Tollner’s Decision Puts Him in Another Class

What Ted Tollner did last week was almost unpardonable.

A man who had every reason to ditch his job, pad his pockets, promote his general welfare and leave his troubles behind, did not.

Only hours after Butch “the Hurricane” Davis bolted the University of Miami for the Cleveland Browns, setting off a panel discussion on institutional ethics, Tollner announced he was spurning a lucrative NFL offer to remain the football coach at San Diego State.

For the same pay.

To coach the same crummy squad that finished 3-8 last year.

Tollner did not hold his trustees financially hostage, did not maximize his leverage, did not hold out for a yacht.

We hear, at this moment, Tollner’s financial advisor is being talked off the Coronado Bridge.

Life is so rich with irony and juxtaposition.

You see, the tempter plying Tollner with trinkets was Davis, castigated in Coral Gables for telling everyone he was staying in Miami before jumping to the NFL for twice the money.

Davis asked Tollner to become the Browns’ assistant head coach and offensive coordinator.

The going rate for top NFL coordinators is about $500,000 a season.

With one three-letter answer, “Y-E-S,” the 60-year-old Tollner could have secured his financial future and rid himself of the Albatross Aztecs.

He might have, as he suggested, “beat the heat” out of town.

Counting seasons previously logged as an NFL assistant, the Browns’ deal would have pushed Tollner past 10 years of service, kicking in considerable severance benefits.

“I had more at stake than just the contract offered,” Tollner said.

Yet, in a decision that runs contrary to every sporting instinct known to man and “Arli$$,” Tollner said no.

“I just did what I felt was the right thing for me,” Tollner said. “It has nothing to do with what’s right for anybody else.”

In an odd twist, Tollner felt he had an obligation to finish what he started at San Diego State.

A 40-40 record over seven years suggests Tollner’s Aztecs have fallen short of expectations, thanks in some measure to brutal nonconference scheduling.

But Tollner felt he needed to honor his contract and coach the recruits who had honored theirs.

“Bottom line, I had a hard time walking away from here at 3-8, when I know we’ve done a better job than that,” Tollner said. “I couldn’t bring myself to say this is the way I want to leave the program when I leave.”

Tollner isn’t interested in turning his decision into an “Oprah” episode.

“I felt it was the right thing for me to do in my gut,” he said. “There may be some ethics involved, but I felt it was what I needed to do.”

John F. Kennedy won a Pulitzer Prize for his book “Profiles in Courage,” which chronicled stories of people who went against the grain and acted on their consciences.

In no way does Tollner turning down the Cleveland job compare to risking one’s political or literal life for principles, but his story is a nice departure in a sporting world increasingly driven by self-preservation and greed.

Tollner did not act without potential personal consequence.

His contract at San Diego State runs through 2007, at $350,000 a season, but the guaranteed portion reportedly expires before next season. There is nothing to preclude Athletic Director Rick Bay from firing Tollner after another subpar season.

Tollner is fine with that.

“I’d like to run the course, until either we get it done or they decide I’m not going to get it done,” he said. “That’s the risk you take.”

Let us not minimize how much money, and the pressure it brings, has changed the dynamics of sport.

Players and coaches pay lip service to concepts of team and loyalty but, in the end, people generally cut the best deals they can get for themselves.

Davis can be criticized for talking out of both sides of his mouth, and for leaving his team in a lurch one week before national signing day.

But business is business, and loyalty cuts both ways. Twenty-two Division I-A coaches lost their jobs this year, some for no apparent reason.

Asked after the season why it was taking so long to finalize details of his new contract at Miami, Davis quipped, “Because I don’t want to wake up in two years and be John Cooper.”

Ohio State gave Cooper the shoe after he went 111-43-4 over 13 years.

The only relevant axiom in sports today is: Cover your own you-know-what.

You think only coaches speak with forked tongue?

In 1998, Washington Athletic Director Barbara Hedges pledged public support for football coach Jim Lambright only weeks before firing him and hiring Rick Neuheisel.

Hey, circumstances change.

Tollner knows how the game is played. He was canned as USC coach after the 1986 season, in the ugly aftermath of . . . leading the Trojans to the Jan. 1 Citrus Bowl.

It all makes what Tollner did so off-the-wall admirable--the last thing he was trying to be.

“I don’t want to get into values because you act like you’re on your high horse,” Tollner said. “I just can’t sit here on a pedestal and find fault with other decisions people make. That’s [bull] too. We all have to look at our own situations.”

Tollner examined his and made a tough call.

It wasn’t profitable.

But it was honorable.