Panel Backs Dismissal of Shoup; New Appeal Filed

A grievance by fired football Coach Bob Shoup has been denied by a Cal Lutheran faculty committee, and Shoup has appealed the decision to the executive committee of the Board of Regents, a university source said Thursday.

Shoup, however, said that he did not construe the committee’s decision as a defeat.

“What they decided to do was narrow the focus of the grievance to issues they felt they could deal with,” Shoup said. “The process continues.”

President Jerry Miller has endorsed the faculty committee’s finding and the executive committee will review the decision when it meets Jan. 3, said Jack Wise, chairman of the Board of Regents.

Shoup, the only coach in 28 years of Cal Lutheran football, filed his grievance Dec. 7, the day he learned of his dismissal.

Wise said that if the executive committee agrees with the grievance committee’s verdict, “from the university’s standpoint that would be the end of it.”

However, Wise added that he didn’t know what would happen if the executive committee overturned the decision.

The executive committee includes 11 members of the 50-member Board of Regents, which is the university’s governing committee.

At least one member of the Cal Lutheran coaching staff plans to apply for the opening. “I haven’t submitted my application yet, but I will,” said Kyle Tarpenning, the defensive coordinator last season.

Although they won’t officially sign their contracts until spring, Tarpenning and Rich Hill, who is a football assistant and head baseball coach, have been assured that they will be rehired, Tarpenning said.

“Because we are essentially full-time people here, our positions have been protected,” Tarpenning said.

Last season, Hill and Tarpenning were the only full-time university employees on the football staff besides Shoup, and the new coach will probably be free to hire his own part-time assistants.

One part-time assistant, offensive line coach Bernie Kyman, has accepted a part-time job on Coach Bob Enger’s Pierce College staff.

Tarpenning said he expects a new coach to be named by the beginning of February at the earliest, and that in the interim he will maintain contact with prospective players.

Shoup began a one-year sabbatical Jan. 1 as scheduled.