Don’t Tell Larry Coker That He’s Fallen From Grace
March 12, 2009 – 10:00 am by Michael Bean
Wow, I mean, not even Mike Price fell as far as Larry Coker seemingly has. The former Miami Hurricanes coach, who’s been out of college football since the end of the 2006 season, has been hired to start a new football program at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Coker joined KILT in Houston to talk about the challenge ahead, how he’s excited about the commitment the administration has to making this work, and what it’s like going from a heavyweight like Miami to a start-up no-name program like UTSA.
On the decision to accept this job:
“Well, it’s really a no brainer for me to be honest. I’ve had some opportunities but when this came up, I looked into it. And the more I’m around the people there, the commitment and the groundwork they’ve laid to start this program. And the great city of San Antonio, to recruit to the Alamodome to play, and just the great high school coaching and high school talent in South Texas. And there’s no major college team in San Antonio, so i think there’s a bright future for this program.”
On the challenge of not being able to hold the first practice until 2010:
“I want to have a nice flavor of Texas coaches. And first of all, we have to good recruiters. Guys who can recruit, bring players in, evaluate and all those types of things to get the right people, the right pieces of the puzzle in place. And I think that’s the most important thing right now.”
On if he thought it was a good decision for Miami to leave the Big East for the ACC:
“I don’t know if it was a no-brainer. I don’t think we had a bad situation where we were. I think from the standpoint of the finances of it, it was a good decision when you look at the overall athletic program because I know in the Big East it was kind of, you made what you made. If you’re Miami and you go to a BCS Bowl you have a great financial year. And if you don’t you don’t. But in the ACC the money’s shared more equally.”
On what he might change about his time at the U:
“Well I think you always learn from it. You try not to have any regrets. We won a lot of games, graduated our players, and ran a class program at the University of Miami. And we had some things happen that really hurt our team. We had the tragic murder of one of our players of our team, Brian Pata. Still hasn’t been solved. We had the altercation with FIU; so many things that really destroyed our season basically and I think. And I really feel strongly for our players because we did try to really fight through that. All said I done, I think we did a good job with those players.”
Listen here to Coker on KILT in Houston on Tuesday
Tags: coaches fall from grace, college football interviews, KILT, Larry Coker, Miami Hurricanes, sportis interviews, University of Texas San Antonio
