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Opinion: Jim Riley | |||||||||||
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Let players decide if Price should coach in Rose Bowl It is a sign of how beloved Mike Price has been in Pullman that the opportunity to stay on and coach in the Rose Bowl was even offered. Anyone who has seen the respect he gets in Pullman really isn't too surprised. New Cougars head coach Bill Doba said he wants Price to stay on and finish his 14th season by coaching in the Rose Bowl, but how about letting the team decide. Comments from the players have been divided. How about a simple vote by secret ballot? While football teams, hardly democracies, are usually run by the dictatorial rule of the head coach, in this case it just might be the appropriate time to let the players decide. Those players who love him will have had a chance to grieve. Those who don't - and anyone who has ever been second string on a football team knows it's always the head coach's fault - will have had a chance to reconsider. It's the players who are often so powerless in situations like this, yet it is the players who the fans come to watch. Nowhere is the hypocrisy of amateur athletics more visible than in college football. The players bring in millions of dollars for their universities and are rewarded with a free education. For some, that's a pretty good deal. For others, for the really talented ones who will soon earn millions in the NFL, it's highway robbery. While proposals for players to share more in the money raised by football have been squashed, perhaps here is a case where they can at least have a voice. If things stay as they are now, the main storyline from the Rose Bowl will be all about Mike Price: n Either the Cougs won one last game for their beloved coach. n Or they were so distracted by their former coach, and he so distracted with his new team, that they lost a game they could have won. Either way, it's the players who get shortchanged. Price showed the wisdom of Solomon in the way he handled the fight between Jason David and Ira Davis. While David was injured, Davis was suspended. When David returned to the lineup, Davis returned to the team. Beautiful. Now, Price needs to come up with something equally as brilliant, and allowing each player a vote would be another one. Athletic director Jim Sterk can be the one to count the ballots and can shred them the moment they are counted. No one needs to know whether the decision to allow Price to stay or to leave immediately was decided by a single vote or by a landslide. There are certainly compelling arguments to be made in either direction and it has certainly incited the passions of loyal WSU fans. And, as anyone who has lived here knows, there are no die-hard fans like WSU fans. Anyone who has ever seen all the cars driving the 140 miles to Pullman on icy roads over a two-lane, hilly highway at night, and paying for the privilege, knows there's a loyalty there that goes far beyond that felt by most college graduates. Most of those Cougars fans dreamed of the day when the entire country was talking about WSU's football program. They just never could have imagined it would be over an issue as complicated and emotionally charged as this one. The day before WSU played UCLA a few weeks ago needing a victory at the Rose Bowl to come back and play in Pasadena, Price gathered his players around him at midfield. "It just doesn't get any better than this," he told them, looking around at perhaps the most storied stadium in college football. It's too bad he'll be wearing a clashing shade of crimson if he coaches there on New Year's Day. | ||||||||||
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