Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 27, 1994 TAG: 9404270043
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Bradley said the search ended Monday evening, when Jim Jarrett, ODU's athletic director, called to say "they were going to go another way."
The Monarchs introduced Jeff Capel, the former North Carolina A&T coach, as the successor to Oliver Purnell at a Tuesday afternoon news conference.
"It was never a foregone conclusion, as many had assumed, that I would take the job had it been offered," Bradley said Tuesday. "There were other considerations, such as my family, my players and the situation we have here at Radford."
Still, Bradley stuck with it because ODU represented a move up - in terms of prestige and money.
"I'm not going to say the politically correct thing that most coaches say in this situation," he said. "I did not pull out. They offered the job to somebody else."
The field of disappointed candidates included South Carolina State coach Cy Alexander, ODU assistant Pete Strickland and former ODU, Virginia Tech and Auburn aide Tic Price, each of whom was interviewed. Bowling Green boss Jim Larranaga also was interviewed, but withdrew from consideration Sunday.
Indications were the choice came down to Capel and Bradley.
"I asked Jarrett if there were any negatives about me and he told me there absolutely were not," Bradley said. "He said that it was a win-win situation for ODU, and I took that to mean that it came down to Capel and Bradley."
Capel, the father of Duke guard Jeff Capel, was coming off his first season at A&T, where he coached the Aggies to the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament championship and the accompanying berth in the NCAA Tournament. A&T lost to Arkansas, the eventual NCAA champion, in the first round.
Capel, 41, has a 79-65 record in five seasons as a college head coach - one at A&T and four at Division II Fayetteville (N.C.) State.
Bradley's experiences throughout the process were interesting and instructive about the lengths to which ODU was willing to go to maintain secrecy. It was a situation not atypical of many colleges under similar circumstances and certainly came as no surprise to Bradley.
"When I was an assistant at Maryland, I interviewed for the Austin Peay job at O'Hare Airport in Chicago," he said.
Bradley appeared to be one of the front-runners for the ODU job from the start after Purnell, Bradley's former boss at Radford, left April 8 to become head coach at Dayton. Purnell urged Bradley to get involved at ODU, which he did.
After not hearing a word from Jarrett for almost a week, Bradley took a phone call from him around dinnertime April 18. Jarrett said he wanted Bradley and his wife, Denise, to be in Norfolk on the evening of April 20 for a meeting. The formal interview with the search committee would be the following morning.
The Bradleys left the morning of April 20 and, at Jarrett's instruction, checked into "a really out-of-the-way hotel where nobody would find us," Bradley said. It was the Holiday Inn-Ocean View Beach in Norfolk.
Jarrett arrived about 7 p.m. and took the Bradleys to the campus, where they toured the athletic office - "He said that nobody would be there to see us at that time of night," Bradley said - and other ODU facilities. One of the other stops was the on-campus basketball practice facility, where Jarrett apparently was disturbed to discover some Monarchs players, one of them former Timesland player of the year Odell Hodge of Laurel Park, working out.
Jarrett's concern was that there would be a leak. His fears were realized when an unnamed player spilled the beans that the Bradleys had been on campus.
Jarrett and the Bradleys then went to another out-of-the-way place - a restaurant called Uncle Louie's Delicatessen & Restaurant - for dinner.
"[Jarrett] said that we should be safe there," Bradley said.
Just in case, Jarrett requested a table in a secluded corner. The dinner and chat passed without outside interference.
At 6:45 a.m. Thursday, Jarrett picked up Ron Bradley again at the hotel and drove him to the house of ODU's president, James V. Koch. The committee arrived at about 7:40, and the interview was over by 9:30.
On the way out of town, the Bradleys stopped for coffee with Vickie Purnell, Oliver's wife. They stayed for about an hour, then hit the road.
"On the way back, we stopped at every outlet store between there and Richmond," Bradley said.
Bradley didn't hear from Jarrett again until Sunday and was left with the distinct feeling he would get the job.
The bad news came about 7:30 p.m. Monday.
by CNB