Soapbox time

I'm going to get a little preachy, but it's something that bothered me when it happened and I haven't felt much better about it despite 2 national titles.
In 2006 Whitewater had a decision to make for a new head football coach. In one corner you had Stan Zweiffel, accomplish O-coordinator, assistant coach, professor at the university and a man who has been with the university for 20 years as well as the community. You had the other candidates, from which Lance Leipold was chosen. Lance played at UWW under Zweiffel and was coaching at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. UWW was coming off two recent losses in the Stagg Bowl, but were losing a lot of talent including QB Justin Jacobs, Max Sakellaris and NFL bound WR Derek Stanley. They still had a lot of returning starters and talent that was built by Stan Zweiffel primarily. The University overlooked his dedication to the team, community, and last but not least the University itself. I had the privilege of having Big Z as a professor for two classes in which he was by far the most engaging professor I had. I don't care that he underused his ability to teach coaching classes, it's what he loved to do. The University forced him out and replaced him with an uncaring prick by most accounts. I'm still not convinced the team behind Stan Zweiffel wouldn't have won the same amount of national titles The team wanted to go on strike after Zweiffel was looked over. I wrote 2 e-mails to the Athletic Director in which I got no response, which was expected I guess. I interviewed coach Zweiffel about it knowing our current head coach would be retiring and he thought his hiring was a foregone conclusion as did everyone else. It had to feel like a prison shank to the spleen hearing the news.

To show you the amount of respect Big Z has Jeff Jagodzinski, former Boston College coach interviewed him for the offensive coordinator role at BC. Stan immediately was hired on as consultant to UW-River Falls and was made athletic director at Beloit Memorial high school. He now coaches at the University of Dubuque, but has to build the program up from the ground like he did at Whitewater all while being 20 years older. It just flat pisses me off to this day how that decision seemed to be just plain fucked up, and the winning isn't as sweet to me as it could be. A good person, professor, and coach was replaced for Leipold and sooner or later it's going to bite the University in the ass when he callously moves on as soon as he gets a sniff from a D-II, or God forbid a D-I school. I'd love to get a prospective from players who have played for both coaches on who they think cared about them more. I can't imagine a single player choosing Leipold in that battle, and that's why I thought the choice for new head coach was SO simple for the University. I hope to God Stan gets the chance to reach the national level once again on his terms, nobody would be more deserving.