DeCenzo talks about CCU football’s new leader

CONWAY -- Sitting in his office Monday morning, Coastal Carolina University President David DeCenzo talked publicly about the school’s new head football coach for the first time since introducing Joe Moglia at a Dec. 20 news conference.

DeCenzo, who didn’t take questions that day, spoke more in-depth about hiring the former TD Ameritrade CEO -- a decision that was ultimately his to make -- while addressing issues that Moglia’s hiring raised among followers of the program due to the coach’s high-profile business background and financial wherewithal.

Throughout the conversation, DeCenzo reiterated his confidence that Coastal has found the right man to lead the program in the post-David Bennett era and noted that the verdict on the move won’t be levied for a few years.

“I think there’s a level of excitement. People are just waiting to see what happens,” DeCenzo said. “A lot of people have said this was certainly an out-of-the-box way of thinking, but people that have known Joe were just exceptionally complimentary. People that haven’t [met him], that had read stories nationally about him just saw this as a great opportunity. And as I’ve said, we’re going to sit here in three years and look back and say, ‘Was it right?’ And I’m confident that it was.”

Moglia’s background has been well dissected since his hiring. An assistant college football coach at Lafayette and Dartmouth in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he left the sport to work for Merrill Lynch and later TD Ameritrade, where he served as CEO until 2008 and continues to act as chairman.

After spending two seasons as an unpaid “executive advisor” to Nebraska coach Bo Pelini and one as president and head coach of the United Football League’s Omaha Nighthawks as he applied for college coaching opportunities around the country, Moglia found his way to Conway.

In the end, DeCenzo said the committee assigned to the coaching search “was unanimous” to pursue Moglia out of its pool of candidates.

“There obviously were some very good candidates, but the bottom line was the man’s passion,” DeCenzo said. “When you have somebody that has the kind of passion he demonstrated, you just have to know that’s going to translate to the football field, into the players and ultimately into the outcomes that we’re hoping to achieve.”

Asked about his role in arriving at that decision, DeCenzo said as with any such hire at the university, “I’m ultimately the one that signs off on the papers.”

“[With a] major sport like this, you’re going to have the involvement of the president, absolutely,” he said. “Obviously you don’t do it in isolation; you do it in cooperation with the athletic director. But any of your major sports, [the president is] clearly going to have a close association with the athletic director on this. It’s too important. It’s too important to the university to have it otherwise.”

Athletic director Hunter Yurachek handled the vetting of the candidates and the initial interviews.

For Moglia, that process included reference calls to legendary Nebraska coach-turned-athletic director Tom Osborne, Pelini and longtime college and NFL assistant coach Tom Olivadotti, who served as defensive coordinator under Moglia with the UFL’s Nighthawks.

“[They] all talked about his attention to detail, his organization, his people skills and they reinforced his football skills and his ability to coach football,” Yurachek said Monday. “I think when you have people of the stature of Tom Osborne, Bo Pelini and Tom Olivadotti speaking to your knowledge of the game of football [and] your ability to coach the game of football, as an athletic director it really puts your mind at ease when you’re hiring somebody that’s been out of the business and is kind of an out-of-the-box candidate for that position.”

As for one of the other immediate questions Moglia’s hiring raised, DeCenzo said his conversations with the coach focused strictly on football and that there was no talk of any potential financial benefit for the university. Moglia has been described in other publications as a billionaire, though he called that a “gross exaggeration” at his introductory news conference.

Regardless, the president stressed Moglia’s net worth wasn’t a consideration.

“That was never discussed,” DeCenzo said. “Our focus really was what I want him to achieve on the football field. Obviously there are some things that you hope some doors can open up for the university, but that was never a factor or in any discussion.”

DeCenzo also addressed curiosity that arose as it came to light that Moglia had purchased a home in Pawleys Island in Nov. 2010 not far from the president’s own residence. The houses are about a mile and a half apart, DeCenzo said, while reiterating that the two had never met before the start of this coaching search.

Moglia said the same in an interview last week.

“He lives down on the ocean. I don’t. But the first time I met Joe Moglia was when this interview process started,” DeCenzo said. “... If people understood the area, they’d recognize that there are about 50 homes now, I think, maybe 55 on 2,500 acres, and it’s not unusual that you don’t know who’s living around [you].”

As for Bennett, DeCenzo had no update on whether or not there would be any reassignment within the university for the longtime CCU coach as was initially suggested when he was relieved of his duties Dec. 9. That’s a matter for the attorneys to work out, the president said Monday.

And looking back on the process of changing directions for the program -- one that incited significant pro-Bennett response and a strongly-worded open letter from popular former quarterback Tyler Thigpen -- DeCenzo said he has no regrets.

“I expected some of the emotions,” he said. “Anytime you have a person like David Bennett, I expected some of the emotions. Anytime you make a tough decision that’s not necessarily put up for popular vote, you’re going to have a good bit of pros and cons. ...

“As I’ve rethought it, I don’t think there would have been anything that would have dealt with the emotion differently. You go with your best advice. You go with your best gut instinct. And you keep your fingers crossed.”