Bumped from the diaries. This is really great read even though I do not agree with the point that KD was the best option at the time he was hired. He was a result of a faulty hiring process that was farmed out to the incompetent Donahue shill Bob Field. Still some great points here about how DG might have been building the foundation for the next HC. I still believe in a happy ending to this mess. If I didn't I wouldn't spend the precious few time I have time writing about it. Again nice post. GO BRUINS. -N

I have not posted in quite some time, so please forgive me if I make a lot of seemingly unrelated points here, pouring out a lot of thoughts in trying to explain why I think that, for several reasons, we might be allowed more optimism than we have in years past that we will finally be able to make the long-awaited step forward in football coaching.

First of all, when talking about the money UCLA would have to pay for a competitive football coach, I don't think that the coaches' salaries are the only issue to consider.

Two years ago (I think), during the UCLA Spring scrimmage (I think), they also offered tours of the Acosta Center, which includes training rooms (for medical attention); speed, strength, and conditioning rooms (which most of us would simply call weight rooms); meeting rooms (including one large enough for the entire team to meet at once indoors and with theater-style seating, which the guide said had not previously been an option), locker rooms, and other amenities used by not just the football team but the whole UCLA Athletics Department.  During the tour, our guide made what seems to be a very important point that I'm not sure is discussed enough when it comes to discussion about whether or not UCLA would be able to hire a highly regarded football coach.

Several years ago, the story went, UCLA brought in an unnamed but well-regarded coach to interview for a vacant football coaching position, which must mean that it was around the time that Dorrell was also being interviewed.  Some time later, according to the tour guide, word reached the Athletics Department that this coaching candidate had been talking to other people in college football about the dreadful state of UCLA's facilities, which he had compared to a typical high school program.

Thinking back to when I attended UCLA, I remember that the football players used the same weight room in the John Wooden Center that the general student body used.  I don't know where meetings might have been held, or where the trainers worked, or where the football players' lockers were, but I do know that they now have an excellent location in the Acosta Center.  There is now an artificial turf practice field, built since I took that tour, and I've read about newly remodeled locker rooms as well as a couple other improvements to the Rose Bowl for home games for the current season.  While talk is just now finally leading to action on improving Pauley Pavilion, and while we're still waiting for an announcement about major improvement to Jackie Robinson Stadium for baseball, a lot of money has already been poured into football, which makes it seem as though it has remained a priority that the football facilities not remain the laughing-stock they once seem to have been.  [Thank God that we had Howland and Savage to improve those programs without the needed upgrades, because otherwise these would have been five very dismal seasons for those who love UCLA as much as most of the people who are spending the time to read this.]

With the diligent work done toward improving the facilities, the next well-regarded coaching candidate will find that he has the tools he needs, and lack of infrastructure will no longer disqualify us in the minds of the type of coach we might wish to hire.

Also, when it comes to the salary we might be able to pay the next coach, I don't have the specifics in front of me, but unless I'm mistaken, this is a "magic" year.  Shortly before his retirement, Pete Dalis signed both Lavin and Toledo to new contracts that sweetened their buy-outs, handcuffing Dan Guerrero by requiring that both be paid their salary for five years in the event that they were fired, minus whatever other money they were able to make in new jobs.  Don't get me wrong, because I hate almost everything about Steve Lavin, but he did help the Athletics Department by taking a job with ESPN which probably paid him enough money to take him off our payroll immediately.  Bob Toledo, on the other hand, spent most of the next five years after being fired sitting on his couch watching television and collecting his UCLA paycheck, finally taking an assistant coach position in (I think) the fourth year after being fired by UCLA and now, in (I think) the fifth year, a head coaching job.  I'm not sure how much Tulane pays him, but it's possible that we are still supplementing his income.   Even if he does make more than the UCLA minimum in his new job, this is the first year since Toledo was fired that we're not paying, in essence, two football head coaches' salaries.  If Dorrell had been fired after his first season, or his second season, there was no way to know if he, too, would go the "Toledo route", forcing us to pay for two former coaches as well as the current coach.  I don't think that Dorrell will do that when (I refrain from saying "if" out of hope) he is fired after this season, but I'm not the one who is on the hook for the money if I'm wrong, so I can't really fault the Athletics Department for being cautious if this has been the thinking in the Morgan Center.

To finally get to the point, my theory, which was not discouraged by the Athletics Department employee I was once able to corner in a bar and voice it to during a Friday happy hour just outside Westwood, is that throughout the Dorrell era, the Athletics Department has always been thinking toward the next football coaching hire.  It has been clear for quite some time now that Dorrell is not up to the task set before him.  At the time he was hired, I think that Dorrell might have been about as good a coach as UCLA was able to hire given their circumstances, including the facilities and the sweet buy-out deals for Lavin and Toledo.  (Thanks a lot, Pete Dalis!)  Throughout this time, while they can't have honestly been satisfied with the direction of the football program, they have been working on improving the situation in the ways they could while waiting out Bob Toledo's laziness, leading to the point where leaving Karl Dorrell as the caretaker for a program that has been stagnant under his leadership is now, finally, not their only option.

There just might be a happy ending to this story.  Stay tuned in December or January.