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Pirate Notebook No. 82
Wednesday, September 4, 2002

By Denny O'Brien
Staff Writer and Columnist

Hard to make sense of Friday night deal

©2002 Bonesville.net

East Carolina's proud football program is plagued with a festering sore these days, and it has nothing to do with the Pirates' disappointing loss in Durham last Saturday.

In fact, if university officials were banking on the sore subsiding after the initial hullabaloo died down over infringing on the Friday night turf of the state's high school teams, that wish took a direct hit with yesterday's report by Channel 9 sports anchor Brian Bailey that South Carolina high school officials, like some of their northern neighbors, are taking steps that would result in retribution against ECU.

What initially appeared as a no-brainer decision as the financial and exposure details gradually emerged on Bonesville.net and in other media outlets has slowly evolved into one of East Carolina's most questionable moves.  With one firm handshake and a quick stroke of the pen, the bridges connecting Pirate football to its neighboring high school programs were torched.

That much was evident by the decisions of three — Williamston, Southern Durham, and High Point Central — to ban ECU recruiters from their campuses.  Williamston has since lifted its ban, but the damage, as you might say, has been done.

According to the WNCT-TV report, high schools South of the Border are being encouraged by their governing body to adopt a similar policy, meaning it could be just a matter of time before talent-rich Virginia jumps on board the blackball movement.

At the center of this controversy, of course, is ECU athletic director Mike Hamrick's July decision to move the Pirates' November 2 showdown with Cincinnati to the first Friday night in December.

Autumn Friday nights are reserved for high schools in this state.  Always have been, always will be.  After catching heat last year for infringing on prep football's sacred night, Hamrick convinced ESPN to move a game with Southern Miss to 11 AM, while pledging never to invade high school territory again.

So much for that.

When news hit the press, the NCHSAA launched a PR war worthy of a gubernatorial race.  Head honchos Charlie Adams and Dick Knox slung more mud on East Carolina than Duke fullback Alex Wade did on a 24-carry, 109-yard day.

The NCHSAA's "Dollars and Sense" campaign might be considered extreme when you consider its lack of recent public scrutiny towards the ACC's scheduling of early-season roundball tilts on the hallowed night. But in defense, Adams and Knox vow that's a battle they once fought, too, but finally threw in the towel when realizing the basketball-centric league would have its way.

In actuality, it would be inaccurate to label that stance by the NCHSAA as hypocritical, because there is one gigantic difference in these two situations — the ACC never promised a thing.

The more compelling storyline in this dilemma isn't the shattered trust between East Carolina and its football feeder system, though this could be the most damaging side effect.  Front and center of it all is the increasingly strained relationship between Hamrick and head coach Steve Logan.

Logan is adamant in his disapproval of the move, citing the importance of preserving Friday nights for high schools to shine.

Even assuming Hamrick faced concerted pressure from ESPN and Conference USA and felt he had little choice in acquiescing to the change, the stoking of Logan's extreme ire was guaranteed by the manner in which the scheduling shift was announced. The coach reportedly was informed of the change after the fact via a press release.

Inadvertent or not, that kind of management style is a recipe for discord. In effect, when the clause in Logan's contract that stipulates he is to be consulted on scheduling matters of this sort is taken into consideration, it raises a major red flag.

This all goes without mentioning that the shuffling of the game's date has interfered with the plans and logistics for what has annually become the Pirates' biggest recruiting weekend.

It's not a case of crying over spilt milk for Logan, who in his 11th season is the winningest coach in school history.  For more than a decade he has worked the NC recruiting trails relentlessly, developing trust, building relationships with the state's high school coaches and cultivating a strategic recruiting base that has come to serve as the core of ECU's talent pool.

That trust is now being tried, and some of those relationships have been cut off indefinitely, perhaps for the long haul, while others have been stressed to the breaking point.

"If a player is good enough to play at East Carolina," said one high school athletic director, "then I'm sure we can find him another place to play."

The scary thought here for those who long for ECU to continue to add what Logan calls "fabric" to the Pirate football program is that this type of disdain for the school's athletic structure could become the new rule, not the exception, as recruiting is already being affected by this Friday night deal.  High school coaches want to put their kids in hands they can trust, and in case you were wondering, taking the responsibility of living up to promises lightly doesn't build such a feeling.

Moreover, it wouldn't be a stretch to suggest that Logan's high-profile summer camps could see a significant decline in attendance, as high school teams that have been loyal campers could look elsewhere.  That, in and of itself, could inflict a major blow against Pirate recruiting when you consider Logan's Summer School was responsible for producing the likes of David Garrard and Paul Troth.

The reasons behind the scheduling move are obviously financial, considering the nice chunk of change ECU stands to make under the Friday night lights.  The Pirates could take as much as $200,000 to the bank. In addition, East Carolina was guaranteed a televised game next season, to go along with an ESPN2 prime time showcase with Louisville on the hardwood this year.

But when you factor into the equation that East Carolina has been rivaled by few in national television appearances in recent years, along with the fact that Logan and staff aren't trying to market the program to kids in California and Texarkana, you have to ask yourself is the added exposure a necessity.

While it's nice to assure a spot on the big stage this season, who's to say that wouldn't have happened, anyway?  ESPN has a slew of TBAs listed on its schedule, and if the Pirates position themselves nicely in the win column, marquee late-season games will reach national TV — at times other than Friday nights.

It is important to note that school officials higher than Hamrick can learn some valuable peripheral lessons from the perceptions invited by Hamrick's own contract, which reportedly calls for a $25,000 bonus or ten percent of the net profit of the athletic department in its fiscal year, whichever is less. That type of clause is unfair to all parties concerned, including Hamrick, because it becomes too easy to argue that such a compensation arrangement guarantees the appearance of a conflict of interest when financially-rooted controversies such as this arise.

Whether the purest of motives were behind Hamrick's decision or not, there is a major stench surrounding this scenario, one that quite frankly could have been avoided.  There isn't a written rule stating that ADs and head coaches must be bosom buddies, but at there very least, there should be a willingness for communication.

Perhaps this situation could have been avoided had Hamrick approached Logan about the issue, even in the absence of the Logan contract provision which requires such input. At the very least, Logan would have had the opportunity to give his two cents worth, then follow up with some advance damage control calls to high school coaches to ease the blow.

That could have gone a long way towards salvaging the relationship between Pirate football and the state's high schools, which for the past decade have been the program's bread and butter.

For now, though, Logan is left picking up the pieces of burnt toast he's been served, while doing his best to make amends.

All in all, you have to admit ole East Carolina alum Charlie Adams had a point.  When you really sit down and think about it, all those ESPN dollars just don't make sense.

Send an e-mail message to Denny O'Brien.

Click here to dig into Denny O'Brien's Bonesville archives.

02/23/2007 01:47:09 AM
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