I’ve heard of head coaches leaving players in the middle of the night, or not showing up for meeting to accept another job, but this one takes the cake.
According to a post from the Big Lead via Texas Tech 24/7, former Texas Tech head football coach Tommy Tuberville left recruits and coaches sitting at dinner to accept the Cincinnati job.
A community college offensive lineman named Devonte Danzey had a first hand account of the events that transpired, and it wasn’t pretty.
Danzey: “The waitress brought our food out, and we thought (Tuberville) went to the bathroom, but he never came back to dinner. Then next thing I know, the next day, he made an announcement that he’s going to Cincinnati.”
Texas Tech athletics spokesman Blayne Beal confirmed Tech coaches did take players to dinner that night, which he said is a common occurrence on visits by recruits, but was unaware of any incidents that happened at dinner.
The next morning the recruits were scheduled to take a tour of the campus, but Tuberville did not show up for it, Danzey said. That’s when offensive line coach Chris Thomsen, who was named interim head coach Monday, came back to the group and broke the news Tuberville had been named the new head coach at Cincinnati.”
“Everybody was going crazy,” Danzey said. “The players were shocked, too. We still had a good time at night, but it was crazy how he just got up and left out of nowhere and left people in the dark and in the shadow.”
Coaches always leave their teams hanging or in the dark to take a new job, but to actually leave your coaches and potential players sitting in a restaurant and then a dark parking lot, that’s a cold world.