Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Oregon State Football’s Not A Total Loss Despite Progress Measured In Tiny Steps, Coach Of Beavers Seems To Feel No Heat

No one sets out to be Rich Kotite.

Jerry Pettibone certainly didn’t.

But it’s been six years since Oregon State hired Pettibone to revive its football program, and the Beavers are still rebuilding, still measuring progress in the shrinking margin of defeat.

That’s not good enough, society says - if winning isn’t everything in college football, it’s certainly close. It’s why there are conference standings and national rankings and bowl games and Lee Corso and Craig James.

Wins and losses are important to Pettibone, too. Ultimately, he’ll be judged by them. Every major college coach is. Oregon State coaches, too.

Four have come and gone since Tommy Prothro left with a 63-37-2 record in 1964, and each was fired or pressured to quit after losing tenures.

The 57-year-old Pettibone would seem to be next, based on his 11-47-1 record through five-plus seasons in Corvallis. Starting in 1991, that’s 1-10, 1-9-1, 4-7, 4-7, 1-10 and 0-4.

That’s also progress, Pettibone counters.

“People from the outside think, OK, last year was the year we had to turn it around - we went 1-10, we didn’t turn it around, there’s all this additional pressure, big-time pressure on me,” Pettibone said Wednesday.

“The magazines say I’m on the hot seat and so forth. Well, I know that a year ago we were 1-10, but in four games there was a difference between winning and losing of one play.”

This season, Pettibone draws inspiration from a triple-overtime loss at California two weeks ago.

“It was a real encouragement for our team,” he said. “For us to go on the road and play a Pac-10 team that was undefeated, and to get down in the fourth quarter and to come back and tie the game and go into the tiebreaking periods - just all the good things we did in that game.

“It was a much-needed boost.”

Athletic director Dutch Baughman agrees, and says Pettibone’s job is secure. To critics, that means close not only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, but Oregon State football, too.

“I think it’s most unfortunate that in our society today so many people measure the quality of an intercollegiate athletic program based on the win-loss record and the win-loss record only,” said Baughman, who was associate commissioner of the Southwest Conference when Pettibone worked at Texas A&M. “This is an athletic department that has dedicated itself to the welfare of the student-athlete.

“For example, the fact that we rank No. 1 in all of Division I-A in graduation rates is by design. I mean, that didn’t happen by accident and it’s something that’s very important to us.”

It has also become a sort of departmental trump card.

When boosters squawk, Baughman and Pettibone cite the NCAA’s most recent study on graduation rates - 95 percent for all OSU student-athletes and 91 percent for football players.

The numbers are impressive.

At Washington State, by comparison, just 29 percent of football players who spent their entire athletic careers there graduated within six years of enrolling in 1988.

“We have a life-skills program that is among the best in the country as determined by the NCAA,” Baughman went on. “Our compliance program is one that is admired by institutions all across the country.”

While some other sports have prospered in this environment, football has lagged. In an attempt to close the gap, Pettibone has finally modified his beloved option attack.

Through it all, Baughman has remained patient - resolutely so. He keeps going back to Dec. 5, 1990, the day he presented Pettibone as Oregon State’s new coach.

“I knew his personal character and his ability to coach, teach and recruit in this sport,” Baughman said. “So we introduced him to the public just that way - that we are convinced this is the right man for the job and we intend to support him in every possible way we can.

“And that perspective and that support has not waned one time since that moment, and I’m not about to do it now.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo