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

Another Coach Backs Out

In hindsight, maybe Bill Rowe should have seen it coming.

The only concern Rowe, athletic director at Southwest Missouri, said he had when he hired Appalachian State’s Buzz Peterson as men’s basketball coach on Thursday was that Peterson didn’t seem to have the enthusiasm for the job he would have expected. He learned why 11 hours later when Peterson called back and said he didn’t want the job.

“Maybe I should have thought about that a little more,” the sheepish Rowe said Friday after becoming the second athletic director in less than a month to be embarrassed by a basketball coach taking a job one day and turning it down the next.

Jim Harrick announced March 31 he was leaving Rhode Island for Georgia, then changed his mind twice within a period of 30 hours.

Illinois State hired Tom Richardson, an assistant for six years at the school, as coach of the men’s basketball program.