A Grip on Sports: As Bill Moos retires at Nebraska, his complicated WSU legacy remains hard to judge
A GRIP ON SPORTS • One thing is certain. Every college athletic director ever has retired saddled with a complicated legacy. The good, the bad, the indifferent have to be weighed, dissected, pondered. We try to do that this morning concerning Bill Moos and his time a few years back at Washington State.
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• Yesterday morning we passed along the then-breaking news Moos was stepping down as AD at Nebraska after three years.
His retirement came as something of a surprise seeing he had two years left on his initial contract and he had been adamant he was going to complete it.
Spoiler alert: He isn’t. And he is leaving some issues behind in Lincoln, mainly revolving around the fact he didn’t perform a miracle turnaround of the school’s fortunes after years of lost glory and nostalgic-based hope.
Another spoiler alert: There was no way the 70-year-old Moos was going to be as successful at Nebraska as Big Red Nation hoped. Given the way college sports are today, no athletic director could have been. Not in Lincoln. Not in the Big Ten. In other words, Husker fans have unrealistic expectations.
In some ways, the same could be said of Cougar fans concerning Moos’ tenure at Washington State. As today’s S-R story on Moos’ retirement states, “Moos’ eight-year tenure at WSU was productive in many regards, but destructive in others.”
That’s a pretty good assessment how a large portion of the Cougar fanbase views his time in Pullman.
The destructive part centers upon two areas of criticism: The hiring of Ernie Kent to coach the basketball team and the massive debt the Washington State athletic department incurred – and is still incurring. One is well deserved. The other is more nuanced.
When Moos first walked into his Bohler Gym office – before a bunch of money was spent to remodel it – he faced a huge problem with the men’s basketball program. Ken Bone wasn’t winning, wasn’t destined to win and would eventually need to be replaced. But it wasn’t possible then and Moos was quick to point out why. Tony Bennett’s somewhat-surprising successor had a long-term contract that was too expensive for WSU to buy out.
Though the Cougars weren’t in the financial straits they are now, Bone’s deal, which had about a multi-million dollar termination price tag at the time, was impossible for the department to afford. Not with the results being produced.
Moos made it clear he was disappointed his predecessor, Jim Sterk, had left him with such a millstone. When Moos finally axed Bone three years later, the Cougars still owed the coach $1.7 million. And the basketball program was on a downward trajectory.
So what did Moos do? He tried to hire Boise State coach, and WSU alum, Leon Rice. Waited maybe a day too long to make the offer, though. And Rice didn’t accept. The clock was ticking. So Moos turned to an old friend, former Oregon coach Ernie Kent.
And gave Kent a way-too-lucrative long-term contract. That was rolled over pretty much every year. In other words, Moos saddled his eventual successor with the same rock around the neck he had inherited.
Every bit of criticism given Moos since he left for Lincoln in 2017 about the Kent contract has been deserved. It cost the Cougars mightily and not just in financial terms.
But the criticism of the athletic department’s ongoing debt isn’t as fair.
There are two truths critics tend to overlook: The outdated WSU football facilities had to be rebuilt no matter the cost and Moos wasn’t working in a vacuum.
Martin Stadium might have been loved by the Cougar faithful but it no longer met the minimum requirements of what a Pac-10 stadium needed to be. By the time Moos left, it did. Even though the athletic department never had the money to pay for it.
Moos knew that. Heck, anyone who ever walked the Bohler halls knew that. But it had to be done.
You know who also knew it? School president Elson S. Floyd. It’s the main reason he hired Moos in the first place. (We have first-hand knowledge of this, having talked with Floyd intensively off the record prior to the hire.) And Floyd never stopped backing his AD. Every plan Moos came up with, every dream he tried to fulfill, Floyd supported. Not just with a pat on the back or a smile but with the school’s financial backing. Debt? Floyd probably didn’t like it but, under his direction, the school didn’t fear it (and not just where it concerned the athletic department). Building Washington State’s reputation and cementing its place in the Pac-10 was more important.
Moos had met his perfect boss. The Cougars built. The athletic department made plans to build some more. Sure, it would try to raise money to pay for it but if the financial fountain wasn’t flowing freely, no matter. No one, not even the regents, said no. Bonds, backed by projections of rising conference media revenue, would be used.
Our final spoiler alert: The media revenues didn’t rise. And never will, not to the levels thought then. Despite enjoying an extended run of football success, and all the positive publicity that should have arisen from such, the athletic department’s debt reached Mt. Everest levels. The deficit spending couldn’t last. And neither could Moos, especially not after Floyd died in 2015. A little over two years later Moos was on his way to Lincoln, the one AD job he ever wanted in his rearview mirror.
His legacy in Pullman is a complicated one. The negative side includes the Kent hire, the debt and a liaise-faire management structure that was showing its weaknesses by the time it ended. On the plus side is pretty much everything that has to do with football, from Mike Leach to Martin Stadium.
Anyone with even a miniscule understanding of college athletics knows the latter outweighs everything else. Football, even in the Pac-12, is king.
Moos understood that. Still does. When he returns to his ranch south of Spokane in the near future, he still will. And he’ll be right.
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WSU: Theo Lawson shares the news Abe Lucas will enter the season as an All-American tackle. And other Cougars earned Pac-12 honors as well. … As we mentioned, we have a story on Moos’ retirement to pass along. … Larry Weir spent Friday talking with Kim Aiken, the former EWU basketball player now in Pullman. It’s the centerpiece of the latest Press Box podcast. … Cougar alum Paul Ryan failed in his bid to make the 1,500-meter finals at the Olympic trials in Eugene. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and college sports, one of the plaintiffs in the recent lawsuit the Supreme Court used to castigate the NCAA is a former California basketball player. … Arizona State might be in big trouble. … In baseball news, North Carolina State had a great chance to win the college World Series. Then the Wolfpack pulled a Jon Rahm. Their stay in Omaha is over, ended by a coronavirus outbreak, not by losses on the field. … Oregon State hopes to get to Omaha soon. … In basketball news, recruiting is back in pre-pandemic form. … The Oregon State women have restocked their coaching staff. … A Colorado player learned some things at the U19 camp. … An LSU transfer is happy in Utah.
Shock: Spokane relies on its defense to stay in Indoor Football League games. But the offense has to be productive for the Shock to win. Without record-setting quarterback Charles McCullum, injured in the first half, the Shock couldn’t in Phoenix, falling to the Arizona Rattlers 56-35. Ryan Collingwood has the story. … There is also coverage from the Phoenix newspaper. … Elsewhere in the IFL, Tucson tries to get into a playoff mode against woeful Northern Arizona.
Indians: Spokane hasn’t achieved much success in its series at Hillsboro, losing 2-0 Friday night. The Indians have lost three consecutive games.
Mariners: Don’t look now, but the M’s are on a roll. Their 9-3 win over the White Sox in Chicago cements it. … Don’t be too cynical. Sure, it won’t last. Enjoy it while it does.
Sounders: The hottest team in the MLS tries to stay that way despite a heat wave. Or should that read because of a heat wave? … Portland has moved its start time back tonight due to the heat.
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• My sister is something of a world traveler. Not as much as my niece, her daughter, who worked overseas for a decade before the pandemic, but a seasoned one. My sister’s reaction as she entered Duncan Gardens? She said she felt as if she had been transported back to England. Maybe it was all the flowers. Maybe it was the fountain. Or maybe it was because I had Sgt. Pepper playing on my phone as we walked in. Until later …