When you're looking for a new coach and a former President calls...
Crazy things happen when you're looking for a new head coach. Like, you know, being woken up in the middle of the night by a former President looking to speak with you.
Ross Dellenger took a deep dive into the process of coaching searches for the Baton Rouge Advocate by looking into past searches at LSU, Ole Miss and Mississippi State.
In the time LSU was looking to replace Nick Saban, then-AD Skip Bertman led a group that considered Bobby Petrino, Jimbo Fisher, then-LSU assistant and former Michigan State head coach Bobby Williams, Les Miles and former Texas A&M head coach R.C. Slocum for the job Miles would eventually get.
Though it wasn't a simple path in handing Miles the job, as Dellenger writes:
The agent for then-Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer called Ausberry’s hotel room at 3 a.m. the day of the Capital One Bowl, well after the decision to hire Miles had been made.
“Frank Beamer wanted the job,” a separate committee member told The Advocate. “We kind of scrambled around and talked about that a little bit.”
The weirdest call of all went to Bertman. He received a call one night that woke up him and his wife, Sandy. The person on the other end of the phone encouraged Bertman to interview Slocum before making his decision.
“It was George Bush,” Bertman laughed, referring to former President George H.W. Bush.
“OK, Mr. President," he responded.
Makes you wonder: What sort of stories will be told about the 2016-17 coaching cycle?
