Stacks of resumés from across the nation have arrived at
the doorstep of the J.D. Morgan Center each day since Tom
Fitzgerald’s departure created a vacancy atop the UCLA
men’s soccer program.
Of course, the man who ultimately got the job only had to bring
his upstairs.
Third-year Bruin assistant coach Jorge Salcedo accepted a
one-year contract offer Friday, becoming UCLA’s third
men’s soccer coach in the past four years. Salcedo, a Bruin
alumnus and former ball boy with the program’s 1985 NCAA
Championship squad, described the moment as a dream come true.
“This is a fairy tale in some ways,” Salcedo said.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about
becoming the head coach one day. It just ended up happening sooner
than some people had anticipated.”
A chaotic 24-hour period for Salcedo began Thursday afternoon
with a telephone call from Associate Athletic Director Ken Weiner,
who asked him to interview for a second time the following morning.
Salcedo and fellow-finalist Loyola Marymount coach Paul Krumpe met
with Weiner, Associate Athletic Director Betsy Stephenson and
Athletic Director Dan Guerrero, each answering a series of probing
questions designed to assuage the search committee’s
last-minute concerns.
By mid-afternoon, the UCLA administrators had made their
decision. Weiner, who headed the search committee, offered Salcedo
a multi-year contract, which he rejected in favor of a yearly deal,
saying he preferred to prove himself each season on the field. Upon
hammering out the final details of the contract, Salcedo received a
standing ovation from the men’s soccer team after Weiner
introduced him as the new head coach.
“My main criteria were how the candidate fit the program
and how strong his ties were to UCLA,” Weiner said.
“Jorge excelled in both areas.”
Selecting someone with no prior head coaching experience for one
of collegiate soccer’s plum jobs was a gamble, but Weiner is
confident it will be worth it. He bypassed big-name candidates like
ex-Dallas Burn coach Mike Jeffries and current Los Angeles Galaxy
Director of Youth Development Ralph Perez, instead choosing a coach
who has yet to make much of a dent on the national scene.
But while Salcedo’s name may not carry the weight of some
of the other applicants, he is a known commodity, and his devotion
to UCLA is virtually unmatched among the other applicants. The
Cerritos native scored the decisive penalty kick in a shootout as a
freshman to give the Bruins the 1990 NCAA Championship. In all, he
has been involved in three of UCLA’s four national
titles.
“I don’t want anyone to make the leap that UCLA took
the easy way out because we didn’t,” Weiner said.
“Jorge was the best fit. We didn’t need to go outside
the program. I feel like it’s not broken so there’s no
need to fix it.”
Three of the four candidates granted an interview ““
Salcedo, Krumpe, and Cal Poly Pomona coach Paul Caligiuri ““
were Bruin alumni. The fourth, Perez, had extensive UCLA ties, most
recently coaching for six years alongside Galaxy coach Sigi Schmid,
who led the Bruins to their first three national championships.
Weiner and the rest of the search committee did extensive
background checks on each of the four finalists this past week,
gathering information from Schmid, Fitzgerald and a host of
others.
All of them, Weiner said, were particularly complimentary toward
Salcedo, especially Fitzgerald who earlier said that Salcedo was
“the only candidate he sincerely recommended for the
job.”
The current Bruins were also supportive of Salcedo, citing a
need for continuity after recent coaching changes in 1999 and 2002.
Several of them went so far as to schedule separate meetings with
Stephenson and Weiner in order to state their case for why he
should be hired.
Salcedo, while appreciative of his players’ efforts, knows
that was not what won him the job.
“I don’t think it was a real important factor, but
I’m glad that they felt comfortable enough with me to do
something like that,” he said.
Perhaps the most surprising twist of the entire coaching search
was that Costa Rican National team coach Steve Sampson, who many
local coaches expected to be a finalist for the job, was never
contacted.
Weiner said Sampson, the former U.S. National team coach and
runner-up to Fitzgerald in UCLA’s 2002 search, might have
been a candidate once again this time around, but he never
expressed any interest in the job.
“His name came up,” Weiner said. “But we never
got an application.”
Part of the reason UCLA did not pursue him may have been due to
his anger over being by-passed in favor of Fitzgerald. Sampson
lashed out in the media when he was not chosen, ruffling more than
a few feathers in the Bruin athletic department.
Salcedo also was a more logical choice for a UCLA program
craving stability. It seems highly unlikely that a life-long Bruin
like Salcedo would up and leave Westwood after just two years like
Fitzgerald did last month.
“This is his ideal job,” Weiner said. “If you
believe what he tells you, and I wholeheartedly do, this is where
he wants to be.”
For Krumpe, who has been a finalist for the UCLA coaching
position three times, returning to Westwood would have been the
optimal situation. Several hours after hearing from Weiner that
Salcedo had accepted the job, Krumpe was gracious, but
understandably frustrated.
“”It’s tough in the sense of that, it’s
the third time I’ve applied, but I’m pleased with where
I’m at,” Krumpe said. “I want to congratulate
Jorge. It sounds like he was the right choice.”