Those students departing Miami University in the class of '09 will add one more to their ranks as they leave Miami's hallowed halls. Football head coach Shane Montgomery resigned Saturday following a loss to Ohio University, ending what was his third losing season in his four years as coach. Montgomery, who had been with Miami since starting as quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator, saw both quarterbacks Ben Roethlisberger and Josh Betts join NFL teams and the team play for the MAC Championship in 2007. As the Bicentennial year is upon us, it seems almost fitting to have a chance to start anew with our football team. While we wish Montgomery all the best in future endeavors and recognize his outstanding ability as an offensive coordinator, the editorial board of The Miami Student believes that the opportunity to bring in a new head coach presents Miami with the ability to re-establish ties to the history of Miami's winning tradition and energize a fan base that has slowly ebbed away.
While we should not fault Montgomery for not being a graduate of Miami, we feel that it is important for a new coach to have some type of connection to our history in order to better reconnect with the traditions we've come to rely so heavily on at Miami. A Sports Illustrated article from June 30 ("Seems like old times") may discuss the revival of the Boston Celtics franchise, but it also grants us important points to ponder in the upcoming search for a new head coach. It seems that football has been caught up on how unfair people think the Bowl Championship Series is or how many big name recruits a school can garner, but all those things seem fragile if the history of a university is missing from a student-athlete's experience. It is our hope that there is not just a focus on a here and now, nor on immediate results that a coach may have next season, but that there could be a larger visualization of where our program is in its more than 100 years of playing the game.
Athletic Director Brad Bates and President David Hodge echoed these sentiments in the press release following Montgomery's resignation, and we hope that the job search stays true to those aspirations. The history of Miami football may seem inane to some, but we have to grant an approval to Associated Student Government President Mike Scott's constant talk of school spirit. It matters. It matters that a coach and a program can reach out to the community and draw people to their games. With scientific confirmations of the Flutie effect-where researchers have seen a rise in application numbers to schools that perform well in sports, named after quarterback Doug Flutie-having a winning program matters. But that's not a new revelation.
With a financial crisis on our hands, it seems like moving our head coach's salary out of the basement of Division-1 salaries will continue to be impossible. Instead, Miami must be able to push the university as a brand-as a reminder of all the things that this program has accomplished and all the great things that we know this university stands for. A person with Miami connections will understand this in ways that others may not, and we should be gearing up to find those individuals who will be able to reshape the football program in a way that utilizes the talent that we have while re-energizing the support of the university. That person must be able to shape the program in his vision of what Miami football means to Miami University.
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