For those of you who follow this stuff you know what Rick Rodriguez (aka DickRod) did and is doing to West Virginia rubs me the wrong way. At the same time, we all know there are two sides to every story and in todays Pittsburgh Post-Gazette there is an interesting article about Rodriguez bolting to Michigan penned by Chuck Finder.

In this article the point is made that some of the same wealthy donors that kept RR in Morgantown a year ago are now pissed, but are directing their ire towards the University administration and not at RR.

Bob Reynolds, former COO of Fidelity Investments is quoted, "I tell you what, I've never seen anything mishandled as much as this thing was. Here's a university that made a $200,000.00 decision and it's going to cost them millions in booster support, potential bowl money and revenue from football success. I've had calls from at least six major contributors to the program, and they're all done donating because of the Mickey Mouse things that have gone on there.

Apparently Saturday night RR had separate meetings with athletic director Ed Pastilong, Chief of Staff Craig Walker, and ultimately with President Mike Garrison. The RR wish list was as follows:

1 An additional $100,000 in bonus money for assistants;

2. Allow scholarship players to retain textbooks for resale;

3. Waive a $5.00 ticket fee for high-school coaches attending games($5000.00 in revenue)

4. Hire 7 Graduate assistants and a new recruiting coordinator to ease the duties of secondary coach Tony Gibson.

Reynolds is quoted re the RR wishlist, "You could do them in 15 minutes." Apparently some of the same donors who kept RR in Morgantown a year ago offered to ante up re these demands and were denied.

It is obvious RR and the WV administration were not on the same page. Why things got to that point we do not know, but it does appear RR gave WV a chance to keep him around-at no additional pay to RR. The administration chose not to play. My hunch is the Alabama thing of a year ago rubbed some people in the administration the wrong way and they weren't going to play again.

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