Chris Long wrote:2004 Record 6-10
2005 Record 10-4
Number of Players:
2004: 30
2005: 22
2006: 11 at the time of occurence
Don't get me wrong. I played for Dejon, Jack, and you, Chris, for more than a year. I think Dejon is a great coach. He has an immense knowledge about the game and on top of being a great coach, he is also improving year by year. There is no denying that he knows what he is doing.
That said, something wasn't working within our program, and we needed a big change. 11 players does not constitute a team. We did everything in our ability to retain players. Even though it may reflect badly upon the program, many people were not willing to devote the time that was being required. I was one of the eleven players that was showing up to every practice.
The last thing we wanted to do was "fire" a coach, especially one of Coach Hush's caliber. Sadly, we only had two decisions left. One was to fold as a program, and another was to do what we could to try to get the program back on its feet. I reiterate that it shows poor character to those that did not come out due to whatever reason beforehand. Out of the returning players left that were forced to make a decision, not one was happy about the "firing" of Dejon. After all, the players that were left were the ones that had not quit.
With the Irvine trip: Many people were not willing to pay $1500 to play a total of 14 games, and sadly we needed to cut costs to entice additional players to come out. Cutting this trip was one way to reduce costs ~600 per person.
I will leave it at that. I still believe coach Hush as well as his staff to be great coaches and great leaders, and give him my best wishes. I think he would be a great fit for a lot of programs. I thank coach Hush, Visco, and Long for your guys' time and effort devoted to this program, and hope that there exists no hard feelings.
-Ozan
P.S. I do not know what happened to the other thread, my guess is that the discussion began to heat up there. I never had a chance to read that one.