Guerrero Finally Decides to Throw in the Towel

By T.J. Simers

Dec. 10, 2002 12 AM PT

If you listened to UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero, and successfully deciphered the double talk Monday, he apparently decided keeping Bob Toledo around wasn’t going to be good for appearances, so he fired him and put the Towel Waver in charge of the football team.

Most Bruin fans, of course, are familiar with the big goof who stands on the sideline waving a huge towel over his head as if hounded by a swarm of flies, but now to help clear the air further, he’ll be coaching UCLA in a bowl game.

Now how is this going to be for appearances -- the Bruins running onto the field for the Las Vegas Bowl led by their head coach frantically waving a white towel, and the TV announcers doing everything they can to convince a national TV audience UCLA is not surrendering to start the game?

As you might imagine, this was a very tough decision for Guerrero, who was making his first personnel move as AD, replacing Toledo with either the Towel Waver or Mister Eight Clap, the alumni cheerleader.

I guess we know who will be taking Steve Lavin’s place in a few months.

AT PRESS time NCAA officials were still checking their records to see if UCLA will be the first team ever guided by an accomplished Towel Waver, which I’m sure would make Bruin fans mighty proud.

“I have 17 years of coaching experience and 10 in administration,” Ed Kezirian said. But more importantly, I wanted to know, how many as a Towel Waver?

“Eight years,” he said, and if he’s going to do the coaching and UCLA has to pay Toledo through 2003, it seems pretty logical to me who should be waving the white towel from now on.

GUERRERO SAID the Towel Waver will be flanked by the offensive and defensive coordinators during the game, which begged the question: “Who makes the crucial call in the bowl game on third-and-10 with the score tied, 14-14?”

“I’m going to have a phone in the press box and will be calling down,” joked Guerrero, and I guess in his zeal to be more competitive with USC he’s also going to act like Mike Garrett. (Who do you think is on those headsets with Pete Carroll?)

Now if he truly wants to be like Mike, and I get the shivers even suggesting such a thing, then instead of putting together lists of coaching candidates, he ought to walk around the UCLA campus, get lucky and bump into a has-been coach who is visiting their child who just happens to already be enrolled at UCLA.

THE WHOLE thing is a farce, of course, and right now I’m talking about the state of college athletics because of what has happened to a truly decent man, who exceeded preseason expectations, guided his team to a 7-3 record only to lose two in a row to a pair of the BCS final eight and then lose his job.

The Bruins were picked before the season to finish sixth in the Pac-10, then lost their senior starting quarterback and still earned a bowl berth with freshmen playing the quarterback position and everywhere else in the lineup.

But Monday we learned it really didn’t matter what happened this season because the “UCLA family,” and the media were never going to stop dredging up the sins of the past, Guerrero said, and so all this nonsense about the new athletic director waiting all the way until Sunday to make his decision on the fate of Toledo -- was just that -- nonsense.

“Let’s say that’s when I made my confirming decision,” he said, which means his first impression was his lasting impression, and I wonder what his first impression of Lavin was?

For the last few months there was very little contact between Guerrero and Toledo.

At a meeting two weeks ago Guerrero could offer Toledo no assurances despite a job well done this season.

It was unfair, but since everybody likes a fresh start and the hope it offers for beating USC, winning the Pac-10 and gaining BCS recognition, the UCLA family and the media are going to embrace this change.

But Toledo got the bum’s rush in the end, and he deserved a lot more for the entertainment his teams provided each Saturday, and the way he conducted himself through both the highs and the lows of it all.

IT APPEARS now that Mike Riley is going to talk to UCLA today, the ideal choice to eventually put USC in its place.

Riley was on the verge of taking the USC job before it was offered to Carroll, but elected to stay with the Chargers while his kids finished school in San Diego.

He changed his mind at the last minute, and was about to accept the job again, but Carroll was sitting in Garrett’s office in the process of striking a deal.

Riley is assistant head coach and secondary coach of the New Orleans Saints, although his family remains in San Diego. It’s known he would love to have the opportunity to coach the Bruins, and he offers UCLA strong Pac-10 credentials, working as an assistant at USC and head coach at Oregon State.

Riley, one of the most likable coaches in all of sports, like Carroll, appears to be better suited to the college game because of his enthusiasm and ability to make connection with recruits.

He would be the ideal hire for UCLA.

TODAY’S LAST word comes in an e-mail from Rouss4:

“Phil Jackson’s coaching style is unique. He does not have to rant and rave. Some buffoons like you would not understand that. It’s called quiet intelligence.”

It’s called quite rare when an e-mailer doesn’t rant and rave, as you know.

T.J. Simers can be reached at [email protected].