How To Interpret The Rich Rodriguez – University of Michigan Fiasco

How To Interpret The Rich Rodriguez – University of Michigan Fiasco

After a difficult offseason for former West Virginia University (WVU) football coach Rich Rodriguez, the dust finally appears to have settled.

To summarize the situation, Rodriguez was one year into a lucrative new multi-year contract with WVU. He has brought the program from a good football program that padded its win-loss percentage by playing inferior teams to a team that earned its share of the national spotlight. He knew it, the WVU Board of Trustees know it, and so do the WVU fans.

The other thing the WVU Board of Trustees and the fans know is that replacing Rodriguez will be a near impossibility.

At the end of last season, Michigan officials engaged in illegal contact with Rodriguez about not honoring his contract with WVU and jumping ship to Michigan.

Let’s be honest for a moment. For a coach, this is a no-brainer. Michigan is one of the most storied college football programs in the nation, and WVU? Well, it’s not.

So Rodriguez bolted for Michigan and said that the reason he left was because several verbal agreements made to him when he signed his renegotiated contract with WVU were not kept. Fair enough. Rich, here’s a news flash: always get it in writing. A verbal agreement doesn’t amount to much.

The problem is that WVU protected itself with a little $4 million clause that forces Rodriguez to pay WVU that amount of money if he leaves WVU before the end of his contract. Regardless of what some people think, it’s fair because another clause in the contract stated that if WVU fired Rodriguez then he would still get paid for the remaining time on his contract. It all seemed normal.

The real problem occurred when WVU tried to collect the money and Rodriguez refused to pay and brought the matter to court. He was bound to lose in court because he walked in carrying WVU’s verbal promises and WVU’s legal team walked in with a signed contract.

The saga is over because Rodriguez has agreed to pay the $4 million penalty to WVU.

One thing that happened during all of this is that the WVU fanbase became divided. Significantly powerful boosters started alleging that WVU had broken numerous promises to Rodriguez, and that list was made public. Suddenly it seemed that Rodriguez – who had not only coached at WVU, but also played there – was not just another greedy coach. He seemed like a wronged man.

However, two rights don’t make a wrong, and Rodriguez’s subsequent actions like shredding all documents including the workout regimens and weightlifting records of his WVU players seemed incredibly malicious and selfish. Basically, he was trying to do everything in his power to put WVU football into a hole, and he came across looking like a jerk.

He claims that every head coach does this when switching to another school. Okay, I understand a coach that destroys his old playbook, but to destroy the workout progress charts of his former players (many who are still playing this upcoming season) was classless.

In any event, how do we interpret his sudden decision to pay the $4 million? First, he only will pay $1.5 million spread out over 3 years, while Michigan will pay the remaining $2.5 million. But if you believe that the Michigan boosters haven’t already figured out a way to “pay” Rodriguez $1.5 million more over the next 3 years, then you know nothing about boosters.

Did Rodriguez change his mind and decide to pay the $4 million because he felt in his heart that he had wronged WVU? Maybe. But there’s an alternative explanation. Michigan never wanted this case to go to court. What’s clear is that they were going to fund the $4 million payback, and they didn’t want anyone to know the extent of their involvement.

Had Rodrigquez waited longer, he would have been forced by the court’s deadlines to do the following:

1)      disclose all parties that would be involved in the $4 million payback. This would have meant exposing Michigan and its boosters to ridicule for paying so much money for a coach.

2)      Michigan’s AD Bill Martin and president Mary Sue Coleman would have been forced to give a sworn deposition about the exact nature of Michigan’s illegal contact with Rodriguez last season and probably everything that’s happened until now.

3)      Mike Wilcox, Rodriguez’s financial adviser, would have been forced to surrender records to the court. Most likely it would have shown a lot of interesting things, including inducements, sudden mystery money (translation: under-the-table pay from Michigan boosters), payment on a place in Michigan (and depending on the date of that, it could be incredibly damaging to Rodriguez’s credibility if that date demonstrated that he had purchased a house in Ann Arbor before his season with WVU last year had finished), and who knows what else would have shown up.

Michigan didn’t want that kind of negative press and neither did Rodriguez. Give WVU’s legal team credit. They knew just how to squeeze Rodriguez at the right time to make him feel like there was no choice but to bow down.

In the end, WVU can claim victory, but when they have a sub-par season for the next few years, that $4 million will sound hollow.

As for Rodriguez, I hope he’s learned a lesson about getting things in writing. The days of people doing exactly what they say – and especially if large amounts of money are involved – is over. In the end, he also won, because he jumped to a bigger and more prestigious program, got a huge pay raise, and didn’t have to take any financial hits. Trust me, he’s not going to pay a dime of his $1.5 million portion of the payback settlement.

If I were Michigan’s AD, I’d be holding my breath. If Rodriguez has a bad season (and I mean “bad” by Michigan’s standards) next year and the year after, the $4 million and the huge contract they offered Rodriguez could force Bill Martin to resign. Let’s hope it doesn’t play out like that.