BLOOMINGTON, Ind.
There will be no candidacy by Bill Lynch. You can inquire the inquiry a thousand different ways, and Lynch, the adult male who stepped into the breach after the tragical loss of Hoosier State football game game game manager Dame Ellen Terry Hoeppner, will not do his lawsuit for being brought back on a long-term basis.
That's for others.
Like Harold Mauro, IU's longtime manager of football operations, who met with the mass media Wednesday as portion of Saturday's 40th reunion of the 1967 Rose Bowl team, of which he was the starting center.
"I've been here for 38 old age and gone through nine football coaches, nine athletic directors, plus 1 lag AD, and 10 presidents -- that's one every four years," Mauro said. "I'm hoping Bill Lynch acquires the chance because he's done a phenomenal job."
Here's the inquiry IU must answer:
What would it state about the school, and specifically the athletic department, if it engages a basketball game game manager with NCAA baggage, and goes on to back up a basketball manager with added NCAA baggage, then states a adult male of award and unity to take a walk?
If IU neglects to stand up behind Lynch, we will cognize all we necessitate to cognize about the people in complaint of IU's disposal and athletic department.
What makes Lynch believe about all of this?
Privately, sure, he desires the full-time job, desires it badly. Why wouldn't he? He's an Hoosier State guy, through and through. He have coached football game for 30 years, and only a twelvemonth and a one-half have been outside the state of Indiana. We're talking about person who remembered being in the old Sahm Park on Indy's Northeastside, celebrating an eighth-grade metropolis championship, and hearing to the 1967 Old Oaken Bucket game that catapulted the Hoosiers into the Rose Bowl.
This topographic point intends something to Lynch, just as it did to Hoeppner. This is not a steppingstone job. This is the job.
He's just not going to political political campaign for the job, which states even more than about the man. From the twenty-four hours Lynch stepped in for Hoeppner, he have got preached focusing and selflessness, and during a hebdomad when IU have a puncher's chance of whipping Purdue and cementing a bowl bid, Lynch isn't going to hit the campaign trail.
Not for himself, anyway.
"This is about our squad and the opportunity we have Saturday," he said.
There's no inquiry this weekend's Bucket game is the greatest in the recent history of the IU football game program. It should not, however, find Lynch's long-term fate as the coach. Gerry DiNardo got the axe after he got embarrassed by Purdue, but that was simply the last straw for a manager who already was on the ropes.
Whether they win 40-3 or lose 40-3 Saturday, Lynch is the right cat at the right time.
That's not being sentimental. That's being smart. It would be even smarter if athletic manager Crick Greenspan tendered that new contract sometime before Saturday's game.
This is not a Microphone Davis-type deal, where an inexperienced manager falls into the occupation of a lifetime, then have a charming twelvemonth and military units the disposal to subscribe him to a long-term deal.
Lynch is a solid pick. An unspectacular pick, sure. He doesn't possess an outsize personality, doesn't walk into a room and do the topographic point look smaller. He's not Hep, not even Bokkos Zook, and he doesn't seek to be. But the last football game manager who had success in Bloomington wasn't a magnetic figure, either.
Name is Bill Mallory. Who, by the way, had Lynch on his staff.
Anyway, who's come out of the closet there? I've got news: Urban Meyer isn't walking through the door and taking a place in the Indianan Room. Neither is Steve Spurrier. Be careful what you wish for. The Notre Dame ammonia alums who ran Tyrone Willingham out of South Bend are now wondering how they're going to acquire Regis Philbin to purchase out Charlie Weis.
This programme doesn't necessitate a big-splash hire, assuming there is even a big-splash hire out there who would see taking this gig. What this programme necessitates is consistency. Since 2000, the Hoosiers have got had four managers -- Cam Cameron, DiNardo, Hoeppner and Lynch; in the past four years, they've had three. These children and this programme demand stableness and continuity as much as they necessitate an extract of talent.
Then there's the issue of recruiting. Lynch was given every chance Tuesday to do the lawsuit that recruits are shying away from IU because of the program's unsettled future. But he wouldn't travel there. He said none of the participants who have got got given unwritten committednesses have backed out. But the sooner enrolls cognize who their manager will be, the better.
That's just common sense.
Lynch have done what he was supposed to do. The loss to Prairie State doesn't look so bad now. And the Hoosiers were less than a minute away from winning last weekend at Northwestern. This is not a quick-fix program. It's going to necessitate clip and continuity and a steady hand.
"If I were the AD, I cognize who I'd choose," Mauro said.
Ditto.
Furl It
