Stobart Faces a Tough Task at Memphis State : Former USC Assistant Inherits Troubled Program, but Things Could Be Worse

Former USC offensive coordinator Chuck Stobart took a gamble when he accepted the head football coaching position at Memphis State in June, and after the NCAA placed the school under three years probation last Thursday, he figures that he won.

“I knew about the problems here when I accepted the job,” Stobart said about Memphis State’s football program. “I was aware that the program was under investigation and that it was a calculated gamble to come here.”

The risk for Stobart was a major one, as Memphis State was in danger of receiving the NCAA’s “death penalty,” a complete stoppage of its football program for two years, because the Tiger football and basketball programs have been on probation within the last five years.

However, the NCAA said that it found no pattern of wrongdoing and “only” placed the school on probation for three years, barring the Tigers from bowl visits for only this season, prohibiting any television appearances in 1990 and taking away four football scholarships for 1990-91. The NCAA also cut the number of university-funded recruiting visits to Memphis State next year from 85 to 55.

The school was penalized because a football player was overpaid for summer work supplied by a booster.

“No one ever likes to be put on probation,” Stobart said, who coached at USC for two seasons. “But I knew something was going to happen and when you have a chance of getting the death penalty, a three-year probation is not bad.

“Actually, the only thing that really hurts is the loss of the number of paid visits. Because Memphis State has not been in a bowl game since 1971 and has not been on TV since 1982, the players were not used to that anyway. Of course, their goal of getting to a bowl this year will be set back a year.”

In his two seasons at USC, Stobart was credited for much of the Trojans’ offensive success, particularly quarterback Rodney Peete’s. Peete passed for 2,812 yards and 18 touchdowns last season, while the Trojans featured a balanced attack, averaging nearly 215 yards rushing and 245 yards passing a game.

Along with being an assistant coach under Larry Smith at Arizona (1986) and USC (1987-88), Stobart coached at Miami of Ohio (1967-68) and Michigan (1969-76) under Bo Schembechler, and was offensive coordinator at Pittsburgh in 1985. Sandwiched between his assistant coaching positions, he was a head coach for five years at Toledo and for three seasons at Utah.

At 54, Stobart realizes that he may have been looking at his last opportunity to become a head coach at a Division I school.

“When I left Utah (in 1984), I was not in a real hurry to become a head coach again,” Stobart said. “I was kind of burned out and I was looking for a good situation where I would just coach and not have to worry about the problems that go along with being a head coach.

“However, after a couple of years, I started to feel really refreshed again. So I decided to give it one more try.”

Stobart says it was difficult to leave USC.

“You cannot buy a great program like USC,” Stobart said. “It has such a super heritage that took long years and hard work to develop. It was hard to walk out of a position like that, but I had to take the opportunity to be a head coach and administer a program on my own.”

At Toledo, Stobart gained a reputation for turning a losing program around. He was named Mid-American Conference coach of the year twice, in 1979 and 1981. Toledo won the conference title and a berth in the California Bowl in 1981.

Stobart knows that he has a challenge in rebuilding Memphis State’s program. Last season, the Tigers finished 6-5 under former coach Charlie Bailey, who resigned in May.

An NCAA report said Bailey had advised the unnamed player who was overpaid for a summer job to lie about it to investigators.

“The first thing that everyone needs to understand is the seriousness of an investigation by the NCAA,” Stobart said. “The players along with the coaches and alumni need to know and abide by the rules. Hopefully, this will bring us together as a team.”

He says that he has received advice from his former coaching mates at Arizona about coaching while on probation.

“When Larry (Smith) took over at Arizona, they too were on probation in his early years,” Stobart said. “The coaches told me that the biggest thing to overcome is the mental part of the game. They said that it was tough for the players to work through it mentally.

“I look at this as a challenge for us to turn things into our advantage and to build from it. My goal is to coach here for eight to 10 years and to give this program some stability by taking this team to bowl games.

“Right now we will play the same schedule, with Alabama, Florida State, Florida, Vanderbilt and Ole Miss. Every game for us will be a bowl game. It is up to us to make it work.”