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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Jettisoning Kevin Wilson raises questions galore

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I really didn’t know Indiana University head football coach Kevin Wilson that well. We only sat down once and conversed at length for an interview back in August of 2012, but it was clear to me then he was driven and had the experience it would take to make the program in Bloomington better. For the next four years, his team would flutter back and forth between showing some promise and disappointing him and his staff, not to mention those who faithfully support the IU football program, despite its lack of success. He did manage to get them to a couple of irrelevant bowl games, and many felt that was a start, including his boss, IU athletic director Fred Glass, who became enamored with Wilson and granted him a new lease on his professional life when he bestowed an extension to him just last January, one that was good for a whopping $15.3 million. Glass stated he was pleased with the progress, and Indiana University had their guy. Well, sort of.

Recently published reports show that in April of 2015, nine months before the aforementioned extension was granted, Indiana University received a complaint from the parent of one of the team’s players about how the young man’s injuries had been handled — or, in their opinion, mishandled. Glass ordered an independent investigation by a law firm that concluded most of these claims were baseless, with the exception that Wilson “might have” created an “uncomfortable” atmosphere for injured players. Glass communicated both his concerns and his expectations for moving forward to Wilson both verbally and in writing, and all was supposedly well. Since that time, Wilson has been chronicled as being a tyrant to work for, one that is volatile, verbally abusive and a detriment to the culture of IU athletics. All this raises two minor questions in my opinion, and both have been difficult to answer lately.

Riddle me this, Batman: What did the powers that be (Uh, Fred Glass) think they were getting when they hired Wilson, and why did they grant such a “bad guy” an extension? Let’s address the first one. Wilson was just as tough and ornery at his previous job — when he and head coach Bob Stoops were kicking the opposition around in the BCS title game — as he is now. Didn’t anyone in Bloomington think about that when they plucked him from beautiful Norman, Oklahoma? They weren’t getting a choirboy, and they knew that, but the opportunity to get a guy from an upper-echelon program allowed them to conveniently turn and look the other way when he agreed to change his professional address to Monroe County. Secondly, if Wilson was such a terrible person to work with, one that was constantly abusing players, his staff and various support staff personnel to boot, why in the world did Glass extend his deal? Oh, I almost forgot, many have claimed Wilson liked to hoist one too many, and that was a problem, too. Then again, if I had the dubious task of recruiting at a basketball school, I’d probably pour one occasionally myself.

Indiana knew exactly what they were getting when they hired a highly successful yet enigmatic coach, and they still handed him a pen not once, but twice, telling him where to sign to become a wealthy man. Look, I’m not questioning the logic of keeping your coach locked up financially to provide stability in the program, but what did Wilson really do to warrant his salary doubling for an extended period? Not a lot, but that is the state of affairs, as we know, it when it comes to IU football. Some success is better than none at all, and mediocrity is over-rewarded accordingly by programs attempting to climb the ladder and grab their share of the enormous revenue that college football offers. 

Still, I continually wonder why Glass was so enamored with Wilson, and what triggered such an exorbitant raise? 

One thing Glass must be credited for is somehow convincing Wilson and his lawyer they could fire him with just cause and pay him nothing. That’s where the nearly $600,000 in walking money came from in exchange for Wilson’s resignation. However, maybe he was simply tired of his rocky ride in Bloomington and felt he could live a year on that severance (Ya think?) until he gets another job, which he undoubtedly will. One thing is for certain: Glass is solely responsible for this debacle and needs to be held accountable in the same manner his former coach was.

That’s not going to happen, as beyond the Wilson fiasco, Glass has done a good job in restoring financial viability to the athletic department, and it will take more than the embarrassing football situation to unseat him.

Regardless, I’m still scratching my mostly bald head on this one, as I think IU got exactly what they paid for: a loud, volatile guy to coach a sport in which the object is to knock the other guy on his backside, and to do it again if he gets up before the whistle. Allegedly forcing injured players back onto the field before they are healthy is a serious accusation, but giving their coach an extension was Indiana University’s way of saying they did no such thing. Everyone who enters Memorial Stadium on Saturdays is confident the ship has been righted and now it’s on to an insignificant bowl game. Wilson is gone and Glass is secure, and that answers all the questions, right? Not hardly. 

 

Danny Bridges, who thinks the Kevin Wilson story is far from over, can be reached at (317) 370-8447 or at Brigeshd@aol.com.

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