END OF AN ERA: DONAHUE RESIGNS : It’s Time to Call for Help

The phone never rang. Not one coach. For weeks, Terry Donahue’s job--one of the best jobs in college football--was supposed to be available. But nobody inquired. No coach called the UCLA director of athletics, Peter Dalis, to ask confidentially what was up. No coach called to confirm the rumors. No coach checked in, simply to say, “Keep me in mind.”

“I have not had one call,” Dalis said Monday, after Donahue had quit.

“Most people I spoke to said, ‘He’ll come back.’ Nobody thought he’d really go.”

As a result, no UCLA recruiter could tell a high school kid whom the next Bruin coach would be. An entire prep season came and went. Donahue dragged things out. CBS already had an assignment for him, the same week he would coach UCLA in the Aloha Bowl. Donahue didn’t want anything from UCLA. He just wouldn’t pull the plug.

The school has lost precious time. High school seniors are committing, left and right. Dalis says he would like to have a new coach on the job by Jan. 1, but “probably won’t.” He says mid-January is more likely.

“I’d like to have a coach tomorrow, but we’re not going to,” Dalis says.

“I don’t have a plan or a preference. I have talked to several people in the coaching industry. I’ve asked the help of people whose opinions I respect, like [Kansas City Chief president and UCLA grad] Carl Peterson and [former UCLA coach] Dick Vermeil. It won’t be just about football. I want someone here who can appreciate and understand UCLA, internally and externally.

“I just need to find this person, ASAP.”

The man has people to see, numbers to call.

Rick Neuheisel?

You bet your life, Rick Neuheisel. He was born to be UCLA’s coach. Played there, matriculated there, coached there.

“We have not talked to Rick, but obviously we would, simply because so many people here are still so very fond of him,” Dalis said.

Gary Barnett?

You bet, Gary Barnett. He is the coach of the year, man of the hour. If he can get a Northwestern team to a Rose Bowl, he could get UCLA to . . . where? The moon?

Trouble is, these guys are busy. Neuheisel’s preparing a team for a Cotton Bowl. He says he’s very happy right where he is, at Colorado. Barnett is in rehearsal for Pasadena. He’s finding time to visit Georgia, which needs a coach, but says he’s not really looking.

OK for UCLA to try, anyway?

“Oh, sure,” Dalis says. “You can talk to anyone.”

There are no tampering rules. You can interview your own staff and everybody else’s. You can interview every Shula, every Bowden, every Holtz. You can try coaches from opponents in your own conference, although USC tried that once, with Larry Smith. You can try NFL coaches, although something tells you Buddy Ryan probably doesn’t appreciate and understand UCLA, internally and externally.

The phone will be ringing now. That’s the problem. It will take weeks for Dalis and Chancellor Charles E. Young to screen every applicant, review every resume, pursue every tip. They adore Donahue, but he put them in a deep hole, dragging his feet that way. They couldn’t act. There are hundreds of names out there, but only a few weeks to weed them out.

Big names?

Sure, big names. Why wouldn’t a school like UCLA attract big names?

But big names need time. Big names have agents. Big names make big money. Big names need to think things over, talk to their current employers, consult with their families. You want to call Jimmy Johnson, you should call Jimmy Johnson. He might have an itch to coach college ball again, the way he did at Miami. It’s worth 20 cents to call him. But you might be on hold for a week.

Then again, who is a big name?

“Terry Donahue wasn’t a big name, when he was named,” Dalis says. “Dick Vermeil wasn’t a big name. When we got Jim Harrick, people said all we got was some guy from Pepperdine. But look at the marvelous job Jim’s done. He’s a big name now.

“Do I need to do a national search to find a ‘big name?’ I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

More to the point, is there time for such a search? Volunteers should step forward, now. Yet if UCLA publicly declares that this job is up for grabs, operators are standing by, then every Tom, Dick and Harry from the Hawaiian islands to Rhode Island might feel he has a shot. Do you go after Bill Walsh, or must he phone on his own? Would Don James need to approach you, to announce that he is tired of being retired? Or is he ancient history?

UCLA owes it to itself to reach out to Neuheisel, big man on Westwood campus, class of ‘83, and certainly Barnett, who is the hottest thing on any gridiron today. There are top assistants everywhere, waiting to become the next Neuheisel or Barnett. There are many qualified African American coaches who shouldn’t be ignored, the way they usually are. There are men you might have hired, if only this opening had come a month sooner, a year sooner, a year later.

“Timing’s everything in life,” Dalis says. “There are people, you’re interested in them, they’re not interested in you. Or they’re interested in you, but you don’t have anything for them.

“We’ll just have to see who’s out there. I would hate to lose any more recruiting time than we already have. I was one person who did urge Terry to make this decision sooner, rather than later. I felt as far back as our first football game in the fall that this would be Terry’s last season. I just knew something intuitively that he was ready to move on with his life. My read on it all along was that 1995 would be the last one here for Terry, and that we would be needing a new coach.

“Of course, I felt the same thing in 1994.”