Tollner Fired With Enthusiasm at Start and Perhaps at End

It looked like a party. In one corner of the old assembly hall was a huge Christmas tree, 20 feet tall, gaily decorated with colored lights, cardinal and gold ribbon, and, up in the high branches, two stuffed teddy bears wearing Santa hats.

In the back of the room, dozens of well-dressed members of the USC faculty and administration milled around a table laden with soft drinks and coffee. The mood, if not festive, was light.

But it wasn’t a party, at least not by official title. It was a press conference called by USC Monday to announce the firing of football coach Ted Tollner.

James Zumberge, USC president, made the announcement, and Athletic Director Mike McGee also addressed the reporters and onlookers. What Zumberge and McGee both said, in a dignified and tactful way, was:

“Hey, we gave the guy four years to build a dynasty and he didn’t deliver. We’ve been good sports about it, but one more season of back-to-back losses to Notre Dame and UCLA and our rear ends will be in trouble. Winning isn’t everything, but losing is. Thanks, Ted. Next.”

This is what happens when “student body right” turns into student body wrong. Instead of a thundering herd, what Tollner developed at USC was a grumbling herd--of grouchy alumni.

Zumberge and McGee were forthright about why they canned Tollner.

“We need new leadership,” McGee said.

Tollner would no doubt drink to that statement, although he might quibble about the specifics.

When someone asked Zumberge if--as former Trojan star Pat Haden said on TV recently--the expectations for the USC football team are simply too high, in light of modern-day college football parity, Zumberge bristled.

“Our expectations have every right to be as high now as they were in the heyday of John Robinson and John McKay,” Zumberge said.

At USC, that is not an outrageous statement. This ain’t Dartmouth.

If USC isn’t a football factory, it is at least an academic factory whose smokestacks are kept billowing largely through the success of the football team.

Zumberge once said: “The buildings on campus, and other supporting facilities and programs, are a direct function of the fact that we always field a competitive football program.”

And when Tollner was hired and given a five-year contract, Zumberge said: “ . . . I don’t think it will take five years by any means to turn (the football program) around.”

Tollner knew exactly what he was getting into when he took the job. When McGee came upon the scene soon thereafter, Tollner’s work became less pleasant, but the basic job description remained the same: Just win, Teddy.

Depending on how you look at it, he did. His current team is 7-4 and headed to a decent bowl game, but the season was badly marred by losses to rivals UCLA and Notre Dame.

“It was not inconsequential or trivial,” Zumberge said when asked how much weight Tollner’s 1-7 record against the two top rivals carried in the decision to fire him.

The 1-7 was big. Who knows? Had USC defeated the big two this season, Monday’s press conference might have been presided over by Zumberge and Tollner, announcing in a dignified and restrained fashion the firing of McGee.

But USC didn’t win those two.

Tollner remained a gentleman to the end. He didn’t cry or pout. He agreed to coach the team through New Year’s Day.

He ran, as near as can be ascertained, an honest program. He related well to the media and, by most accounts, to his players.

Tollner was--hey, he still is--a nice man and a credit to his profession, but there was no magic. At USC, coaching the football team is a job that demands magic. They’ve had it before and they want it again.

That was Tollner’s only shortcoming, but it was enough. To paraphrase an old coach, Tollner came to the USC job fired with enthusiasm and left the same way.

Fortunately, this being the holiday season, he doesn’t leave in disgrace or dishonor. There’s a lot of that going around these days.

He’ll land a coaching job somewhere else and probably do great. But he’s no longer USC’s guy.

And the Trojans are immediately, in the words of McGee, “commencing a search” for a new coach. McGee indicated that he expected there to be no shortage of well-qualified candidates.

“I think this is among the top three jobs in the country today,” he said.

That may be true. In fact, it may be among the top two, now that the job of President of the United States is currently in a devalued state.

“We’ll be looking for a coach who would understand the mission of this university,” Zumberge said.

The new guy had better be good. The missionaries are restless.