My first in-person encounter with Rick Neuheisel was in the Ackerman Union Jamba Juice back in the fall of 2008.
It was his first year as coach of the UCLA football program; it was my first year as a victim of the UCLA English department.
To be honest, I don’t remember what drink he ordered that day ““ dropping his trademark “Go Bruins” and acting altogether friendly and avuncular toward the students ““ but I’d bet that it was Mango-a-go-go.
After all, that’s how I’ll remember Neuheisel: always on the go; shaking hands; getting in players’ faces for both positive and negative conversations; on a recruiting trip to De Neve dining hall (would work on me) or just strolling around the campus that he loved so much.
Unfortunately for Neuheisel, he’s now on the go in a different sense, a victim of the cutthroat collegiate sports landscape that fails to offer grace even to men in their dream positions.
I don’t know when Athletic Director Dan Guerrero first met Neuheisel, but it probably wasn’t in the on-campus Jamba Juice. Guerrero made Neuheisel the second former Bruin he hired as head football coach, and he will be the last. This program needs fresh blood. It needs a boost, but this isn’t Jamba: It won’t come free.
The reason Guerrero is getting somewhat of a pass for his second failed hire is that the financial resources then weren’t what they are now. He’s got the money to spend, which means the pressure rests on him to sell this program to the best potential candidates.
We know from the last few days that he’s capable of saying the right things, but it remains to be seen whether or not he’s got his sights set on the right people. Guerrero acknowledged that he will be surrounding himself with a group of consultants that he puts a lot of trust in (apparently my invitation was lost in a UCLA Webmail crash or something like that, strange).
The challenge for Guerrero lies in finding an outsider that will make the program his own, ensuring that the team is successful while reflecting the identity of its coach. Neuheisel was hired under the false belief that his blue-and-gold blood would be enough to revive the program. It wasn’t. Sometimes it takes an outside party to diagnose the problems.
I’ve come to realize that my path somewhat parallels Neuheisel’s, and not just because I have a particular affinity for March Madness bracket pools. UCLA’s been my dream school for as long as I can remember; we both started here in 2008, and as Neuheisel gets fired and I finish up my last full quarter as an English major, the job market is equally uncertain for both of us.
I can’t tell you where Slick Rick will end up; maybe it’ll be at UNLV with his good friend Bobby Hauck, although that’d be an awfully gutsy roll of the dice given his gambling past.
What I do know is this: UCLA is a dream institution for a lot of people, with one of the reasons being the challenges we’re faced with when we’re here. Some of our performances are measured in GPAs, some in teacher evaluations and some in wins and losses and bowl appearances.
In some ways, then, I think it’s fitting that Neuheisel’s tenure here lasted four seasons. Hopefully with all the ups and the downs, late-night film study sessions and afternoon Jamba Juice runs, it was like another go-round at the UCLA experience. That’s part of what he was after all along.
He didn’t build the winning football program that everyone wanted, and for that he was deservedly let go. It was unquestionably the right move.
But he’ll be part of the fabric of this university just as much as anyone else who proudly calls him or herself a Bruin, and his failures as a football coach will be forgiven by the sands of time. I’ll drink a wheatgrass shot to that.
If you secretly refer to his mugshot as Peach Perfection, email Eshoff at
reshoff@media.ucla.edu.