Oh, Presby...

[Libertine]

Presbyterian College has probably fired their head coach Tommy Spangler just days after leading the Blue Hose to their first winning record since 2014. I say "probably" because the brass at PC, as is typical there, haven't made or released any public statements but Clinton, SC is a small town and everybody, including the local media (http://www.golaurens.com/sports/spangler-out-as-head-football-coach-at-presbyterian-college/article_d750c346-a24d-11eb-b8c2-47f467a9c6f1.html), just finds things out pretty quickly.


I would write something here to rip into PC for making yet another questionable decision but Monte Dutton at LaurensCountySports.com (https://www.laurenscountysports.com/features/inside-the-lines-pc-fires-the-best-coach-it-could-possibly-have/article_da419d8e-a1f1-11eb-bf72-071fa7f5dccf.html) already did that and way better than I could.


"If I had awakened to the strong rumors making the rounds Tuesday, and it was April Fool’s Day, I would have understood.
This, however, is April 20 (4/20), and my first thought was that some prominent people in high places must be stoned out of their minds."

[walliver]

PC has long been a strangely-run institution. While I was living in the area, they ran an events facility with catering and later promoted a fine-dining restaurant. Neither was successful.

What I find interesting is that according to Football Scoop, they are hoping to get Wachenheim from VMI. After eliminating scholarships do they suddenly have enough money to lure a coach away from a real D-I team. It actually seems the program was turning around towards the end of this season.. Maybe they are trying to be like Charleston Southern and run off any coach who is too successful. Spangler wasn't winning tons of games at PC, but did keep the program running as the school was forcing it down to Pioneer level. I doubt any replacement can do a better job.

[BlackNGoldR3v0lut10n]

What I find interesting is that according to Football Scoop, they are hoping to get Wachenheim from VMI.

I know I'm not a VMI fan/alum for if I were, I would say to Presbyterian good luck with that.

[kdinva]

PC has long been a strangely-run institution....What I find interesting is that according to Football Scoop, they are hoping to get Wachenheim from VMI.......

xlmaox

Coach would take a video coordinator job at UConn first...... :D

[Mocs123]

I'd say they have 0% chance at hiring Wachenheim. Now if I were WCU's AD, I'd be blowing up his phone.

[Laker]

They just beat Drake. I had considered going to that game but decided on the NAIA playoffs at Morningside instead. About a 5 hour drive. Anyway- do they belong in D1? I know that they have just joined the Pioneer, but are they good at other sports? Can't see firing a guy if he actually wins some games.

[Libertine]

Anyway- do they belong in D1? I know that they have just joined the Pioneer, but are they good at other sports?

PC is great at tennis so...there's that. They jumped to D1 in '06 to get a slice of that sweet, sweet March Madness pie and somehow expected their football team, which was already underfunded at the D2 level -- yet competitive -- to keep operating at the same level. Well, the guy who was already doing more with less -- Tommy Spangler -- got interest from Derek Dooley at La Tech and PC didn't bother making an offer to keep him, electing to hire a coach from a local high school program instead. Lo and behold, the program had no direction when it hit D1 and essentially bottomed out over the next decade. Spangler came back in 2017 and they became still nothing close to good but, at least, competitive again just in time for the PC admin to torpedo their growth by yanking all the football scholarships and punting them into the Pioneer League.

So, to answer the first question, they've had some legit D1 coaches and some real talent pass through (Justin Bethel, Rock Ya-Sin, the soon-to-be-drafted CJ Marable), but I wouldn't trust their school admin to run a day care center.

[BlackNGoldR3v0lut10n]

PC is great at tennis so...there's that.

That sounds familiar, ETSU was great at that too. Then one day ETSU admins had the bright idea of putting their tennis coach at the time in the AD's chair.



Spangler came back in 2017 and they became still nothing close to good but, at least, competitive again just in time for the PC admin to torpedo their growth by yanking all the football scholarships and punting them into the Pioneer League.

I'll give Presbyterian this: at least they did not cook up some fish story that their football program was "losing $1 million plus/yr" as their reasoning to drop football.

[FUBeAR]

So...FUBeAR has NO KNOWLEGE of this situation...although I do know Monte Dutton well & for over 40 years...but I haven’t had any convo’s with him about this...so...below is a mix of rumor / 2nd hand knowledge and a bit of opinion.

To add some additional facts though.
* Spangler’s 1st stint as HC was 2001 - 2006
* PC began D2 to D1 transition in 2007, completing that process before the 2012 season
* The High School Coach mentioned previously was only @ PC for 2 seasons (2007 & 2008) after Spangler left for LaTech
* Harold Nichols was PC’s HC from 2009 - 2016 - Nichols’ final record there was 19-67. He was previously OC at Bucknell & Rhode Island. The Blue Ho’s were not good under Coach Nichols
* Spangler stayed at LaTech thru the exodus of Derek Dooley to UT & thru the Sonny Dykes years, before Dykes was hired by Cal after the 2012 season. Not sure why Spangler didn’t follow Dykes to Cal or previously follow Dooley to Tennessee.
* Instead of going to the Bay Area with Dykes, Spangler returned to Clinnon, SC as DC for PC in 2013 & acted in that capacity thru the 2016 season.

This is where the innuendo starts...FUBeAR has HEARD (only HEARD, no real knowledge) that...

* Spangler was no fan of Nichols, thought he was ‘soft,’ and didn’t care enough about D.
* Spangler ‘engineered’ the firing of Nichols after the 2016 season. Not sure how much ‘engineering’ that takes when the guy had a .221 winning %...but...anyway...
* Concurrently, as one might imagine, the ‘engineering design’ included Spangler rising back to the HC position for the 2017 season
* FACT (amid the rumors) ... At the end of the 2017 season, PC announced they were going non-schollie & moving to the PFL
* Spangler was not consulted about this decision & was he LIVID about it

* Spangler is much more of a Bear Bryant type of Coach; not so much like PJ Fleck - long, grueling workouts, etc.
* Players that aren’t Defensive STARS get no respect from Spangler & he treats them like, um, poop

So...if some or much of any of it is semi-accurate (which FUBeAR is not claiming that any of it is), it can’t have been a great situation.

Some might speculate that Spangler COULD have been rather vocal in the intervening seasons about his displeasure with the non-schollie decision. Players there now don’t “lose their scholarship” if they quit football. And some might speculate that those that quit might have been quite vocal to the Admin about how hard Coach Spangler is on them ... and maybe that he’s even been unfair or unjust. And they don’t, necessarily, “disappear,” after quitting now like they might if they lost their scholarships...so their numbers might have grown sonce 2018...and things could have sort of cumulated.

Anyway...all just speculation about what MIGHT or COULD HAVE happened...

On the other hand, I watched PC play about 2.5 games this year & they looked MUCH better than they did in ‘15 - ‘16 ... when they had scholarships.

Hope they get it figured out there...I’d really like to see the Blue Ho’s be successful in the PFL.

Maybe, I should put in my application since I still haven’t heard from the AD at Western Carolina.

[bonarae]

I think there's more to the story that involves possible player/coach abuses... xnonono2x

It's quite unusual of a college (or even a pro team) firing coaches after winning seasons. That's why there's my xtwocentsx above.

[Libertine]

All of FUBear's facts above ^^ are true and, in fairness to the two-year HS coach, I will add that even though he bailed on PC to go back to high school, he did end up as an assistant coach at two separate SEC schools after his sons became recruitable P5 quarterbacks.

I have also heard much of the same innuendos for and against Spangler over the years but I have also heard roughly equal innuendo slanted in opposite directions for and against Nichols which indicates to me that there has been a lot of small-time politics involved over the years.

Also, just to illustrate how bizarre the leadership and oversight structure is at PC, I will point out that Spangler's predecessor, Harold Nichols, is still employed by their athletic department in charge of fundraising. On top of that, for the bulk of his head coaching tenure there, Nichols' wife was Presby's assistant AD in charge of NCAA Compliance. That's right, the head football coach was married to the compliance director, which must have made for some very unusual late night pillow talk.

[Reign of Terrier]

Coaches and their spouses (or just random important people) having weird jobs at the athletic department isn't too unheard of at small schools. Wofford, for instance, has/had the former president of the university in some quality control capacity a few years ago.

Without doxing anyone, I know one of the coach's wives has a pretty important job within the athletic department (she is qualified, believe me!).

As for PC, they're the kind of football program you'd get if you took Wofford and took away their success, institutional donor backing (think Richardson, Gibbs [the guy the stadium is named after], and others), and geographic advantage. I'm not saying Spartanburg is 100% the place to be, but it's much better than Clinton if you're a student.

IMO they made the right move by dropping scholarships and going for the pioneer. They have a better chance of building success in that conference, and not bankrupting the program. But it is weird that they fired the first coach to give them a winning record in a while.

[Mocs123]

Some of these schools, like Wofford, are smaller than some high schools, so it's not totally surprising to see something like that.

[walliver]

The high school coach was a PC alumnus and extremely successful at the high school level. Most telling about him is that he did not move to Clinton to coach. He commuted back and forth from Duncan (just outside of Spartanburg) so that his son could continue to play at Byrnes High School. The coach left after 2 years to become an assistant coach at his previous high school. After that, it became obvious that the way to recruit his sons to play QB was to hire him as a coach. Paying dads is bad, but hiring dads is A-OK in the SEC.

I don't think PC was adequately capitalized for D-I. It seems like a forced move after Wofford and Elon moved up. They initially requested membership in the SoCon but were told to look elsewhere. Apparently they make enough money off money basketball games to support staying in D-I. I don't think they save much by dropping scholarships for football. They lose the money from P5 money games, having to settle for FCS money games. Travel costs are up in the PFL. And, like most private schools, the majority of students (which would include athletes) get financial aid of some sort. As a result, they are not really saving 63 full scholarships.

[Pinnum]

What were they paying the coach? Is this to pay the staff less money or more money? The move seems odd but I can't help but wonder if the new President was involved in the decision.

[Baron Sardonicus]

This smells like a decision that was actually made before the spring season.

[caribbeanhen]

Oh Presby say prayer for me