Teel thrilled coach stays

ADITI KINKHABWALA, STAFF WRITER
The Record (Bergen County, NJ)
12-08-2007

Teel thrilled coach stays
By ADITI KINKHABWALA, STAFF WRITER
Date: 12-08-2007, Saturday
Section: SPORTS
Edtion: All Editions

PISCATAWAY The message popped onto his phone and Mike Teel stopped breathing.

Teel's teammates had been calling and his family had been calling. The Rutgers' quarterback had been scouring the Internet and keeping his TV volume jacked high, and late Thursday night, when that message announcing a 7 a.m. team meeting came through, the rumors, the gossip, the questions — it all became frighteningly real.

"It was a long night," Teel said Friday, frankly and with obvious relief, for it was after that night and at that 7 a.m. meeting that Rutgers coach Greg Schiano ended anxiety. Schiano is staying at Rutgers.

In a Friday morning statement, Rutgers' seventh-year football coach confirmed conversations with Michigan athletic director Bill Martin, and then said, "I have decided to remove my name from consideration."

Schiano, who is 37-46 all time and who with the Jan. 5 International Bowl will have taken Rutgers to a first-ever third consecutive bowl game, met with Martin at length Wednesday. By Thursday, a source close to the coach said there was "mutual interest," with talks having progressed to a discussion of numbers.

"It was a lot of question marks," junior wideout Tiquan Underwood said of what was an agonizing night for the Scarlet Knights once that news had broken. "He's the reason guys come here."

It was exactly one year and three days ago that Schiano first reminded his team of that. That day, Teel staked out a spot in the coaches' wing, watched a live feed of Schiano saying he'd declined Miami's request for a chat about its coaching opening, and then said, "I never had any doubt." This time around, Teel confessed to a lot more angst.

"I didn't know. I didn't know," the Don Bosco product said, repeating himself as he searched for a way to describe just what he was thinking during a sleepless Thursday night. Teel said he kept ESPN on, that he and his housemates tried distracting themselves with video games, but that really, "I wanted to talk to Coach. I wanted to call him and find out what's happening, and hear from him. You can't hear from ESPN or what you're reading. You've got to talk to the source."

Turns out, even if Teel had been able to reach Schiano on Thursday night, his coach may not have had an answer for him. The 41-year old reportedly wrangled with the decision all night, and while he didn't want to comment any further beyond his morning statement, it was, by all other accounts, indeed a decision. A source said Martin offered Schiano $2.2 million, a raise over the $1.5 million resigned coach Lloyd Carr was paid and over the $1.7 million Schiano is in line to earn this year.

Michigan is in the midst of a $266 million stadium renovation, while Rutgers' Board of Governors just declined to vote on a proposed $102 million expansion to Rutgers' 44,000-seat stadium. Michigan has broken ground on a new indoor practice facility, Michigan's coach has never had to lobby for state, or institutional, support, and Michigan is long established as a national player.

Schiano has long said he wants to build all that at Rutgers. He signed a contract extension in February that ties him to Rutgers through 2016 and he just moved into a new house he built on campus land in October. The Wyckoff native has insisted that New Jerseyans "deserve" a big-time program and, as Underwood highlighted Friday, the coach has sold many a recruit on staying home to do just that.

And so Friday, in that team meeting, Schiano said he wasn't lying when he first promised all that. And on the first day of the winter's first official visit weekend, Schiano sent a far stronger message than the Scarlet Knights' 7-5 season could.

Illustrations/Photos: ***
Keywords: COLLEGE, FOOTBALL, COACH

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