family, and not because someone was out there looking for a job for me.''
Of course, nothing Rodriguez will say from now until he and everyone else involved are old and gray is ever likely to change perceptions. You either love the guy or hate him, and most West Virginians hate him. There's nothing he can do or say about that to change it, so why even ask him the questions?
"I probably should have tried to answer everything people brought up about me when it came up, but there's nothing I can do about that now,'' he said.
So Rodriguez will continue to move on and some day, if he can start avoiding references to his split with West Virginia, maybe West Virginians will forget it, too.
"It's amazing how similar a situation I'm in now as to what I was in at West Virginia when I started,'' Rodriguez said. "Back then I was working in a great place, taking over for a coach who had taken the program to an unprecedented level, the first year we struggled and then it kind of took off. I'm hoping it takes off here, too, but I don't know how many times I want to do this.
"And look at what West Virginia has done. It looks to me like they've completely moved on. They're building a championship program there.''
Despite the fact that he still owns a home out on Cheat Lake that he hasn't been able to sell, Rodriguez doesn't come back to the state often, although he was here over Memorial Day and plans to come home for his father's 70th birthday this summer. And it's not likely he's going to be spending much of his free time here, either, given the climate - not the weather, but the climate toward him.
He hopes that will change some day, but Rodriguez isn't holding his breath yet.
"I had seven great years there. Well, OK, maybe not the first, but six great years there,'' he said. "Eventually I think I'd like to be remembered for that and not for leaving or how I left. Maybe some day.''
By Dave Hickman
Staff writer
MORGANTOWN - Rich Rodriguez admits that over the course of the past 18 months he's probably made more than a few mistakes. On the long laundry list of those for which many West Virginians might like an explanation, though, this one ranks pretty far down the list, even for me.
"Someone was asking me about regrets and if I had any,'' Rodriguez said. "And I got to thinking that one of the things I still feel bad about is that the day [he announced he was going to Michigan], I remember seeing you in the hallway and telling you I'd call you later and I never did. So I thought I would.''
And so, out of the blue, my phone rang just before noon Wednesday, just as I was signing over a good part of my shrinking net worth to get the wife and kids into Idlewild Park up near Latrobe, Pa.
"Oh, that's a great place,'' Rodriguez said. "I remember going there six or seven years ago and my kids loved it.''
It was as if nothing had changed at all. Well, except for that whole ugly divorce from his home state that Rodriguez engineered.
"Let's just say it's not been the most fun year of my life,'' he said.
Indeed, for West Virginians it was no fun, either.
Let's be honest here. Perhaps you're in the camp that considers Rich Rodriguez a traitorous piece of slime and that West Virginia's football program is better off without him, no matter how many wins and how much notoriety he brought.
Or maybe you're of the school that says WVU was stupid to let the guy go and that bungling mismanagement is where the wrath should be directed.
No matter which side of the fence you're on, however, the undeniable truth is still that the whole episode was agonizing. And messy. And, for the most part, just plain ugly.
"It was painful last year and it's still painful now,'' Rodriguez said. "But I still have to be honest and say that I'm glad I did it. That's nothing against West Virginia or anyone there, but I felt the time was right. I just wish it hadn't gotten so personal.''
Well, now that's the thing, isn't it? It's hard not to make it personal when you're talking Rodriguez and West Virginia because it always seemed personal. And we're talking about before it all blew up.
Perhaps more than anything else - more than the bitter fight over Rodriguez's $4 million buyout, more than the sniping back and forth in depositions - at the heart of what bothers West Virginians so much about Rodriguez's departure was that it seemed like he couldn't get out soon enough.
Here was a native son who had done wonders for the program and taken it to heights it had never before been able to maintain so long. He was given more and more money, bigger and better contracts and virtually everything else he ever asked for, at least right up until someone drew a line in the sand at the end. And all along he professed his loyalty to the school and state he loved.
Now, leaving after all of that isn't so unusual. Let's face it, coaches do it all the time. Had Rodriguez simply been another of those opportunists, well, he still would have been vilified here, but it would have passed.
The problem was that Rodriguez, as it was later laid out there for all to see in those ugly depositions, had seemingly never stopped looking. If it wasn't Alabama the year before it was his agent, Mike Brown, throwing out Florida State and Texas A&M and almost any other potential opening to create leverage for his client. In retrospect it all seemed not just greedy, but pathological in a way.
Rodriguez won't deny that Brown was always on the lookout for bigger and better deals, and that probably doesn't set well in most corners. But when push came to shove on the job for which he did wound up leaving West Virginia, his agent wasn't even around all that much.
"Mike Brown wasn't involved in this situation almost at all,'' Rodriguez said. "Now the Alabama thing, yeah, he orchestrated that. But the Michigan thing happened so quickly that it was basically just me and them. I had to make a decision and it was a hard one to make, but I did what I felt was best for me and my family, and not because someone was out there looking for a job for me.''
Of course, nothing Rodriguez will say from now until he and everyone else involved are old and gray is ever likely to change perceptions. You either love the guy or hate him, and most West Virginians hate him. There's nothing he can do or say about that to change it, so why even ask him the questions?
"I probably should have tried to answer everything people brought up about me when it came up, but there's nothing I can do about that now,'' he said.
So Rodriguez will continue to move on and some day, if he can start avoiding references to his split with West Virginia, maybe West Virginians will forget it, too.
"It's amazing how similar a situation I'm in now as to what I was in at West Virginia when I started,'' Rodriguez said. "Back then I was working in a great place, taking over for a coach who had taken the program to an unprecedented level, the first year we struggled and then it kind of took off. I'm hoping it takes off here, too, but I don't know how many times I want to do this.
"And look at what West Virginia has done. It looks to me like they've completely moved on. They're building a championship program there.''
Despite the fact that he still owns a home out on Cheat Lake that he hasn't been able to sell, Rodriguez doesn't come back to the state often, although he was here over Memorial Day and plans to come home for his father's 70th birthday this summer. And it's not likely he's going to be spending much of his free time here, either, given the climate - not the weather, but the climate toward him.
He hopes that will change some day, but Rodriguez isn't holding his breath yet.
"I had seven great years there. Well, OK, maybe not the first, but six great years there,'' he said. "Eventually I think I'd like to be remembered for that and not for leaving or how I left. Maybe some day.''
