ritz Neighbor: At MSU, reality begins battle with perception
By FRITZ NEIGHBOR of the Missoulian
Rob Ash is in at Montana State University. Mike Kramer isŠ well, he's not quite out. He's on the offensive.
A little more than two weeks after being dismissed as the Bobcats' football coach, the usually loquacious Kramer broke what had to have been a record silence. Leading him back to the microphone was Cliff Edwards, well-known Billings lawyer and major Montana Grizzly booster. His son John, you'll remember, quarterbacked the Griz not that long ago.
This can only mean one thing: MSU is going to end up paying Kramer a pretty good chunk of change.
Among Kramer's many contentions about his abrupt dismissal is that perception doesn't equal reality, as MSU president Geoffrey Gamble and athletic director Peter Fields said in the wake of his firing.
The reality is that it was a tough December - Kramer's chance at the Idaho job went away with the arrests of cornerback Andre Fuller and former players Derrick Davis and Eddie Sullivan - and an even rougher May.
On May 3, the NCAA's Academic Progress Report signaled MSU was going to lose three scholarships. On May 16, Rick Gatewood was arrested.
Kramer's 7fi-year stay in Montana has been marked by uncommon good fortune on the field for MSU, and an unfortunate series of events off it. Whether that is enough to get the man fired is debatable.
Kramer feels he is the scapegoat. He said it was Fields, and not he, who had a personal behavior and academic contract with Gatewood at the time of the former player's arrest, so why wasn't Fields responsible for the former player? He noted Gatewood hadn't worn Bobcat blue in 18 months when he was pinched.
Four days before he was fired, Kramer was attending an NCAA workshop dealing with academics. Also in attendance was Fields. At no point, Kramer said, had he been told his job was in .
Then came the latest fiasco. Gatewood, it's worth noting, is accused of using scholarship money to bring up from California.
Does perception equal reality? Listen to Ash and it's hard to argue.
“The problem can be fixed,” Ash told Bobcat boosters and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. “My intention is to institute a recruiting philosophy to bring the right people to Montana State.
“We'll play exciting football on Saturdays, and go to class on weekdays.”
Left unspoken was that all his players will lead exemplary lives once their eligibility ends.
I liked and will miss working with Kramer, who fills a notebook in no time and has always been approachable and accessible. If his recruiting was suspect, not many were complaining when MSU broke the Grizzlies' 16-game winning streak in the Griz-Cat game.
A few years later, some of those players that made him the hero cost him big.
“I can't tell you how disappointed I am about the lies of the players that we've coached and recruited,” said Kramer, who will draw a salary of nearly $140,000 through June of 2008. “But we've always taken the appropriate action when we've needed to.”
At last year's Big Sky Conference Football Kickoff in Park City, Utah, safety Ryan Force had to answer a media question about the charges against former player John LeBrum and an ex-Bobcat basketball player.
“We did what we could, and our coaches did too,” Force said. “We got rid of them as soon as they found out they weren't a fit. We give them (ex-players) a plane ticket. But they can come back.”
And bite you.
With Edwards, Kramer will pursue a monetary settlement for the perceived damage to his career. The case likely won't make it to court. It figures that Fields and Gamble would rather settle than have it run through the legal system.
That's the perception around here, anyway.
