Fowler, Wolfpack facing a second big decision in 2006

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Posted 7:30PM on Monday, November 27, 2006

RALEIGH, N.C. - North Carolina State entered the year with a men's basketball team ranked in the top 15 and a football program coming off its fifth bowl appearance in six years. It's been a season of change ever since. First, Herb Sendek left to take over at Arizona State after 10 seasons as basketball coach, leading to a monthlong search that missed on several big-name targets before former player Sidney Lowe was hired. Now athletics director Lee Fowler faces a similar challenge in finding a new football coach after firing Chuck Amato over the weekend, topping off a trying period for the university's two highest-profile sports programs. Fowler declined comment Monday about his latest search, but there will be no shortage of reports from Internet sites and fan message boards talking about Amato's possible successors. ``You're hoping to make a decision that'll last for 10 years,'' said Les Robinson, the former N.C. State athletics director who hired Amato in 2000 before leaving to take the same position at The Citadel. ``Hiring your football and basketball coach, those are the most important decisions an A.D. makes. ``The most difficult task is you're trying to do a job and no one will let you. The interest level is just phenomenal. I haven't figured that out. There's more interest in who's going to be the coach than who's going to win a game.'' The school announced Amato's firing Sunday night, a day after the Wolfpack finished the season with a 21-16 home loss to East Carolina. The Wolfpack (3-9) closed the season with seven straight losses, the program's longest in-season losing streak since losing nine in a row in 1959. Amato, a former Wolfpack linebacker, had a 49-37 record in seven seasons. But his squads were 25-31 in the Atlantic Coast Conference and never finished higher than fourth. He also finished with a losing record in two of the three seasons since quarterback Philip Rivers went on to the NFL. It leaves Fowler, who replaced Robinson as athletics director in 2000, facing the challenge of luring a new coach in a competitive market that includes Alabama and Miami. Making matters even more pressing for Wolfpack fans is the fact that Amato's firing came a day before North Carolina introduced former Miami coach Butch Davis a ``home run'' hire by many accounts to take over for the fired John Bunting. The Tar Heels signed Davis to a seven-year contract with an annual compensation package upward of $1.7 million. ``The stress is going to be tremendous,'' said Appalachian State athletics director Charlie Cobb, a former Wolfpack football player who worked in the N.C. State athletics department from 1998-2005. ``In this day in age, with the Internet especially, when something gets put in writing it's (considered) fact, and 99 percent of the time it's fiction. ``The best part about it is Lee's a bright guy. He's going to be meticulous. He'll do what he thinks is the right thing.'' The program does have at least one strong selling point. Carter-Finley Stadium has undergone about $87 million in renovations and upgrades, including the construction of the 103,254-square-foot Murphy Center to house the football offices and the four-story Vaughn Towers with press and luxury seating. Permanent seats that bowled in the last open end of the stadium also were added for this season. Many N.C. State fans have hoped for another former Wolfpack linebacker Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher to take over the program. Speculation increased when the Cowher family bought a $2.5 million home in Raleigh earlier this year. But Cowher, who led the Steelers to a Super Bowl win last year, is under contract for next season. And the Rooney family that owns the Steelers is unlikely to let Cowher out of his contract for another job. No matter what direction Fowler turns, the university can only hope for a smoother hiring process than the one to replace Sendek. In that one, N.C. State missed on top targets Rick Barnes of Texas and John Calipari of Memphis before turning to Lowe the starting point guard on the Wolfpack's 1983 NCAA championship team in a search that Fowler said afterward caused him to lose about 25 pounds. ``Unfortunately people are impatient and they want a decision tomorrow,'' Cobb said. ``You've got so much that goes into it, the uninformed have no idea and no concept. People need to be patient, basically.''