Topic: Why he left....

[jimmyhatherd]

He just got tired of the BS.  Look at it from his prospective:  Your the most successfull coach in your school's history, in college football for that matter.  You turned down over 5 million dollars (a chance to set yourself and your familly up for life).  You are promised the moon to stay and you love your school and your a trusting fool so you do.  Your the MOST important person at your university and you go above and beyond to promote and raise money for your university and where does it get you???

All the things you are promised, don't happen.  You move to a new conference where you are now the lowest paid coach(an your school is suppose to be a football school)  Your facilities that are vital to the success of your progran and that the adminstration promised to upgrade are some of the worst in your new conference.  Your bosses treat you like %^&* and take advantage of you because they think they have you by the balls because you stayed once and now your too old for another program to really come after you.  How long would you put up with it???  A person can only take so much especial when you have been as successful and have as much pride as coach has.   He was a trooper and stuck it out as long as he could and he did not just spring this on them.  After the season he told the President and the AD that this was a possibility and warned his staff to protect themsleves.   He gave them a last opportunity to do the right things and show the same commitment to him that he had shown to this school for the last 9 years and nothing changed, there was no commitment so he had enough and said "Adios."

Now we will see what Coach has truly meant to this program and I pity the next coach who has to live up to the standard he has set.  I think we will truly appreciate the miracles he worked for us over the next 5 years and beyond.

Again this had absolutely nothing to do with health reasons no matter what anyone tries to tell you...

[W0lfman]

Your post is exactly what I was debating putting on this board.  I was trying to make the decision on whether coming clean with what you posted would be a good or a bad decision.   Now since you've made the decision for me by posting the info my biggest fear now will be which side our donators will fall on.  The side that is pissed off with Ferrell and everyone who failed to live up to the promises made to Pruett and pull donations....or the side that demands our dollars be spent on the things we earmark them to be spent on. The repercussions from this could be devastating.

[jimmyhatherd]

bump

[luvherd]

I always heard Pruett (or any coach for that matter) would receive a million dollar bonus if they stayed 10 years. He left after nine which tells me this rumor was not true. Anybody know anything about this?

[KYWITZ]

Does this sound like the Bobby Pruett we know? Absolutely not! If it is then I for one will be sorely disappointed. A lot of people have worked extremely hard trying to make the things that were promised to him happen. Maybe these promises were out of our reach. However, we have made an enormous leap in the years that Bobby has been here, but with the given financial shape of MU,the state and the area it would be a quantum leap to have all the "wants and needs" completed.
I am stunned by this announcement and I hope there's not more to the story than has been told, although I suspect there is.

[Herd48]

Number one. I think that jimmy and wolf are correct. The indoor facility was a big factor. Sort of the straw. Number two. I heard a rumor again from a reliable source who said the 1million$ annuity was renegotiated after Houston made Coach an offer. Went to 8 years. He said the 8 years was up in January. DA and I did the math, it seems about right. This is just conjecture. Someone in the QB club with knowledge should be able to comment on this. They controlled the deal. I don't think we should judge Coach on the fact that his annuity was available now. This just made all the BS he was dealing with  harder to deal with.  Easier to leave. Maybe Coach didn't win this battle, like so many seemed to think. If that's true, kind of puts our football program in perspective. At least as far as the university is concerned. Gotta go home, see you all later.

[Garbanjo]

The next president at Marshall has to understand that athletics is what has raised and will continue to raise Marshall's national profile. If you don't re-invest in your cash cow, you are setting yourself up for disaster. We are at a critical stage in Marshall and therefore Huntington's development. We must hire a president who sees the big picture: Athletics (read: football)=rapid growth. From what I've heard today, our interim prez DOES NOT fit the bill..............

[jimmyhatherd]

The next president at Marshall has to understand that athletics is what has raised and will continue to raise Marshall's national profile. If you don't re-invest in your cash cow, you are setting yourself up for disaster. We are at a critical stage in Marshall and therefore Huntington's development. We must hire a president who sees the big picture: Athletics (read: football)=rapid growth. From what I've heard today, our interim prez DOES NOT fit the bill..............

Unfortunetely people don't usually realize that until it's to late.   They have killed the goose that laid the golden egg because they thought they could just feed on the duck.  What they fail to realize is at least 75% of all dollars that come into this university can be traced back directly to Coach Pruett.

[luvherd]

We may never know why coach retired but I wouldn't be surprised if his press conference was very truthful. I recently became a grandfather and if I had the money to retire and enjoy the day to day activities of grandchildren I would do it in a heartbeat. Coach was the best thing for our football program but it was a job and a very stressful job. People retire all the time from other professions when they become financially stable. Why not from coaching. Timing was a little shocking but maybe he wanted to get the recruits in and bow out. Who knows - coach.

[W0lfman]

What they fail to realize is at least 75% of all dollars that come into this university can be traced back directly to Coach Pruett.

What happens when particular donors realize the promises made weren't kept?  Do you think that those donors will either reduce the amount they give or pull donations all together?  That was and is my biggest fear with how they've handle Pruetts retirement.  In fact its already happening.  I've seen several posters here mention they may pull funds or stop giving.  This whole fiasco could be devastating to donations.

As for the people in charge its apparent they feel we dont need to provide anymore tools to compete.  Thats painfully obvious considering and icon like Pruett cant get the tools needed to compete with the top programs in the country.  Like 2x said in another post...no other jacklegs going to get anything either.

Big Donor gives $10,000 on the assumption we're going to try and compete with the top 20 to 40 programs in the country.

Big Donor realizes the board has know intentions of trying to compete with the top 20 or 40 programs and reduces his giving to $2000.00.

Big Donor is willing to sacrafice more money for bigger dreams, but understands his $10000.00 donation isnt needed to be competitive with the also rans of college football.  Therefore the $2000.00 gifit is the maximum he's willing to give.   Sad reality of what may happen.

[_sturt_]

What they fail to realize is at least 75% of all dollars that come into this university can be traced back directly to Coach Pruett.

What happens when particular donors realize the promises made weren't kept?  Do you think that those donors will either reduce the amount they give or pull donations all together?  That was and is my biggest fear with how they've handle Pruetts retirement.

Here's the confounding thing -- and I assure you that I'm still not dismissing the possibility -- but, if Pruett was so insincere in the press conference when he said (paraphrase) ".... it's not about this and not about that...", then why would you suppose he's open to occupying some place in the Marshall structure, as he stated he's going to do? How is a man bitter enough about not getting what he wanted from his superiors, so bitter that he would decide to quit, then, turn around and meet with them to work with them in another capacity?

And did you catch that he had already packed up his office after the Cincinnati game, as Landon reports??? How does that make sense? No one noticed??? None of the coaches noticed??? Huh???

No matter which way you poke at this thing, there's some question that pokes out of the other side...

So, I don't know what else to do but to just looking for some in-between explanation at this point.

Riddle me this... could it be that it wasn't Marshall brass that had made him "tired," but... maybe some donors failed him that he thought would come through?... or maybe some players???

At first blush, something like that makes some sense to me... let me think about it.

[2xBison]

And did you catch that he had already packed up his office after the Cincinnati game, as Landon reports??? How does that make sense? No one noticed??? None of the coaches noticed??? Huh???

sturt, you are making this too hard.  i understand sarcasm is difficult to detect via the electronic media...but come on.  he is joking.

Riddle me this... could it be that it wasn't Marshall brass that had made him "tired," but... maybe some donors failed him that he thought would come through?... or maybe some players???

he is tired of seeing funds diverted to other universtiy projects and tired of the FB program being ignored.  period.  it's not the donors...it's the folks running our U.

[_sturt_]

And did you catch that he had already packed up his office after the Cincinnati game, as Landon reports??? How does that make sense? No one noticed??? None of the coaches noticed??? Huh???

sturt, you are making this too hard.  i understand sarcasm is difficult to detect via the electronic media...but come on.  he is joking.

I've never been in Coach's office, so I wouldn't know... I am imagining that it was fairly well stocked with decorations, awards, notebooks, files, etc... but so you contend that he was joking and that he'd actually just packed it up that morning?

Riddle me this... could it be that it wasn't Marshall brass that had made him "tired," but... maybe some donors failed him that he thought would come through?... or maybe some players???

he is tired of seeing funds diverted to other universtiy projects and tired of the FB program being ignored.  period.  it's not the donors...it's the folks running our U.

I heard you the first time, but you apparently didn't hear me or you just chose to completely ignore my question... I'll repeat it, just in case... if he is that upset with the folks running the place, why is he open to working with them in the future in a different capacity?

[HerdRocks]

I know one who has already made the decision to GREATLY reduce any monies to that athletic dept. All that goes in now will be the minimum to maintain seats as needed and nothing more, along with cuts to other programs within the dept  that were done just as a matter of helping out when needed. In the end its gonna be very apparent what coach was worth to the university

Marshall again has chosen to take the bush league route , which is why some universities grow and others stagnate.