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OGDEN -- At a press conference Tuesday at Weber State’s Stewart Stadium in Ogden Ron McBride announced his retirement as the head football coach at Weber State University.
Media, players past and present, assistant coaches, Weber State faculty and friends crowded the large third-floor room in the Stewart Stadium press box to hear the announcement. McBride struggled to gather himself as he sat on the podium before the press conference and as he made the announcement.
“The only thing I know, the last sixty years is football,” McBride said as he started his opening statement, doing his best to shake off his emotions. “That’s certainly been my whole life.”
McBride said that he made the decision based on his desire for the betterment of the Weber State football program.
“In reality it’s all about the players,” he said. “The reason I came to this decision - - and it was my decision, nobody else’s decision - - I looked at where this program is. All the players are in the right classes, the program is exactly where it needs to be, I just felt they need a new voice at the top. The only thing that is important to me at this point is the success of Weber State. I want to do the right thing for Weber State, not the right thing for Ron McBride.”
McBride is 72-years-old and plans to finish out the season, with the last home game of his career against Northern Arizona on Saturday at 1:30 in Ogden. McBride says he has no idea what retirement is all about or how he’ll deal with it.
“I have no idea what I’ll do without football because I don’t know anything else,” he said. “I have no hobbies. Retirement, that’s not my favorite thing to do, but I think it’s the right thing at this point.”
McBride acknowledged and thanked the community for its support of him over his time both at Weber State and at the University of Utah.
“Everybody in this state has treated me better than I deserve over the last 26 years at Utah on and off and seven years here at Weber State,” he said. “People always cared about what I was doing and they always cared about how I felt. I’ve coached a lot of places, but never have I felt better than when I was in the state of Utah.”
McBride has been a Division I head football coach for 20 years, both at Weber State and at Utah, and he has coached at the Division I level since 1965.
“The biggest thing I’m going to miss is seeing players everyday,” McBride said. "Dealing with their problems, not being happy with them sometimes and being happy with them other times. The nice thing about coaching football is that no day is ever the same. Every day is different because you’re dealing with a bunch of young people and they’ve all got different problems.”
In the Wildcats’ game against Montana State on Saturday, McBride suffered a torn ACL on a tackle made on the Weber State sideline. However, Athletic Director Jerry Bovee made it clear that McBride’s decision to retire was a decision in the making before the injury.
“Coach came to me last week and started to talk about how retirement would go for him.” Bovee said. "And frankly, doing this today was important for our program so our fans have an opportunity to be here on Saturday and celebrate his career with him. I think if he had it his way, he’d have waited until the end of the season, packed up his bags and went home, but it’s important for our program and this institution to make sure that he has an opportunity to get the credit that he deserves.”
McBride admitted that retirement was never part of his plans as a football coach.
“I never really saw myself retiring, I saw myself dying on the field,” McBride said, amidst a roar of laughter amongst the media in attendance. “I pictured my heart blowing up and them rolling me off the field.”
Staying true to form, McBride made it clear that he would follow through with the promises he made to his players and their parents.
“I recruited these guys, so I’m responsible for them,” he said. “I’m responsible to their parents and I’m responsible to them. When you go in the home and tell people that, you need to fulfill that… I definitely am not just walking away. What I’m doing is shortening my hours… I said I’d see them graduate and I will, just in a different way.”
A telling moment came during the question-answer session of the press conference when a member of the Weber State faculty stood in tears to personally thank Coach McBride.
“You’ve done a great thing for Weber State, we love you coach,” said the man identified as a faculty member.
In typical Coach Mac form, he responded quickly before the situation became too emotional.
“I love you too,” he said before acknowledging the faculty member’s sacrifices for the program, mentioning specific ways in which he had helped the program.
McBride hopes to stay involved with the program in some way, specifically hoping to be involved in the decision of who replaces him.
With two games left in the season, McBride is 41-38 in his career at Weber State and 129-101 in his career as a Division I head coach. He started his coaching career at San Jose State serving as the freshman coach, linebackers coach and defensive coordinator during his time there. He later served as the offensive line coach and the offensive coordinator at UC-Riverside and then at Long Beach State. From there he went to Utah where he coached the offensive line and was the offensive coordinator under head coach Wayne Howard. He then moved on to Wisconsin and after a couple of more stints between Utah and Arizona, he was hired as the head coach at Utah in 1990. After leaving Utah in 2002, he was an assistant at Kentucky before being hired as the head coach at Weber State.
McBride may not know what retirement holds for him, but he surely knew what football did for him.
“I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to in my life,” he said. “How can anybody be more blessed than I am?”
Trevor Amicone is the sports director at 88.1 Weber FM "Ogden's Radio Station" and host of the sports talk radio show, "Fully Loaded Sports with Trevor Amicone". Find more of his blogs at TrevorsTopTens.com. Follow him on Twitter at @TrevorAmicone
