Feb. 19, 2003 3:00pm
Mike Riley appears to be the Choice for the Beavers
It would appear that Mike Riley is going to be the coach of the Beavers once again. This morning it appeared the Beavers were on their way to hiring Dan Hawkins of Boise State. But this afternoon broncosports.com announced that Hawkins is withdrawing his name from consideration for the Beavers coaching job.
If this is true I hope that Mike is up to the job in Corvallis. Things have changed in Corvallis since 4 years ago when he guided the Beavers to their first 5 win season in 28 years. But can he continue to take this program to the heights we have become accustom to?? We can only hope.
Below is an email from a concerned Beaver fan. He brings up some good points.
----------------------
Beaver Fan in San Diego California
The reason I am sending this is because your poll asks not who we want but rather who we think the Beavers will hire. I am sure you have seen my posts regarding Hawkins. While I think the Beavs will hire Lubick I think Hawkins is really the man. Not only because of his football talents but because of his character. As you know my boy played for him at Willamette. I'll never forget us listening to Mark telling us about Hawkins' first meeting with the team. It was Mark's freshman year and Hawkins' first year at Willamette.
Here he was faced with a # of kids that hadn't had the experience of a winning season .. ever. He told them what he expected on the field and off the field. One of the things he told them was he expected them to behave like they were at home and their mothers were watching them. For example he said, if you don't swear at the dinner table when asking someone to pass the salt at home don't do it here. He then said if your family goes to church on Sunday at home, I expect to see you in church on Sunday morning here. He said, "I happen to be Catholic and I will find time to be at Mass every Sunday morning both during and after the season." I may be a little off on the quote but believe me it made an impression on the kids. ( I can tell you as parents who were worried to death that our kid might take the route we weren't wild about that we were favorably impressed. In this era of political correctness we didn't expect our son to get that type of positive influence from a college football coach, especially one who turned out to be a winner).
That is not to say that they didn't have their fair share of kids who drank beer and partied. They did and ours was one of them. Hawkins rode the kids to make sure they hit the books and behaved. He would call the parents periodically to see to it they were appraised of their sons' progress. Our son suffered a career ending injury. He had to lay out of school for a year for surgery and to mend. He took took a few classes here in San Diego and went to the beach. Believe it or not after a while he wanted to get back to the rain. We continued to follow the team because we knew a lot of kids who were still playing. Mark maintained a reserved contact with Hawkins that continues to this day.
Everyone is worried about Hawkins touching down in Corvallis in route to some other job. He was at Willamette for five years. Then he had to move. He had four little kids. Do you know what they pay coaches there? I think my son makes more as a high school coach.
I would be surprised if he had success in Corvallis, and he were compensated accordingly, that he would leave for anything less than the Notre Dame job. Then of course we deal with Catholic heritege. Every Catholic kid in the country grows up listening to Sister Mary Discipline telling the class how wonderful it would be to go to Notre Dame. I rooted for ND consistently until the Fiesta Bowl when I went looking for one of those orange and black tee shirts that said, "Catholics Against Notre Dame." I still root for them against SC as I can't stand the Trojans.
At any rate this is the answer I wanted to give you but the question didn't ask for it.
As to Riley ... His kids attend Francis Parker School here. It is a very exclusive private school where the owners of the Chargers, the executives at Qualcom, the biotech and dot coms as well as the Professors at the Med. school at UCSD send their kids. I think the tuition approaches $15 k per kid for HS. The Rileys have a home on or near the coast in northern San Diego County. Its in Del Mar or Encinitas. Value near $ 1 million. They kept the house while he worked for NO and looked for a job at Bama and UCLA. Before we hire him should we find out if that house is on the market? What schools other than OSU has his son applied to? These are some questions we need to answer in doing our research before we get swept off our feet by his charismatic personality.
In short we ought to do the same sort of research that the Chargers should have done when the drafted Ryan Leaf.
As you can see I have too much time on my hands.
-----------------------------
Well Beaver Fans, What is going to happen?
BFS