Arkansas’ Goldsmith to Coach at Rice, Home of Worst Football Record

Fred Goldsmith, defensive coordinator at Arkansas for the past five seasons, has accepted the head coaching job at the nation’s current worst major football college, Rice University.

Goldsmith apparently signed up on Sunday, taking over the head job at a school that has not won a football game since Sept. 26, 1987, went 0-11 last year and has lost 18 in a row, the longest major college losing streak in the country.

“Why we picked him over any particular individual I don’t know,” said J. Evans Attwell, chairman of the search committee.

“Obviously, we believe he’s a first-class individual in every respect and is a heck of a coach,” Attwell said. “The people he recruits were good students first and athletes second.”

Goldsmith will replace Jerry Berndt, who resigned in December to become head coach at Temple.

Berndt, who had two years remaining on his contract, replaced Watson Brown, who left after the 1985 season to return to his alma mater, Vanderbilt, as head coach.

Berndt served a dual role as athletic director and head football coach, but Associate Athletic Director Bobby May is expected to be named athletic director this time.

“He’s a first class individual in every respect,” Attwell said of May. “He knows the situation there. He has the respect of the people in the athletic departmemt. So we’re very pleased with that.”

Goldsmith, 44, was head coach at Slippery Rock in 1981, posting a 2-7-1 record.

Stephen F. Austin athletic director Jim Hess and North Texas State coach Corky Nelson were top contenders behind Goldsmith.

“I didn’t feel I was a very serious candidate,” Hess said. “There were too many things they didn’t know about me and too many things I didn’t know about them.”

Hess said he and Nelson had discussed the job.