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Originally posted: 12.08.02.
Costly D-I-V-O-R-C-E
From Bonesville.net staff and wire reports
GREENVILLE — Steve Logan, the intense, professorial
coach who nurtured East Carolina's football program back to a winning
tradition during an 11-year tenure, agreed Saturday to part ways with
the program.
The official position of the ECU athletic department was
that both Logan and the school agreed on Logan's departure.
"There's always a lot of factors that go into any
decision,'' athletics director Mike Hamrick said Saturday. "The only
thing I can say is we reached a mutual agreement that he would resign.''
That mutual agreement included some big dollar signs.
East Carolina will continue to pay Logan's annual base salary of
$200,000 until 2006, but the payments will be reduced by any income
Logan earns during the period. In addition, Logan retains a retirement
annuity of about three-quarters of a million dollars which will be
unaffected by compensation he may earn in other capacities in the
future.
Prior to Logan assuming command of the program, the
Pirates had experienced one winning season in the previous eight years.
After being named to succeed Bill Lewis following the
1991 season, Logan's teams suffered rebuilding seasons of 5-6 in 1992
and 2-9 in 1993 before before embarking on a stretch which included
seven winning seasons and five bowl berths.
The abrupt resignation signals what may be the beginning
of a reshuffling of ECU athletics over the next several months by Dr.
William V. Muse, who last year was named to succeed Dr. Richard Eakin as
the school's chancellor. In any event, the move can be seen as a direct
effort by Muse to begin stabilizing an athletic department which has
been bogged down by internal and external dissension over multiple
issues.
In the meantime, Logan's sudden dismissal may add to the
controversy in which ECU athletics has become embroiled. In addition to
the losing season in football, the school has taken a major public
relations hit over its handling of the rescheduling of a football game
for television opposite the state high football playoffs, a scheduling
shift which Logan publicly objected to after he was notified of it in a
press release.
Logan, who developed a reputation as an iron
disciplinarian and a demander of academic accomplishment from his
players, became head coach of the Pirates in 1992 and proceeded to
compile more more wins than any other coach in school history. His teams
were 69-58, including a run of 62-43 and five bowl games since 1994 and
three straight postseason berths heading into this season.
But ECU finished a substandard 4-8 in 2002.
A native of Broken Arrow, OK, Logan established family
roots in the Greenville community and consistently
resisted the temptation to use the job as the stepping stone to another
program, which engendered mutual loyalty among a substantial segment of
the ECU football constituency. The breech of that perceived two-way
commitment is a factor which is likely to stir the ire of
many fans who anguished over the
departures of Pat Dye and Lewis after the 1979 and 1991 seasons,
respectively.
Under the fiery Logan, the Pirates had become fixtures on national,
regional and local television over the last decade. In an ironic twist,
the announcement came a day after ECU was beaten at home by Cincinnati
42-26 in front of the ESPN2 TV cameras in the Pirates' final game of the
season.
Logan declined to comment on Saturday. After Friday night's loss,
however, he
said he couldn't control his fate but that the school would have to
write "an awful big check'' to force him out.
ECU, which regularly acknowledges the athletic
department budget pressures it faces, apparently decided it had enough money to oblige.
Logan came to East Carolina in 1989 as running backs coach and was
offensive coordinator for two years before taking over as head coach
before the 1992 season. Previously, he served stints as an assistant at
Mississippi State, Oklahoma State, Colorado and Tulsa, his alma mater.
The Pirates became known as a dangerous opponent during Logan's stay in
Greenville, knocking off a number of big-name opponents, including Miami (twice) and
Syracuse (twice).
Four of the wins during Logan's reign came over
ranked teams, including a nationally-televised shocker over
then No. 9 Miami in 1999, which was moved from Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium to
N.C. State's Carter-Finley Stadium in the wake of the devastation of
Hurricane Floyd.
That 1999 team went on to finish 9-3 and was ranked in
both national polls from the fourth week of the season until the final
poll.
Logan's 1995 team also went 9-3, including a win over a
Tyrone Willingham-coached Stanford team in the Liberty Bowl. Willingham,
a Jacksonville native, is now the head coach at Notre Dame.
The Pirates' 2002 season, though disappointing by the
program's recent standards, was highlighted by yet another improbable
victory over a heavily-favored opponent. Logan's final ECU squad upset
nationally-ranked Texas Christian a little over two weeks ago.
The success of Logan's program was a principle factor in
East Carolina gaining a foothold in Conference USA. ECU's entry into the
league began as a gridiron member only, but eventually the school was
accepted as a full member in all sports.
ECU's football-related facilities underwent
unprecedented expansion, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, during the Logan era.
An upper deck, club level and multimedia scoreboard were
added to the
school's football stadium.
And the Murphy Center — a project Logan intensely
promoted from its conception — came into being as one of college
football's premier strength
and conditioning complexes adjacent to the end zone of the stadium Logan
called home for 14 years.
©2002 Bonesville.net. All rights
reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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