Sweet home, Virginia
No shoelaces for USA, no move for Mickey
Posted on February 14, 2008
Mickey Matthews didn’t get much sleep Monday night. The JMU football coach interviewed Monday at the University of South Alabama as a candidate for its inaugural head coaching position.
According to Matthews, South Alabama never formally offered him the job. But hypothetical questions were involved in the negotiations, face-to-face and over the phone.
“There were certainly questions like ‘If we offer this job would you accept it,’ which is a very leading question,” Matthews said Wednesday morning at an interview at the Plecker Athletic Performance Center.
Matthews had met with his assistant coaches at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday to announce his decision, meeting with his players afterwards at a team meeting.
While it was reported that USA offered him the job Tuesday night, Matthews said those words were never actually spoken. According to him, a phone call Tuesday inviting him back to Mobile, Ala. was the strongest indication that an offer was forthcoming.
“There were very intense negotiations on both sides,” Matthews said. “I realized when they wanted to fly us back down there a second time that an offer could be possible and I needed to make a decision.”
Matthews called “family considerations” the main reason he stayed, but also cited concern for his coaching staff at JMU and their dedication to the program.
“I was concerned about their salary structure for their assistant coaches, that I may not be able to take my entire staff with me,” Matthews said. “People don’t know, when the head coach resigns everyone resigns.”
Had Matthews taken the job, he would have potentially been given a raise from the roughly $215,000-$230,000 he currently makes at JMU with extras such as television and radio deals. South Alabama is reportedly offering between $200,000 and $275,000 for its inaugural head coach.
JMU offered Matthews an extension and a pay raise Feb. 4, and Athletic Director Jeff Bourne reportedly expected a revised contract to be presented to Matthews Wednesday. The original offer was made before USA athletic director Joe Gottfried asked JMU for permission to speak with Matthews.
“We’re very pleased with Coach Matthews’ decision to remain as head football coach at JMU,” Bourne said in a statement released Wednesday.
South Alabama, a Sun Belt Conference school, is starting its football program from scratch and plans to compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) by 2013.
USA President Gordon Moulton announced the formation of a search committee with the goal of finding the Jaguars’ first coach on Dec. 20, 2007.
“South Alabama’s a great situation, it’s gonna be a very good Division I football job for someone,” Matthews said. “They have a great athletic director, they have great fan support in [their] future. I didn’t dislike anything I saw in Mobile, Alabama in terms of winning football games.”
But besides a pay raise, South Alabama didn’t have anything of major significance for Matthews to like, either. The USA administration has organized construction of a 50,000 square-foot football support building similar to JMU’s Plecker Athletic Performance Center, but the Jaguars are without their own football stadium.
“They’ve never played football before, they didn’t even have a shoelace,” Matthews said. “That was interesting to me, that you were gonna get to hire the secretary and decide what kind of footballs you use and even the design of the uniform.”
Matthews said that doing all those things would be an “exercise in patience,” and that ultimately his heart was in Virginia.
The Jaguars will begin play in Ladd-Peebles Stadium, which has a seating capacity of 40,646 and has hosted the Senior Bowl for over 50 years. The stadium has also hosted the GMAC bowl, which invites teams from Conference USA and the Mid-American Conference.
But while USA continues its search for a head coach, in 2008 Matthews will coach his 10th season at JMU, with a 64-44 record and the 2004 national championship to his credit.
