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News Nuggets, 09.08.04
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Compiled from staff reports and electronic dispatches

It's official: Holland the chosen one

Complete text of a press release issued Tuesday by the East Carolina University News Bureau:

AP agrees: Holland the chosen one

GREENVILLE (AP) — Terry Holland, the former basketball coach and athletic director at Virginia, has been hired by East Carolina as its athletics director.

Holland, who agreed to a 5-year contract, will begin work Oct. 1, chancellor Steve Ballard said Tuesday.

Holland coached the Cavaliers from 1974-90 and is the winningest coach in school history with a 326-173 record. He twice reached the Final Four and coached three-time national player of the year Ralph Sampson.

After stepping down as coach in 1990, he became athletics director at Davidson, his alma mater. He returned to Virginia as athletics director five years later, serving until 2001 and overseeing the $86 million expansion of the university's football stadium.

He later became a special assistant to the university president, where he helped secure the creation of a new basketball arena.

Nick Floyd, the senior associate athletics director, served as interim athletics director at East Carolina since Mike Hamrick resigned last August. Ballard said Floyd has agreed to a new 5-year contract to remain at East Carolina.

Delayed start an unforgiving one for USM

HATTIESBURG — Southern Mississippi opens its season a week after most schools, and Coach Jeff Bower has been busy preparing his Golden Eagles for a difficult two-game season-opening stretch of televised games against Nebraska and No. 13 California.

Southern Miss is at Nebraska on Sept. 11 (ABC), then plays host to the Golden Bears five days later (ESPN).

Because the Golden Eagles have such a long delay before starting the season, but precious little time between the first and second games, Bower has been forced to incorporate preparations for both Nebraska and Cal during preseason camp.

"You don't wait until right after the Nebraska game to get ready for Cal," Bower said last month. "We've got two real good opponents. We took some time to work on Cal some ... so it won't be the first time we see them, right after the Nebraska game."

New coach Bill Callahan is ditching the Cornhuskers' traditional ground-based offense in favor of a pro-style attack, and Bower said at his weekly news conference that he will get his first look at the revamped Nebraska offense against Western Illinois this weekend.

Bower said he has watched tape on the Oakland Raiders, for whom Callahan coached last season, to get an idea of what to expect. But he said the new-look Cornhuskers seem to resemble the Golden Eagles, too.

"There are some similarities in some of the things that we do," Bower said.

Old skeptic Holtz goes positive

COLUMBIA — When coach Lou Holtz set out to revamp South Carolina's losing culture this offseason, he took a look at himself as well.

And the Gamecocks like the change they see — and don't hear.

Gone, at least for now, are the woe-is-me laments Holtz is famous for. Instead, it's a hopeful Holtz who's preparing the Gamecocks (1-0, 1-0 Southeastern Conference) for No. 3 Georgia (1-0) on Saturday.

"I'm not saying he was the devil," senior offensive lineman Jonathan Alston said Monday. "But he really has toned down the negatives."

Players say Holtz was around them more after spring and fall practices, joking and talking in the locker room instead of rushing to his office high above the stadium.

"So far, I like it," Alston said.

While Alston says the players learned not to put much stock into Holtz's early-week words of despair, it was difficult for some to handle.

"Different relatives would call up and tell you what Coach Holtz said," Alston said.

The first two weeks of this season, though, Holtz has carefully talked up his team's strong fall camp, steady improvement and solid play in a 31-6 victory at Vanderbilt.

It's what Holtz had in mind last November after the Gamecocks closed with four straight losses — including a 63-17 drubbing by rival Clemson — to miss the postseason at 5-7. Against Clemson, Holtz saw his team quit and knew more serious action than just a few hotshot freshmen or tricky plays was needed.

Holtz fired four coaches who had been with him his first five seasons at South Carolina. He took control of the offense from his son, Skip. He began a weekly class for players where they discussed issues like responsibility, citizenship and how to be good teammates. Holtz calls the process "changing the culture."

South Carolina athletic director Mike McGee said Holtz's style change goes back the past couple years when he took a more hands-on role at practices.

"It's not that he was a grouch before," McGee said. "He's enjoying, and the team is enjoying the additional participation."

Holtz and his staff, which includes four assistants with head coaching experience, have much to prepare for this week. Besides the obvious challenge of facing a national title contender in Georgia, the Gamecocks will deal with the frenzied atmosphere that always occurs when ESPN's College GameDay shows up on campus, like it will this Saturday.

"One thing that I've believed you should do but is not always done is focus on the positive," Holtz said. "Nobody in the country gives you a chance, but GameDay must think so. GameDay must think this is going to be a heck of a ballgame."

There are still times when Holtz the tyrant chews out a player at practice or grabs one of them by the facemask during a game for a sideline lecture.

Jamacia Jackson, picked as the SEC defensive player of the week for his forced fumble and 98-yard interception return TD, understands that Holtz must loudly drive across his points sometimes.

"He wants us to be great. He doesn't want us to be mediocre and keep from getting embarrassed in front of 80,000 people," Jackson said.

Holtz says he'll always look for an upside of any situation, no matter if his reputation says otherwise.

"I think you've got to try and turn everything as a positive and not as a negative," he said. "You look down and say, 'What can we gain positively about this challenge? How can we learn? How can we grow?"

Those are questions that even the 67-year-old Holtz had to face after two straight 5-7 seasons. His answers could ultimately help him revive South Carolina football.

News Nuggets are compiled periodically from staff, ECU, Conference USA and its member schools, and from Associated Press and other reports. Copyright 2004 Bonesville.net and other publishers. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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