Hall of Fame Coach
May 18, 2005 09:15 PM | General
May 18, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Don Nehlen has come a long way from the days when he used to sneak into Faucet Stadium as a young kid because he didn’t have the money to see Canton McKinley High School football games.
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| Former coach Don Nehlen talks to a gathering of reporters Wednesday afternoon at the Milan Puskar Center.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
So far in fact, that on Wednesday Nehlen and 12 others were introduced as the newest class of inductees into the College Football Hall of Fame in New York City.
“It’s a great honor for me, it’s a great honor for West Virginia and it’s certainly a great honor for all the coaches that worked with me for 21 years here and 12 years at Bowling Green,” said Nehlen.
“Having been a Mountaineer my entire life and having played here when the stadium was first built and to play for this coach was not only a great privilege but also a great learning experience,” said WVU coach Rich Rodriguez, who introduced his former coach to a gathering of reporters at Milan Puskar Stadium Wednesday afternoon. “I’ve been fortunate to have followed him here at West Virginia University and I still draw on some of the experiences I’ve learned as a player and then as a student assistant and volunteer coach.”
West Virginia’s winningest coach joins an impressive 2005 inductee class that includes Alabama linebacker Cornelius Bennett, Notre Dame Heisman trophy winner John Huarte, USC All-American tailback Anthony Davis and Pitt All-American offensive tackle Mark May.
Auburn’s Pat Dye and Nehlen were the only two coaches inducted this year. Nehlen said the two are among just 166 coaches to be enshrined.
“That’s pretty good company and a few of them I know real well,” he said. “I went last year to (BYU Coach) LaVell Edwards’ induction and it was really classy.”
As is Nehlen, whose down-to-earth style was endearing to West Virginia fans and local and national sports writers covering his football teams.
After graduating from Bowling Green in 1957, Nehlen coached in the Ohio high school ranks until landing his first college job at Bowling Green in 1967.
“I was the youngest head football coach in America when I was named head coach at Bowling Green,” said Nehlen. “That was a big day because the head coach had quit and everybody was out of a job and I thought, uh oh, I’m going to be driving a truck or something. But I ended up with that job.
“At Bowling Green I think our finest moment was when we went up to Purdue and beat them. I think I have a better record against Syracuse at Bowling Green than I do here,” he added.
Nehlen resigned under pressure after the 1976 season and ended up with old friend Bo Schembechler at Michigan in 1977.
“Going to Michigan and being with Bo Schembechler was really sensational. Bo was the only guy I ever worked with that could tell his team to go to hell and they looked forward to the trip. He was absolutely amazing,” Nehlen said.
In 1979, West Virginia University athletic director Dick Martin made the surprise decision to hire Nehlen when most thought Bill Mallory was a lock for the job. Nehlen was taking over a Mountaineer program that had endured four straight losing seasons but was opening a brand new football stadium.
“It’s a funny thing, when I came here everybody said, ‘Don, you won’t last long. You’ll either get fired or leave.’ We were fortunate in that we won a game or two and decided to stay and so West Virginia has been a great thing for me,” Nehlen said.
The coach noted that having a pair of terrific quarterbacks in Oliver Luck and Jeff Hostetler made the transition a great deal easier.
“We got lucky,” Nehlen admitted. “When I came here things were bad but Oliver Luck was here and he bailed us out. Then my daughter winked at a transfer kid from Penn State by the name of Hostetler and he turned out to be pretty good -- like 15 years in the NFL. I had those great quarterbacks early and even though we may not have had as many players, whenever you have that real good quarterback you always have a chance.”
Nehlen says back to back wins against Florida in the Peach Bowl and at Oklahoma in Norman within a span of nine months lifted his program to much higher level.
“The Florida victory after the second year most people thought was a fluke but we backed it up by beating Oklahoma out there,” he said. “I think that that victory at Oklahoma was probably the thing that moved the program up where people said, ‘Hey, these Mountaineers can play with most anybody.’ I think that was the game that set us up so to speak and then we tried to stay up there for a long time.”
Nehlen recalled West Virginia’s pair of wins over Penn State in 1984 and 1988 as great moments, as well as his team’s victory lap around the stadium after beating Syracuse for its first undefeated, untied regular season in 1988.
The coach said his biggest overachieving team was the 1993 squad that won the first-ever Big East football championship and played Florida in the Sugar Bowl.
“I think we were picked fifth in the league and we won them all,” Nehlen recalled. “To think we won 11 games with that team was amazing, especially the last one when we beat Boston College. Half the kids were hurt and the coaches were sick and we ended up winning that game. (BC Coach) Tom Coughlin I remember saying, ‘I can’t believe you guys beat us.’”
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| West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez and former Mountaineer coach Don Nehlen embrace Wednesday afternoon at the Milan Puskar Center.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
Nehlen also fondly recalled his final game coaching against Mississippi in the Music City Bowl.
“The last game I coached was a lot of fun. I never saw our team execute as well as they did that day,” he said.
“He got this stadium and program built up to where it’s nationally respected and we hope we can keep it as such,” Rodriguez said. “He has always been one of the finest persons and coaches in the game and he is well respected by his peers.”
Nehlen believes the one characteristic all good coaches must have is the willingness to work hard and be dedicated to their job.
“If you’re going to stay in this profession for a long period of time, number one you better get your rump out of bed early in the morning and go to work and stay there all day and half the night,” he said. “I think anybody who is successful at anything has to have a passion for what they do.”
Nehlen noted that any good coach has to have an understanding wife, too.
“If you’re going to coach football and you don’t have a good wife you’re dead because how are you going to raise your kids when you’re at the office all the time?” he said, recognizing his wife Merry Ann. “All coaches that make it don’t have a wife that harasses them to death.
“Early in my career at Bowling Green I had a guy that I wanted to hire. His wife said, ‘Hey, if you’re going to work 80 hours a week at least you’re going to get paid for it.’ She refused to let the guy coach. We paid $9,600 and I couldn’t understand it? That’s just the way it was,” Nehlen laughed.
Nehlen says he doesn’t regret retiring when some of his peers like Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno are still coaching well into their 70s.
“I like retirement a lot more than coaching. I get to do what I to do when I want to do it,” he said. “I think as a coach there is a time to get out. I did it for 43 years and I just didn’t think that I should continue. Physically I could coach but I didn’t think I could coach at West Virginia because I had done it for 21 years.
“Had I stayed here for 10 and gone someplace else for eight I probably would have coached five years longer maybe,” he added. “When you’re at a place for a long period of time all the sudden it gets to be, I don’t know, a different feeling; not negative but I thought it was time for me to go down the pike.”
Even though he is one of just 17 coaches in Division I history to have 200 victories, Nehlen is still disappointed in some of his team’s performances in bowl games.
“Every time we played somebody they were always good,” he said. “I was hoping that there was somebody that wasn’t so good to play. I always told Bo I learned how to coach bowl games from him because the only guy with a worse record in bowl games was Coach Schembechler. I thought, well, that’s good company anyhow.”
Today, Nehlen is in the very best company.
“Being in the Hall of Fame is almost a dream come true. I have a hard time really believing it and I never thought it would happen,” Nehlen said.
The induction ceremony will take place at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City on Dec. 6, 2005 and the enshrinement is scheduled for August, 2006, in South Bend, Ind. Nehlen is just the ninth coach or athlete with West Virginia University ties elected to the College Football Hall of Fame.
