Some Confusion Over Toledo

It might qualify as only a minor distraction, but the buzz at practice Monday centered on the treatment of fired coach Bob Toledo by Athletic Director Dan Guerrero.

Although players said their coach of seven years was denied a request to address the team on the day he was fired, Guerrero indicated he gave Toledo that opportunity.

“I wanted to coach the [Las Vegas Bowl] and they wouldn’t allow me to coach the game,” said Toledo, reached at his home in Westlake Village. “I told them I wanted to address the entire team and they felt that politically it wouldn’t be good.

“It did kind of bother me. I did want to address them all.”

Instead, Toledo called players individually.

“A man should be allowed to say his last words to the team,” senior linebacker Marcus Reese said. “The [athletic director] is doing a good job making changes, but when a coach recruited us and has been with us for four years, he should have been able to talk to us in person.”

Through a spokesman, Guerrero said that he told Toledo it would be awkward for the coach to talk to the team at a scheduled 5:15 p.m. meeting because the athletic director was going to use the opportunity to inform the players of the firing.

Guerrero told the coach he could address the team the following day, but Toledo declined.

Before Toledo could clean out his office, his belongings were tossed into boxes and stacked outside the door. His son-in-law went to UCLA two days after the firing to clean out the office and discovered that interim Coach Ed Kezirian had moved in.

Toledo, however, downplayed the incident.

“They said they could box the stuff for me and I think a graduate assistant did it,” he said.

Toledo wants to renegotiate the terms of his buyout so he would not lose a portion of it should he take another coaching position.