Job openings give many coaches more security

Sporting News, The, Dec 25, 1995 by Ivan Maisel

Head coaches love when a prominent job becomes available. Even if they don't get it, or have no interest it, they use it to get an extension from their current employers or to reaffirm their value in the public mind.

To paraphrase Spencer Tracy in "Pat and Mike," there haven't been many openings, but what's there is cherce (that's choice in New Yorkese). Georgia remains a subject of great speculation, and entering the week, UCLA had an opening for the first time in two decades. Terry Donahue took his record for Pacific-10 Conference career victories (98), his 3-1 record in the Rose Bowl and his five consecutive victories over Southern California to CBS, where he will become the lead analyst with Jim Nantz.

The next day, Rick Neuheisel cited his commitment to Colorado and turned down the chance to return to his alma mater. Two days after that, Mike Belloti, the unknown but suddenly hot coach who led Oregon to a 9-2 record this season, received a multi-year contract extension. The funny thing is that Belloti replaced Rich Brooks, who for years had been considered the heir apparent to Donahue in Westwood. Neither will be coaching at UCLA

Don't forget Lou Holtz dropped hints about the Georgia job before receiving his new "life-time" contract at Notre Dame. And Northwestern Coach Gary Barnett, who dismissed a question from ESPN about job vacancies by answering, "I am a Northwestern Wildcat," woke up the next morning and went to see Vince Dooley at Georgia. Dooley says Barnett made the first direct contact between the two.

The whole dance is a refreshing reminder. Though college football is a nine-figure business that depends upon allegiance and emotion to keep the cash registers ringing, it is a business.

Now then, where were we? Donahue kept his final decision so secretive, UCLA sports-information director Marc Dellins prepared two releases for the news conference last week. "I didn't really think I would retire," says Donahue 51. "I thought I would coach another five or six years and then get into TV work. But the opportunity (was) there."

In fact, Donahue's first discussion with CBS came last spring, and his friends in the coaching profession, among them John Cooper of Ohio State and John Robinson of Southern California, say they sensed restlessness on Donahue's part for the last year.

He has no time to wet his feet. He will coach in the Aloha Bowl, then fly to El Paso to work the Sun Bowl, then work the national-championship showdown at the Fiesta Bowl.

Donahue is getting a taste of his own medicine. After all, he threw freshman quarterback Cade McNown into the starting fineup with no hesitation this season. McNown performed well. Donahue probably will, too.

Moment in the sun

Hawaii made an inspired choice in hiring Colorado defensive assistant coach Fred vonAppen to replace Bob Wagner. A veteran assistant who worked for Bill Walsh during his tenures with Stanford and the 49ers, vonAppen is a hard-nosed coach and a man with an appreciation for education. He is an avid book collector and delights in reading poetry as well as the classics. According to "Rough Magic,' Lowell Cohn's excellent account of Walsh's 1992 season at Stanford, vonAppen would pepper handouts to his players with quotes from great works.

He is an unusual man. And as vonAppen himself told Cohn, that may be a good sign. In discussing Walsh, vonAppen said, "I've been around some distinguished coaches, Frank Broyles, Lou Holtz, and I've noticed there's a fine line between greatness and the guy being right on the verge of loony."

Wrong righted

Lowell Cohn also quoted vonAppen as saying an error isn't a mistake unless it goes uncorrected. That would apply to California and its hiring of Steve Mariucci to replace Keith Gilbertson. In 1991, Cal hired Gilbertson, a successful I-AA head coach and at that time the offensive coordinator at Washington, instead of Mariucci, then the Golden Bears' offensive coordinator Cal went steadily downhill under Gilbertson. Mariucci went to Green Bay and helped develop Brett Favre into one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.

This time, Mariucci made the final two, and won out over Notre Dame defensive coordinator Bob Davie. No one knows whether Davie, who as recently as three years ago turned down the head-coaching job at Baylor, would have said yes. But it's obvious from the performance of an outmanned Irish defense, and from the way he held Notre Dame together in the medical absence of Lou Holtz, that Davie is ready to be a head coach.

Cotton notes

The latest from the lyrical mind of Colorado Coach Rick Neuheisel, sung at a news conference to promote the Buffaloes' Cotton Bowl game against Oregon: "Way down yonder in the land of cotton, Kansas State is now forgotten, here we come, here we come, here we come, Cotton Bowl." Beside being the first politically correct lyric applied to "Dixie" in the last 30 years -- and being a nice dig at those Wildcats -- Neuheisel's tunesmithing highlights the fact Cotton Bowl officials are worried the bowl may be forgotten. The first game without a team from Texas or Arkansas since January 1, 1940, when Clemson beat Boston College, 6-3, is being met without great excitement in Dallas. Of course, the entire Southwest Conference died because it met without great excitement in Dallas, but that's another story.