In Bolt Out of Blue, UCLA Shouts: ‘What About Bob?’ : Bruins Keep It All in the Family

Needing a football coach, UCLA looked around, and looked around some more, then finally looked around its own campus and asked the all-important question:

“What about Bob?”

Just as with basketball, UCLA conducted a star search for a football coach, did not get a star, then did the best it could. Things turned out pretty well in basketball, despite a lot of impatience. Perhaps the football program will be just as lucky, creating a star rather than capturing one.

What about Bob?

Well, Bob Toledo is pushing 50, has heard 10,000 “Holy” jokes and is bound to hear 10,000 more, which is the only reason to pity him today.

Toledo is the new UCLA football coach--head coach, that is--after experiencing a season highlighted by his masterful offensive coordinating against Miami and USC and lowlighted by an Aloha Bowl in which UCLA played as though it was coached by nobody.

He is a qualified choice to be Terry Donahue’s successor. A prolonged search might have turned up someone better, but once Gary Barnett withdrew, UCLA gave the job to a guy with California contacts from San Jose to Riverside, who already is familiar with the personnel on the Bruin squad. Toledo knows his stuff; he deserves a shot.

Barnett’s decision doesn’t shock me a bit. He has a face that is Hollywood handsome, but the fact is, he never looked very comfortable out here.

Glamour was a drawback to Barnett, not a plus. He’s not into the tinsel. Oh, when the people from Jay Leno’s television program asked the coach to go along with a gag in which he would present Jay with a Northwestern helmet’s chin strap that was extra-extra-extra-large, just like Jay’s chin, Gary went along. And he sat beside the “Baywatch” babe as instructed and told funny stories.

Like, for example, the one about promising to take Northwestern to a Rose Bowl when he was hired, which led, the coach said, to people saying, “What’s this guy been smoking?”

But being funny is different from feeling funny, and Barnett felt funny about all that attention. He wouldn’t even agree to appear on Leno’s show until it was guaranteed that his Wildcat players could tag along. The coach said backstage, “I do not want to be the show.”

Staying is what’s best for him. When an outstanding linebacker from a Midwestern high school recently committed to Notre Dame rather than Northwestern because of the uncertainty over Barnett’s situation, the coach felt lousy about that.

At one point, Northwestern dangled a 12-year carrot in front of Barnett, and on New Year’s Day you saw why: not in the defeat, but in the effort his team gave and in the inspiration Barnett gave it, including an on-side kick that left USC Coach John Robinson not knowing whether to scratch his watch or wind his butt.

At UCLA, meantime, time kept marching on, with no one but assistant coaches able to go out recruiting. That included trusted aides such as Toledo, who would have liked to look some quarterback in the eye and say, “You’ll be playing for me.”

Tomorrow, he will.

And when UCLA kept reviewing names and records of coaches from coast to coast, Toledo must have stood nearby, asking, “What about me?”

Tomorrow, he won’t.

A theory has been proposed that the university itself is what recruits players, not the coach. Somehow I doubt that seniors pick Penn State because they have been captivated by the beauty of State College, Pa., but OK, if this is a school of thought at UCLA, so be it. Personally, I believe kids would have played there for Barnett who wouldn’t otherwise be coming, based on his current popularity. But we’ll see.

Barnett recently said, “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? I try to deflect all that [attention], but people always want one guy, one champion, one person responsible. And it isn’t just like that.”

Maybe not.

Coaches, however, are stars, like it or not. That’s why it is so weird when people ask today what you know about UCLA’s new guy, and you find yourself answering, “Not much.”