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Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Ugh...Hold On A Minute

It turns out Gene Stephenson will not be leaving Wichita State after all, and was reported and I posted yesterday. This from the WSU website:

Gene Stephenson Returns to Wichita State
Shocker Coach Declines Head Coach Position at Oklahoma

Citing unresolvable scholarship issues at the University of Oklahoma, Gene Stephenson will return to Wichita State University as head baseball coach and has declined the head coaching position at the University of Oklahoma.

"We are very appreciative for the opportunity to coach at the University of Oklahoma," Stephenson said. "However, some scholarship issues have arisen that are unresolvable to our satisfaction.

"We have worked over the years at Wichita State in order to use our scholarships and to plan for the use of our future scholarships.

"As we assessed the Oklahoma baseball scholarship situation, we would be too limited in our ability to take the program in the direction that we think it should go.

"OU has always been our dream job, and it is most unfortunate for all of us that this could not work. We dearly love the University of Oklahoma, and are very thankful to have been given the opportunity.

"Unfortunately, the scholarship issues have forced us to reconsider, and have made a decision to stay at Wichita State University."

Stephenson completed his 28th season as head coach at Wichita State in 2005 after leading the Shockers to their 23rd NCAA Tournament appearance. The 51 wins in 2005 marked the 18th time Stephenson led the team to 50 or more wins in a season.

Here's a statement from the Oklahoma AD from their website. Maybe it's just me, but this whole thing seems weird. It was hard to understand to begin with why Stephenson, at 60 years of age, and after 28 years as WSU, would want to leave for the Oklahoma job. The salary was apparently going to be about the same, but the presumption was that he'd have much greater resources at OU.

posted on 7/12/2005 by Jeff Agnew

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