COMMENTARY : This Gutty Little Decision Good and Bad

Terry Donahue, the ultimate Gutty Little Bruin, made the ultimate gutty move Monday. He walked away from Westwood.

And in doing so, he walked through the front door of the enemy, joining the CBS television network as a color analyst.

Like any coach worth his salt, Donahue considered any segment of the media the enemy, but that stopped abruptly at 1:30 p.m., Pacific Standard Time, Monday, when he stepped in front of the microphones and publicly cut the umbilical cord on his blue-and-gold security blanket. For Donahue, we is now broadcast partner Jim Nantz, dozens of yuppies carrying cameras on their shoulders and running for coffee and a bunch of button-down guys sitting in trailers and talking into his ear.

“The hardest thing for me to believe,” Donahue said, properly making light of the moment, “is that I’ll be working with the media.”

There has been much speculation on why Donahue would do this. Being football coach at UCLA certainly isn’t the best job in sports, but you might have trouble keeping it out of the top 10.

And after 20 years as coach here--and as the winningest coach in both school and Pacific 10 Conference history--he really wasn’t under any sort of pressure. Sure, he hadn’t won a national title, but for many Bruin fans, he regularly did something even more important--he beat USC.

At his news conference Monday, he claimed no fatigue, no burnout.

“I enjoyed the job this year as much as I did my first year,” he said.

So why, then?

My best analysis is that it was a combination of three things:

--The constant alumni sniping and sniveling over not enough top-10 rankings and no national title.

Having sat among the Bruin faithful many a Saturday afternoon, I was always amazed at how quickly they went from worshipers to whiners. When UCLA lost badly to Washington the week before the Bruins beat USC this year, my toes were thoroughly trampled by Bruin fans leaving in the opening minutes of the third period. At USC, at least they stay faithful to you right up until they dump you.

--His perceived frustration over being beaten on many Saturdays by opposing players whom he had recruited but couldn’t get into UCLA because of tough academic standards. That frustration, despite his recent run of success, was most acute each year during his last regular-season game.

--His desire just to do something different, to show the sports world he was not as one-dimensional as it might have thought.

During the news conference, he referred to his new career in typical football coach imagery: “You get out there, line up, and see if you can play.”

Afterward, he said that the toughest part for him was the news conference, where he actually had to face everybody and say it was so.

“It was like fourth and one, and I did it,” he said, looking rather proud.

My additional take on this is that (a) Donahue made a bad decision and (b) that he will turn out to be a good TV commentator.

His news conference was an overflow house, standing room only of working media and caring friends, some of them one and the same. Even Donahue had to be taken aback by the crowd that nearly poured back out through the lobby doors of the J.D. Morgan Center. That would leave one to conclude that somebody that important and/or loved should continue to do that which has made him so.

Also, there was one point of the news conference when the Aloha Bowl came up, and Donahue, programmed for 20 years for just this kind of question, quickly responded, “We are looking forward to that a lot, especially with us being 7-4 and ranked 24th and Kansas being 9-2 and No. 11 and we are still five-point favorites. . . .”

Except for maybe Lou Holtz, nobody does that David and Goliath routine better than Donahue. Again, one would conclude that having such polished skills in coach-ese would be something not easily left behind.

As for the broadcasting, which became the first day of the rest of Donahue’s life Monday, I have watched with interest as the ever-cautious coach became more glib with time.

Every year on the day before the USC-UCLA game, the Downtown Rotary Club has a luncheon and program that included Donahue and the USC coach, most recently John Robinson. In the early years, Donahue was guarded about what he said, almost as though he was certain everything he uttered would appear on SC’s bulletin board.

But more recently, he became star of the show, and that’s no easy thing, what with Robinson on the same dais. You could tell that Donahue actually worked on some good lines and enjoyed the reaction when they worked.

Time and maturity have also helped Donahue acquire a nice self-effacing sense of humor.

Monday, after the news conference, Bob Keisser of the Long Beach Press Telegram walked up, and Donahue told him that he had tried to call him Sunday night to tell him that he wasn’t leaving UCLA so Keisser could have said so in big headlines.

Years ago, Donahue had told Keisser, then with the Herald-Examiner, that he would accept the job as coach of the Atlanta Falcons. Keisser and the Herald went big with the story, and correctly so. Except that, after Keisser’s deadline, Donahue changed his mind. That day, the joke was, inadvertently and unfortunately, on Keisser. Monday, Donahue made sure the joke was on him.

Donahue was also asked Monday how he would be able, in his role as an analyst, to dish out the kinds of criticism that he used to despise coming his way as a coach. After a long pause, Donahue, answering about the only way he could while still poking fun at himself, said, “I’ll turn that into an art form.”

In truth, television sports doesn’t need any art forms. But, with fans quickly tiring of screamers such as Terry Bradshaw and Dick Vitale, it could use somebody mature and knowledgeable with a fairly quick wit. Donahue is all that.

He’s also the ultimate Gutty Little Bruin, who should have continued to be just that and who should have, as he said Monday in speculating on what might have been, “ . . . stayed 25, 30, maybe 40 or 50 years, and let them carry me out.”