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This Time, Bay Had To Think Inside The Box
The San Diego Union-Tribune Feature Story
Dec. 7, 2001
By Ed Graney and Mark Zeigler We are what we are. San Diego State athletic director Rick Bay uttered those words over and over yesterday when discussing his football program and its new leader -- a junior college coach who had to be talked into accepting the job. For years, San Diego State puffed up its football program to be something it wasn't, and yesterday, for the first time publicly, Bay admitted as much. Bay hired Palomar College coach Tom Craft essentially because he had no other choice. That's not an indictment of Craft or his potential as a Division I-A head coach. That's merely the state of State. It is not the Miami of the West or any other variation of former athletic director Fred Miller's grand dreams for Montezuma Mesa. It is not the Pac-10. And it is not a university that can hire Jimmy Johnson or Bob Stoops or even Bob Stoops' offensive coordinator. Stoops' Oklahoma aide is Mark Mangino, and he recently was hired at Kansas for a reported $600,000 a year. At a news conference last month to announce the firing of Ted Tollner as head coach, Bay said he could afford between $400,000 and $500,000 for a replacement. That essentially eliminated 75 percent of the candidates in a profession where coaches at Top 25 programs routinely make seven figures. "I put it out there," Bay said of his salary constraints, "because I didn't want to waste my time interviewing candidates, only to find out later that they have expectations of a higher salary." Bay said he did receive a phone call from an agent representing a prominent college coach. Halfway through the discussion, Bay interjected: "This is a $400,000-a-year job." The agent thanked Bay for his time. That left Bay with a collection of NFL assistants, college coordinators and out-of-work retreads looking for a warm place to retire. Sonny Lubick, the highly successful coach at Colorado State who makes a reported $350,000 a year, told friends he might be interested in the position. Bay said he never called Lubick because he was satisfied with his pool of candidates who had "aggressively pursued the job." He narrowed it to five and started interviewing. Each basically told him the same thing. That the unforgiving nonconference schedule needed to be watered down. That some of the academic requirements needed to be loosened for incoming as well as current players. That the assistant coaches needed to be better compensated. That the university needed to make a long-term financial commitment to growing the program. That, in its present state, SDSU football is set up to fail. Bay also had lunch with a prominent local community college coach. "A courtesy interview," Bay called it. Then Tom Craft began talking. He, too, said he could win at SDSU. But there was a difference. He said he could win the way the program is today. The way no one has. "I come from a program that doesn't have a lot of resources," Craft said. "We don't even have a weight room (at Palomar), so to speak. We don't play on campus. We get on a bus every weekend. We're always competing against people who have a lot more than we do. "We did it with some imagination and some creativity. The resources here look very abundant to me. Maybe I'm a little naive, but I think we're going to succeed. I know we will." This was a man speaking Bay's language, a man who can relate to the financial pressures squeezing SDSU's athletic department, a man who knows how the other half lives. SDSU's annual football budget is about $5 million, a third of what some BCS schools have. Palomar's budget for the 1999 season was $88,103. Craft's annual salary at Palomar: About $80,000. Nearly three-quarters of that is for his other jobs as a physical education instructor and an assistant softball coach. By comparison, a four-year contract at $400,000 per season seems generous. And he doesn't have to spend his springs on the softball diamond. Craft turned down the job Wednesday afternoon, then had a change of heart after long discussions with a current Aztecs assistant. In the interim, Bay went back to his initial list of five candidates and phoned the man at the top of it -- Jeff Tedford, the offensive coordinator under Mike Bellotti at Oregon. Tedford ultimately passed. Tedford was unavailable for comment, but a source close to him said he did not think SDSU could win without certain concessions. Foremost among them was a bump in salary and perks to hire top assistant coaches and recruiters. "A lot of these guys are coming from staffs where all the assistants are making $120,000 or $150,000 per year," Bay said, "and they're thinking about how they're going to get assistants to come to this city with its high standard of living and actually take a pay cut. They saw it as an uphill battle in some ways, and it probably is. "We want to be competitive and we want to be viable, but we don't have the resources to pay big-time salaries." It could get worse. Gov. Gray Davis has hinted that, because of the current budget shortfall, state agencies should prepare for cuts in the neighborhood of 15 percent next year. That will trickle down to the California State University system, which will trickle down to SDSU, which will trickle down to its athletic department.
"I think the university is committing all it can (to football) in this political environment," Bay said. "We are what we are. When it comes down to the cold, hard facts of the budget, that's the harsh reality."
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