COLUMN: Why leave when other coaches stayed?

By Bob Hertzel

MORGANTOWN — Did someone say we’d heard the last of Rich Rodriguez’s defection to Michigan?

Hardly.

First, there was the matter of how he jumped out of a situation you couldn’t even dream about, having a team at the doorstep of the national championship, having a quarterback groomed to become a Heisman Trophy winner, coaching at home at a school you proposed to love in front of fans who were enraptured with you.

He jumped to Michigan while other Big East coaches, not in that ideal a situation, opted to stay put where they were.

Why?

Take Rutgers’ Greg Schiano, who came to the Scarlet Knights in 2001, just like Rodriguez, and who had built the lowly program into a rising star in college football.

He turned down Michigan before Rodriguez took the job.

Why?

Could it have been because he was coaching at home?

No way, he said at Big East media day.

“Well, it’s great to be home, but if I didn’t think we could be the best in the country, we wouldn’t be here. A house is a house. Eighteen hours a day, you better believe you can be the best,” he said.

The truth is Rodriguez couldn’t feel Michigan was a better opportunity to win a national championship, even though he figures to get more talented players there. He just saw a similar situation through a different prism than did Schiano.

“I’d worked so hard at this thing. I just keep looking and Rutgers is committed to being the best. To do something that’s never been done before in this part of the country, that’s going to be really special. What comes as a result of that is going to be unbelievable.

“We got a little taste of it in ’06. We finished 12th in the country, and you’d have thought we won three national championships. I believe it’s going to happen. To be in the New York metropolitan area, I believe it’s going to be a great thing. I want to be there. I want to be there as head coach, if possible.”

Other Big East coaches also balked at leaving, headed by South Florida’s Jim Leavitt, who turned down Alabama in 2002, and Connecticut’s Randy Edsall, who turned down Georgia Tech, or Brian Kelly of Cincinnati, who also was mentioned among the Michigan candidates.

Why didn’t those coaches leave?

Perhaps Edsall put it best.

“I don’t know if I can go anyplace else that has better facilities than what we have,” said Edsall, who surprised everyone last year by leading UConn to a share of the league title and a 9-4 season. “I just felt there is still a lot of work to be done. I like the area where we are located in Connecticut. My family likes it there.”

But most of all there was a matter that didn’t matter to Rodriguez.

“The University of Connecticut gave me the opportunity to be a head coach, which no other school did, so there’s some loyalty there,” he said.

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Speaking of money — and when you are talking about Rodriguez and loyalty, money has to come into the conversation — WVU should now have in its possession the first installment from the University of Michigan to cover the $4 million liquidated damages he is required to pay for leaving.

The question is whether it will go to the school’s general fund or to the athletic department, a decision that interim president Peter McGrath will have to make.

While the money certainly could do good on the academic side of the budget, the fact of the matter is that the athletic department was where the damages were suffered and therefore should be where the liquidity flows.

The WVU athletic department is independent when it comes to receiving state money through the school. If it turns out that the program does suffer because of Rodriguez’s departure, if the team begins to lose, ticket sales and licensing sales drop, if recruiting falls off because of Rodriguez’s exit, that will directly affect the bottom line of the athletic budget.

Besides, they had to put up with Rodriguez’s ego and meet his demands for seven years.

Considering the renovations that have taken place in the athletic department that has lifted WVU among the best in facilities in the nation, a $4 million payback belongs in the department that could be hurt by losing Rodriguez as much as it was helped by his arrival.

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Of course, the Mountaineers might just get an unintended consequence from Rodriguez’s departure … fewer run-ins with the law.

While Rodriguez recruited talented football players, they have proven to be ineffective when it comes to living a life free of crime.

Add Kendall Washington, a wide receiver recruited by Rodriguez who left school after the spring semester. He recently was charged of breaking into a house, stealing some chains and shooting the owner of the house in the face and stomach while the owner was in bed with his 5-year-old child.

Before that, wide receiver Travis Garvin was convicted of an armed robbery in Glenville and is serving time.

Former Mr. Football in Ohio, running back Raymond Williams lost out on a chance to play as a Rodriguez recruit when he pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and aggravated robbery in a holdup gone bad that cost his friend his life.

This weekend Phil Villagrana, a former Rodriguez tight end, was arrested this weekend in Morgantown for allegedly stealing a car while drunk. He was arraigned and faces charges of grand larceny auto and DUI.

That, of course, says nothing of the sagas of Adam Jones and Chris Henry, both under Rodriguez and in professional football.

o o o o o o

After all that, don’t know what the big flap about a couple of West Virginia underage basketball players getting drunk and acting stupid at a game is. After all, Joe Mazzulla and Cam Thoroughman learned such behavior from their role models — some West Virginia fans.

And as for coach Bob Huggins’ statement that he would handle the matter internally and his explanation why, well, let’s just say it’s a crock.

“There’s not much else to talk about,” Huggins told The Charleston Gazette. “If it was your kid, you’d want it handled internally. If it was your kid, you’d think it isn’t everybody else’s business.”

First, it became everyone’s business when they got arrested and it became a public matter.

Second, if it was my kid, he — or she — wouldn’t be in that situation, and I have three of them grown to adulthood to prove it.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.