Holland Conducts News Briefing
(Nov. 30, 2004) — East Carolina Athletics Director Terry Holland addressed members of the media Tuesday morning in the Murphy Center regarding the football coaching search and other athletic matters. The following are selected comments from today’s press conference:Opening Comments:
“I would like to thank everybody for their cooperation in letting our football team finish their season with as few distractions as they possibly could under the circumstances. Obviously it was not an ideal situation for anyone.”
“I arrived at a very unusual time of the year for an athletic director. I tried as best as I could to observe what was happening, not only in our football program, but also throughout the university. I had a chance to be a little bit of an objective observer and I tried to do that, particularly with football, in a way that was unobtrusive, but also allowed me to get a feel for what was going on.”
“A football coach today has a tough job. A football coach is really a small percentage of what it takes to be successful, particularly as something as competitive as intercollegiate football today. All of us have to be committed and we have to be building a program for the long-term. It is not as simple as just buying a program. You can’t do that in a day’s work. If you could, there would be a lot of teams winning national championships. It is just not that simple.”
On timing of coaching change:
“As we wrestle with where we are right now, what it really came down to was how we can get better. How we, in the future, replace staff members and continue to recruit. It was not a matter of whether we support our current staff for another year. It was matter of answering questions both from potential new staff members and also to recruits and their parents, and not just for one more year. That is not good enough for someone who is sending his or her son here to play football. I was actually going to be required to, at some point, essentially extend, if not in public, the coach’s contract. At that time, Nick (Floyd, ECU Senior Associate AD) and I decided that we needed to make a decision that we felt was in everyone’s best long-term interest and that another year would not help our staff, nor would it help East Carolina University.”
On coaching search:
“Nick and I have at times sought advice from everyone around the country in how to compile the most comprehensive list of football coaches available as we begin our search. We tried to do it in a way that did not interfere not only with our season, but also with the seasons of those people who are actively engaged in coaching at this time. We are trying to respect their teams and their team’s needs as well as our own team’s needs.”
On coaching candidates:
“We will not talk about the names. We will not address any individual candidates and we will ask them not to do that while they are here on campus. We ask that you respect their ability to move around campus and see what is here and not try to interview them because they are not going to say anything while they are on campus or they will remove themselves as candidates. They are welcome to say whatever they want to once they leave here or before they arrive. Those are going to be sort of the rules of the game and we cannot comment and will not comment on individual candidates during the course of this search until we have the person that we want to lead the East Carolina University football program.”