CHRONICLING ECU & C-USA SPORTS
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View
from the 'ville
Thursday,
June 8, 2006
By Al Myatt |
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JT's good nature intact
after career transition
©2006 Bonesville.net
John Thompson said he was 47 years old when he
took the head football coaching position at East Carolina. He jokingly added
that he was 62 when he was dismissed after two seasons that resulted in a
3-20 record.
"That's a hard life," said Thompson, who was
named athletic director at his alma mater, Central Arkansas, last month. "It
was taking its toll on me. I learned a lot. I worried about everything,
everyday. I know I'm blessed to be right here."
Right here is Conway, Arkansas, where his
wife, Charlene, has opened an apparel, accessory and gift shop in town.
"We decided that this was the best place to
raise our children," said Thompson, who guided the Pirates in 2003 and 2004.
"We were going to get out of the rat race of college coaching.
"If you get in it you've got to know there's a
chance you're going to be moving all the time. Hays, my youngest, was not
even eight yet and he had lived in seven different places. ... We finally
said, 'You don't control your own destiny by any stretch of the imagination
in college coaching — for good and bad.'
"If you do your best, you've got to be willing
to move. If you're at the wrong place at the wrong time, you've got to
move."
ECU proved to be the wrong place at the wrong
time for Thompson's head coaching aspirations.
Thompson came to the Pirates after working as
defensive coordinator at Florida for Ron Zook. Former ECU athletics director
Mike Hamrick has been criticized for assembling a field of candidates that
lacked head coaching experience.
JT landed the job after an enthusiastic power
point presentation in the interview process that impressed former chancellor
Bill Muse.
Thompson was a lot of things that previous
head coach Steve Logan, an offensive wizard, was not. JT had a defensive
background and he brought energy to the banquet circuit.
Unlike Logan, whose generally successful
11-year tenure with the Pirates included five bowl appearances, Thompson
didn't win.
Nine games into an evaluation period after
Terry Holland became ECU's AD, Thompson was informed that the program would
be going in a different direction in terms of leadership.
"I stick by what I said when it happened and
it's still true," Thompson said. "We didn't win enough games and we weren't
given enough time. The facts speak for themselves."
Thompson said he has no regrets about his
stint at the helm of the Pirate ship.
"We tried as hard as we could," Thompson said.
"We tried to do it the right way. I can live with me knowing and all the
coaching staff — what a ride we went on. We don't look back and say, 'Man,
if we'd done this or done that.' But I don't regret because we tried to do
it right. We tried to teach some values.
"We tried to do what I thought was the right
way to do it. ... Now, I'd still be right there if we'd been given the
chance. I thought we would. I thought we'd have stayed there for a long
time. I think we'd have gotten the thing done."
The Pirates were 5-6 under first-year head
coach Skip Holtz in 2005.
"They possibly speeded the process up by
firing all of us," Thompson conceded. "They might have saved themselves a
year or two, you know."
Thompson said he continues to follow the
Pirates program and still talks occasionally to some of the players. He
spoke with linebacker Chris Moore this week. Vonta Leach sent his sons a
Christmas present.
"They've got things there in place that we
were fighting for for two years," Thompson said. "We didn't get any of it —
the fields, the renovations — all of that. We tried to get things done but
just nothing got done."
The majority of Thompson's tenure, ECU had an
interim AD and an interim chancellor in the wake of the departures from the
scene of Hamrick and Muse.
"Nobody would do anything," Thompson said.
"Nobody would make any decisions. Couldn't get anything done. Holland comes
in and gets those things done — and I'm happy for 'em."
The only coaching Thompson is doing now is as
assistant hitting coach and occasionally first base coach for his son Hays'
youth baseball team, Coleman Dairy.
After he left Greenville, Thompson became
defensive coordinator at South Carolina but he didn't finish the season with
the Gamecocks, the result of differences with head coach Steve Spurrier.
"It was real good to go there and coach with
Coach Spurrier and be back with my old buddies from Southern Miss," Thompson
said. "We had a great situation. Then when the season started, all of the
fun went out of it. It wasn't fun at all."
Spurrier eventually gave Thompson an apparent
battlefield demotion, elevating defensive assistant Tyrone Nix to make the
calls for the defensive unit during games. Thompson was happy in one sense
for his former player at Southern Miss, Nix. Thompson later left the
Gamecocks with a six-figure contract settlement.
"After East Carolina, I kind of knew I was
ready to get out (of coaching)," Thompson said. "I went through that deal at
South Carolina and I knew I was ready to get out."
Were there philosophical differences with
Spurrier?
"100 percent," Thompson said. "What I was told
going in really kind of changed during the season. But Coach Spurrier is the
head coach and you've got to be able to do what he wants to do. Maybe I was
a little too old. I wasn't the guy for him.
"I knew that. I said, 'Hey, you need to let
Tyrone do this thing.' It wasn't anything really, besides that. Maybe, if
I'd have been younger. I didn't get some things straight on the front end
like I thought I had. It might have been different, but he's the head coach.
He can do what he wants to do.
"It worked out great for me."
Thompson's new responsibilities will allow his
family to be settled. One of his strengths will be his perspective on
player/coach relationships. He said he will work at learning the fundraising
and administrative skills that make for a successful leader of an athletic
program.
Central Arkansas is getting ready to move from
Division II to Division I-AA in football in the Southland Conference and
from D-II to D-I in other sports. Thompson said he will not make his
football program sacrificial lambs — scheduling them against big-time
opponents for the sake of financial guarantees.
The former Central Arkansas AD, Vance Strange,
was Thompson's position coach when he played for the Bears. Strange had
already retired from private business when he took over the reins at Central
Arkansas.
Thompson keeps up with his former ECU staff
members. Energetic former defensive coordinator Jerry Odom is a high school
head coach in Georgia.
"He had a decent year and is doing OK,"
Thompson said. "Fred Tate is at Southern Miss. Matt Graves is at Stephen F.
Austin. Art Kaufman is at Middle Tennessee with Rick Stockstill. Stock's the
head coach. Lonnie Galloway is at Appalachian State. Steve Janski is a head
high school coach here in Arkansas. Robert MacFarland is the head coach at
Stephen F. Austin.
"Noah Brindise is at UNLV. Matter of fact,
Noah and I left messages with each other (Tuesday). Really the only guy I
haven't talked to very much is Jerry McManus. I think he's at Kent State.
"Those are good guys, hard workers. Good men."
Thompson said he was playing a lot of golf
before the AD position came open.
"I was almost getting good," he said. "Then
this job thing got in the way."
He was joking again. JT has experienced his
share of adversity in coaching. He lost games and he lost jobs. One of the
things he hasn't lost is his sense of humor or his love of his family. Long
days involved in coaching are a thing in his past.
"It's just better," he said.
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02/23/2007 12:30:22 AM
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