Karcher 5-Year Extension!

[Sly Fox]

Merry Christmas, Coach.

All I can say is "Wow!" A five-year extension seems to be a bit over the top considering the current state of the program. And it certainly comes as a surprise considering where things stood at midseason.

It seems to me a shorter extension would've made more sense. But perhaps a flexible buyout was written into the deal (just in case).

Congrats Coach Karcher on your security. Now go out and earn that money on Signing Day.

Here's the official release on the LU website:

www.libertyflames.com/football/news.asp?news_id=1611

[Stevev]

I'm not too surprised by the deal. It's hard to fire someone who is coming off a season with a winning record. Maybe LU couldn't find anyone else more qualified than Karcher at this time. Maybe the new operations center will bring in better recruits and maybe some 1A transferes.

[eddantes]

Bad move. I can't believe they did this.

Even if they were to extend his contract.... 5 years?

[Stevev]

I'm starting to have second thoughts about what I said earlier. If the last 2 seasons are the best that he can do, then he did not deserve an extension at all (5 years seems a bit too much). In his 5 years so far LU hasn't beaten anyone worth mentioning here, just Big South pushovers and div 2 competition. Maybe at LU that is considered acceptable, I don't know.

[Sly Fox]

It shouldn't be acceptible at Liberty. It certainly wouldn't have merited a 5-year extension at most any othe school in the country. But the LU administration operates considerably differently than most places (as is the case in nearly every other aspect of the campus).

[LUconn]

Does anybody have the suspicion that Falwell runs the show in our athletic department? After reading that article, I got the impression that it was jerry that gave him the rehire. I think the LU athletic department would be better off if he left it up to the Athletic Director and whoever else he hired to be in charge of that stuff. Last I checked, he was a preacher and a chancelor, and a very good one. But a good Athletic Director, he is not. Sometimes I think I could do better than Kim Graham.

[eddantes]

Kim Graham is a good administrator, when it comes to things like getting 17 Division I programs running seamlessly. I mean, how many Sasser Cups have we won with this guy?

Of course, having a quality women's tennis program isn't gonna put the school on the map. It just isn't. Football could, but won't with Karcher in charge.

Just because I'm still bitter, here are the Sagarin ratings (a USA Today ranking) of all Division I football teams that we beat (out of 239 teams) in the last two years:
2004 -
Gardner-Webb (188)
Elon (200)
Chattanooga (205)
Charleston Southern (220)
VMI (222)

2003 -
Hofstra (170)
VMI (194)
Coastal Carolina (218)
Norfolk State (228)
Charleston Southern (232)

Dynamite, Liberty. Way to re-hire the guy that navigated you to victory over cupcakes (but nothing else). As long as you keep beating those bottom-feeders, you'll hopefully capture that elusive Big South football crown. And of course, that's exactly what we intended our program to do.

[Sly Fox]

Wow, Ed, you must be bitter to go to the effort to dig up those grim statistics. But thanks for doing the digging. I dream of the day when we finally break through and knock off one of these MAC schools. I remember the excitement on campus back when I was in school when we beat JMU for the first time to earn our first I-AA victory while we were still Div II.

[LUconn]

As long as we're throwing out stats, I found some interesting Sagarin ratings

CONFERENCE CENTRAL MEAN SIMPLE AVERAGE TEAMS

1 ATLANTIC COAST (A) = 77.83 78.00 ( 2) 11
2 PAC-10 (A) = 77.55 78.33 ( 1) 10
3 BIG 12 (A) = 76.90 77.81 ( 3) 12
4 I-A INDEPENDENTS (A) = 76.68 76.68 ( 4) 2
5 BIG TEN (A) = 75.61 75.29 ( 5) 11
6 SOUTHEASTERN (A) = 73.98 74.10 ( 6) 12
7 BIG EAST (A) = 71.99 71.56 ( 8) 7
8 MOUNTAIN WEST (A) = 71.96 72.81 ( 7) 8
9 WESTERN ATHLETIC (A) = 67.50 68.48 ( 9) 10
10 ATLANTIC 10 (AA)= 65.77 65.17 ( 11) 12
11 CONFERENCE USA (A) = 65.76 66.83 ( 10) 11
12 SUN BELT (A) = 60.35 60.58 ( 12) 9
13 GREAT WEST (AA)= 56.81 56.80 ( 13) 6
14 BIG SKY (AA)= 55.96 56.55 ( 14) 8
15 MID-AMERICAN (A) = 55.78 56.46 ( 15) 14
16 SOUTHLAND (AA)= 55.63 55.83 ( 16) 6
17 IVY LEAGUE (AA)= 54.98 55.83 ( 17) 8
18 SOUTHERN (AA)= 52.45 52.87 ( 18) 8
19 PATRIOT LEAGUE (AA)= 52.03 50.76 ( 20) 7
20 GATEWAY (AA)= 51.38 52.24 ( 19) 8
21 I-AA INDEPENDENTS (AA)= 46.53 46.43 ( 21) 5
22 OHIO VALLEY (AA)= 43.85 43.74 ( 22) 9
23 MID-EASTERN (AA)= 41.98 41.98 ( 23) 8
24 BIG SOUTH (AA)= 41.80 41.42 ( 24) 5
25 SOUTHWESTERN (AA)= 38.79 37.84 ( 25) 1
26 NORTHEAST (AA)= 35.32 35.17 ( 26) 8
27 PIONEER (AA)= 27.31 28.66 ( 27) 9
28 METRO ATLANTIC (AA)= 22.83 24.07 ( 28) 5
29 ***UNRATED*** (**)= -99.00 -99.00 ( 29)

While I don't believe these ratings (mainly because the Pac10 is #2, not to mention acc at #1 and sec is so low) it gives you a good idea where the Big South is. And that is low yet in the middle. It's respectable but still shows we should be in the SoCon.

[Sly Fox]

The A-10 #10? That is the biggest joke I've ever seen. Put any A-10 school in the 15th-rated MAC and let them try to win two games.

Seeing the numbers only makes things more embarassing.

[guest]

Just so you know... Jerry didn't do the rehire all on his own... He got in some pretty big trouble with members of the board a.k.a. the high rolers that donate, after hiring the basketball coah (I can't remember his name). This time he made sure that others were involved, so it was quite a drawn out decision involving quite a few people! TEXT

[Sly Fox]

So Jerry is the one who was responsible for the Mel debacle. Oh well.

[eddantes]

No no no no no, just the opposite...

This is what I heard about that situation...

There was some unpleasantness with basketball coach Jeff Meyer. I don't know the details, but I think it involved some players getting drunk at a basketball trip to Hawaii. Meyer wound up getting fired (fine, "reassigned" to the President's office) and Dunton was installed as the interim coach.

After his interim time was up, people were so furious over the Jeff Meyer debacle that they didn't want Coach Dunton in (Dunton was an assistant under Meyer). So, they didn't even grant him an interview for the job that he held as an interim position, until he whined about it. At which point, they only gave him a cursory interview before hiring Mel Hankinson.

At which point, Falwell called up Dunton and said that once Mel leaves, Dunton would be their guy. Four years later, Mel was canned, and Dunton was announced as the new coach less than a week later.

I remember it like this - Hankinson was fired via a letter left on his desk over the weekend. The press was told about it on Tuesday; Dunton hired on Thursday.

The sad thing is that rumor had it that three people were being looked at by the administration as potential coaches - hold on to this - A.C. Green, Mark Price and David Robinson. None of those guys got phone calls, I don't think, because Falwell wanted Dunton in there.

I guess that's what happened with Karcher - the board of trustees or whoever it was wanted more of a say, and gave Karcher the thumbs up when Falwell wanted him gone.

This is what I heard, from reliable sources..... That after losing to COastal Carolina, Falwell asked someone what happened in that game. THat person replied "i don't know" to which Falwell said, "well, we won't have that problem anymore (meaning Karcher was to be fired)." that's why the following Saturday, Karcher didn't say much at the dedication of the field house.

I hate Ken Karcher, by the way.

[PittLU]

Well Ed, you just made me sick.......

I would like to say you are full of it, but I know from one of my best friends from Liberty that Falwell and Dunton were boys. It doesnt suprise me that Falwell would pull the trigger for Dunton. What is sickening is the potential recruiting downfall that was missed out on. This is the football board, but in general a name - especially those names in professional basketball lore - is a HUGE difference in basketball. Talk about a poster children for the University.

I dont know much about Karcher other than his record with HIS recruits is pretty terrible.

[Sly Fox]

What Ed is telling us is basically what I heard off the record from some guys associated with the basketball situation.

I can tell you ther would ZERO chance of David Robinson coming to Liberty. David is VERY happy raising his family in San Antonio and running his very large charitable trust. He has a charter school in SA that is amazing. Although, a few years ago Julius was his teammate on the Spurs (although Julius didn't do much but sit on IR during his Spurs tenure),

As for Price & Green, they would make sense. I've had some contact with AC Green over the past 6-7 years. He mentors Christian basketball players in the State of Texas from his homebase of Dallas. I used to see him regularly at UT games a few years back.

As for football, I haven't heard a peep about how this contract extension went down. Most of my contacts inside the Athletic Office are no longer on campus.

By the way, Ed, don't sugarcoat how you feel about Karcher. ;D

[PAmedic]

eddantes said:

I hate Ken Karcher, by the way.

woulda NEVER guessed! (I'm no fan of the man either) Remind me not to cross you if we ever meet- you gotta be from the east coast!? preach on brother- honesty is the best policy!

[Duntonville]

Jeez fellas, calm down on Karcher. Was this his first coaching gig? If so, you gota let someone make some mistakes and learn from them. If Karcher had just had better luck with his QBs, he may have done some great things. But still, these past two seasons haven't been tHAt bad. Its almost like the Floridian kooks canning Zook after a good season...the thing is, we don't have a name like Florida to instantly replace a decent coach with a [possibly] great one.

Its like you guys want us to keep hiring coaches until one stumbles on a lucky season on which to build.

Maybe I'm naive since I don't know a whole lot about football, but coaching the game seems to be pretty complicated. A lot of lessons need to be learned in order to become great. That would seem to take time unless you're lucky.

Correct my dumb statements ed.

5 years though, that's a little long.

[Sly Fox]

I think the general consensus is that Karcher hasn't exactly performed up to expectation in his 5 years thus far and that the extension seemed way too lengthy. But your points are valid.

[eddantes]

I suppose it's time to come clean - while I did make several cogent points about Karcher's record with quarterbacks and thus over the season, I did have an agenda. Like I said, I'm not a big fan of the guy.

I used to work for both the student newspaper and the radio station. I was pretty good at both. When Hankinson got canned, one of my colleagues came and started to build up a rapport with Randy Dunton. From that, we had Dunton and several of his assistant coaches on the radio, and he told us how he wanted to get the student interest back in the basketball team, and used us as an outlet. You know what? As a 20-year-old, that was pretty significant to me.

Karcher on the other hand, was the most unaccessible guy possible. He was a total jerk, blew us off every chance he got, etc. The only person we got from the football staff to ever talk with us was the spiritual mentor (or coach, whatever you want to refer to him as), Ed Gomes (yeah, that Ed Gomes - former LU basketball player Great guy.)

Whatever. In any event, I did manage to interview Karcher when I was doing a (print) story that was a total rip of ESPN's "the season" - and I did it on our backup quarterback (perhaps I'm giving too much of my secret identity away by saying this). In ant event, Karcher was in the midst of another huge embarrassing season (he would wind up going 2-9 that year) and when I came to him about doing a story about the backup QB, he took offense to it - saying that there was no reason why I should write that story, and he asked questions to me that he knew I couldn't answer honestly, lest I put my job as a student reporter in jeopardy. After a terrible interview, he basically kicked me out of his office and said "You can't get a good story out of [your angle]."

I wrote it anyway.

Long story short, my article, which Karcher didn't want me to write, which he didn't think I could turn into a good story... won the Virginia Press Associations's award for best sports writing in the college competition. My little diddy beat every other college sports writer's articles in the state - better than Virginia Tech, JMU, Washington & Lee, etc. (in fairness, UVa didn't enter the competition).

And so, above all else - that being his coaching ineptitude - he was a real jerk to me. But I'm okay with it now...

Does that clear things up?

[gest2b]

Interesting story about the paper and all...I'm assuming you're talking about Painter as the QB. I guess you do understand why Karcher got mad though right? You were essentially calling Karcher's possible mistake right to his face, almost rubbing it in by interviewing him for the story. Of course I'm not saying that your position wasn't fully understandable also. I'd like to hear some of these questions that he asked you.

About Jerry: I was a pretty big Karcher supporter, but that Coastal game made me want him out, so I can believe the Jerry comment. The rest of the season appeased me though (and I assume Jerry as well), so I'm ok with the new contract. I'm just worried about the running back situation....If Karcher doesn't come through with a big recruit on that, we could make a tailspin down to the depths of the big south, and that 5 year contract could become a big mistake. If Karcher can pull something off and keep his "momentum" this year, things should work out.


Speaking of the school paper, did anybody know Jason Blair (sp?) the NY times guy that was at LU? I wonder how things were with him at the champion.

How about Wes Rickards?

[LUconn]

I've been wondering about the RB situation too. Graduating 3 150 yard/game backs in one year is brutal. Then again, maybe our Oline is just stellar. Much like the situation in Denver.

I think it's Wes Wickards. Wasn't he just on the radio? He posts on the Big South message board sometimes. Just updating everyone on LU news. He doesn't ever respond to anything though.

[PAmedic]

hey Ed, "cogent"= NICE ONE. you deserve at least a double word score on that one!

[eddantes]

Jayson Blair worked at the Champion (the student newspaper) for his first semester (and only) semester at Liberty. Archives are sketchy, so I don't know what he wrote or if he fabricated it.

The interview about the backup QB was set up before the first game he played, although it was conducted afterwards. Karcher came out guns-a-blazing, asking things like "why do you think you know who's redshirting in the program?" and things like that - basically saying that my focus - that the QB would be the one taking the snaps when Karcher had his third recruiting class (the one that was supposed to make us national champions) - was off because he could decide that he could recruit someone that day and have him step in as a true freshman the next season. I don't know, the entire situation is a blur because I've tried to repress the memory.

Wes Rickards? Uhhhh, never heard of him.

[PittLU]

I am proud to hear that you pursued the piece anyway and won that award. It is good to hear that you werent beat down and that balls to stand up and do what you thought was good piece. Did you get any campus recognization for the award? Overall, were you somewhat free at the Champion, or did you have censors read (or worse - edit) your pieces?

[Sly Fox]

Let me tell you, your situation with the coaching staff isn't uncommon. Most coaching staffs regard the media with disdain and the student media as a nuisance. Its a rare coach who understands they can use the media as a resource to accomplish their goals.

As for the Jayson Blair LU connections, I thought that was folklore. So you guys have heard that he did indeed spend sometime on campus? Bizarre. Doing the math, he may have been on campus shortly after I left school.

As for the Champion, I didn't care much for that outfit while I was in school. The journalism department back in the Late '80s looked down on the broadcasting department with great disdain (despite the fact that we were helping keep the department afloat when they created the broadcast journalism major). So after my first (and only) journalism class, the journalism prof (I can't remeber her name) basically sneered at my interest in working on The Champion's staff as soon as she found out I was a broadcast management major. But I did just fine without The Champion on my resume. And that's more than I can say for most of her journalism majors who were selling insurance within six months of graduation. I run into LU broadcast journalism majors in the business all the time (even down here in Texas, believe it or not).

[PittLU]

I have to admit - you media types dont seem bad to me. You have a job to do to report on the topics you cover, but you can understand that those who have to cover LU sports (regardless of what media type) have a serious problem. Administrations handling of the media reflects keeping everything in house and frowns on any type of press not regarded as positive. It is obvious that has trickled down to the athletic department. Maybe that is why Lynchburg is so anti-LU.


I am suprised to hear of many successful LU journalism majors. I know of a ton of Sport Management majors who went on to sales period - me included

[Sly Fox]

LU's handling of the media is not uncommon. Most schools view the media as a necessary evil. I have dealt with scores of colleges on a regular basis in my time in the business and they are all guilty to some extent. Its a rare school that opens up with open arms.

I'm not saying all LU broadcast journalism grads have flourished. Its just they seemed to do better than their print journalism counterparts back in my day. But Liberty does indeed have a rather large alumni base in the media. You would have to ask Ed about more recent grads, but a bunch of my friends are working across the country.

And I understand completely moving to sales. I sold advertising for a time after graduation in between broadcast gigs. And lets face it, most jobs in sports are basically sales & marketing. And much like broadcasting, you have to sacrifice financially & socially when you are first breaking in. Its a price that is tough to justify unless you are extremely passionate about your work.

[eddantes]

Sly, to answer your question about censorship in the Champion... If you only knew the half of it.

Back before I came onto campus, (this happened in like 1997 or something), student life had some Christian band come and play at Liberty. The Champion took a picture of one of the musicians and ran the pic on the inside.

Thus began our demise...

Apparently, the musician had... a pierced eyebrow. And ever since then, every edition of the Champion is looked over by the President's secretary (Sharon Hartliss when I was there) to ensure that there would be no objectionable content in there. Of course, with full veto power she went too far at times.

We used to have national advertisements, full page ads from like K-Mart which I think we had to drop because not all the girls in the ad were dressed according to the Liberty Way (no spaghetti straps, young lady!) Thus cut out a significant source of our revenue.

Even dumb things were cut - an opinion article about drug use among athletes was spiked because we didn't want to insinuate that OUR athletes were doing drugs (the article didn't). When Falwell made his comments about how the gays caused 9/11, he wound up apologizing. We couldn't print an official Falwell press release saying that he apologized, because it insinuated that he did something wrong in the first place.

With all that, a lot of the censorship that goes on is (here's a journalism term for you) prior restraint. Meaning, we knew that a story wasn't going to be printed (like about an absurdity with the Liberty Way) so we just didn't even bother.

[eddantes]

Oops, I posted and forgot to include my anecdote... I was a sports editor when Hankinson got canned in favor of Dunton.

So during that Spring Break, I went home and I was listening to local sports talk radio (coming from New York City) and this guy started mentioning that of all teams, the real national champion should be... Liberty (this is coming from NYC, remember). He did like the six degrees of seperation between Liberty, who beat Radford, who beat Winthrop, who beat Clemson, who beat Virginia, who beat Duke, who was the number one team at the time... It was completely in jest, and then he concluded by saying "oh wait, Liberty was last in the nation."

So I start writing an article saying that it was a good thing to hire a new coach (Dunton) because we were last in the nation and our highly touted recruit was a backup guard in Roanoke averaging 3.0 ppg (he wound up going to a JUCO school, and didn't play). I said that a new beginning gives us hope, blah blah blah.

Now, the paper comes out Tuesday mornings, but it is sent to print on Monday afternoon. That means we have to have a final copy ready to show the President's secretary by Monday morning.

Well, throughout the week, I'm being yelled at by my advisor about the story, and she kept telling me that there's no way it's going to be printed. Gotta cut that, gotta cut this. No way I can make that statement.... So I complied. After all, anyone with experience putting together a paper on deadline can tell you that a sizeable hole on a page ain't exactly good.

My advisor and I reached a compromise on Sunday night. I get a phone call Monday morning, telling me that there's a problem and I had to get to the office ASAP.

By the time I got to the office, there was a huge X mark on the page. But on the bottom, I saw this: "SH denied, KG denied, JMB approved."

My article went in... thanks to the overriding approval of one President John M. Borek (who, as I would later discover, only wanted my article in there because the administration had taken flak for hiring Dunton so soon... he could justify the admin's position because of my article saying that they made the right move... sure, I was used... but it still makes for a fun story).

Oh, and that little diddy about the six degrees of seperation making LU the best team? Didn't make it in (although it was well received when I repeated it on the radio).

[HoldMyOwn]

Let's not blow this contract out the water...a few other coaching options fell thourgh so this is what you get....you'd ask "but 5 years?" the buyout on the contract is pennies to our main football contributor (Art Williams)...Ken deserves this for showing progress, although if you see the team going back down then they'll start throwing around that buyout option