By Ken Goe, The Oregonian
December 03, 2012 at 5:08 PM, updated December 04, 2012 at 10:16 AM
Pflugrad.JPG Robin Pflugrad (right) is pictured here at an Oregon football practice in 2006. File
It's college football's hiring season, which is why this hurts former Montana coach Robin Pflugrad so much.
Pflugrad went to North Eugene, played at Portland State, and later coached receivers at Oregon. He is a career coach and good at it.
But at 54 he isn't employed and maybe not employable.
Last March, just months after the Big Sky Conference named Pflugrad coach of the year and he took the Grizzlies to the FCS semifinals, he lost his only head-coaching job.
Montana president Royce Engstrom summoned Pflugrad and athletic director Jim O'Day to his office and told them he wasn't renewing their contracts.
Then and now, Engstrom refused to explain his decision except to say he wanted a change in leadership.
Left unsaid was that Montana had an ugly sexual assault problem on and near campus, and that some victims and some alleged perpetrators were students. Some of the accused were football players.
The hanging implication seems to be that the problem could be traced to the athletic department and Pflugrad's office. But an implication is not an accusation, which leaves Pflugrad without good options.
"It's guilt by insinuation," said Pflugrad, who still has a home in Missoula. "How do you fight an insinuation?"
Insinuations are more smoke than substance. Smoke shifts, swirls and changes shape. You can't get at it.
In the nine months since losing his job, Pflugrad's quest for another job has produced three preliminary phone interviews, no followups and no offers.
The sexual assault problem in and around the Montana campus was much bigger than the football program alone.
According to figures released by Missoula police, officers dealt with about 500 reports of rape or sexual assault in the most recent four-year period.
The University of Montana and its campus department of public safety have been the subject of an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice over handling of reports of sexual assault.
The U.S. Department of Education has an ongoing parallel investigation into the school's response to sexual assault reports.
A former state supreme court justice also conducted an independent investigation for the school and identified nine sexual assaults reported on campus in 2010 and 2011. Her report concluded that "the UM has a problem of sexual assault on and off campus."
Two additional cases from that period were reported after her findings had been made public.
The NCAA has issued Montana with a letter of inquiry, notifying the school of investigation into the football program. That investigation remains open, although what the NCAA is investigating and whether any suspected violations occurred during Pflugrad's tenure is unclear.
National publications such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal came to Missoula to report the story. Both printed allegations of gang rape by football players. But police investigations into the gang rape allegations concluded without charges filed.
"We didn't have all angels," Pflugrad said of his players. "We had issues. We disciplined every single kid who, in our opinion, deserved discipline."
After all the accusations, multiple news stories and at least four investigations, two Montana football players who played for Pflugrad have been charged with rape.
Running back Beau Donaldson has been convicted and awaits sentencing. The other, former Sheldon High quarterback Jordan Johnson, has pleaded not guilty. That case is scheduled to go to trial this winter.
Of course, two are two too many.
Pflugrad said he worked hard to change the culture of the football program he inherited upon succeeding Bobby Hauck as head coach in 2010:
Before the 2011 season-opener at Tennessee he put an end to the raucous football party traditionally thrown in an off-campus warehouse at the end of fall camp that served as an initiation for freshman players. Some upper classmen bridled.
Pflugrad said he told them, "OK, let's call your parents now and tell them you're not going to Tennessee.' You have one chance in your career to play an SEC team and you'd rather have a party."
He put his players through an orientation and education program that included lectures about drugs, alcohol, behavior and academic expectations. A federal judge talked to players about alcohol, drugs and sexual assault. Player attendance at a "Men Can Stop Rape" seminar was mandatory except in the case of class conflict.
When Donaldson was charged, Pflugrad suspended him. Donaldson pleaded guilty in September.
The case involving Johnson, the Montana quarterback accused of rape, was difficult for Pflugrad. He is of a friend of Johnson's family. The quarterback played a key role for the team in 2011.
Pflugrad initially suspended Johnson. After a temporary restraining order against him was dropped in March, Johnson made an abbreviated return to spring practice.
Pflugrad welcomed him back. He told reporters Johnson is "a person of ... character and high moral fiber."
It wasn't a good choice of words given that Johnson remained the subject of a criminal investigation.
"The question I was asked was, 'What does Jordy mean to the football team?'" Pflugrad said. "If I had stopped after saying 'He means a heckuva lot,' I might still have a job."
It should be noted that Johnson hasn't been convicted. If you believe in the precepts of the U.S. legal system, he is innocent until proven otherwise.
At least, the accusation against Johnson is out front and in the open.
Pflugrad's career is being torpedoed by silence and unspoken innuendo.
After the firing, Engstrom gave Pflugrad a letter of recommendation that touts his coaching ability and personality and says Pflugrad's removal "was not the result of any specific impropriety or improper conduct by him."
Engstrom carefully avoids any mention of team discipline or player behavior.
After all the investigations, trials, alleged rapes, after the stories in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, another school considering Pflugrad might want to know he wasn't the problem.
I called last week and got as far as Peggy Kuhr, Montana's interim vice president for integrated communications. I asked why Pflugrad had been let go.
"The president has said all along he wanted a change in leadership," she said.
Asked why Engstrom felt that way, Kuhr said: "He has not commented about that because he can't. It's a personnel issue. I have to be that brief. This was about a change in leadership."
I did reach former Montana vice president Jim Foley, who still was on the job when Pflugrad was sacked.
"I'll tell you this," Foley said. "Coach Pflugrad is a good and decent person who tried to do things the right way. I applaud him for it."
Which doesn't change the bottom line:
Pflugrad doesn't have a job, and his phone isn't ringing.
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Royce Engstrom is a scared little wuss lacking in personal integrity. He has the audacity to scapegoat other people in order to save the face of his employ. This weasel deserves a public flogging.
