Cliff McCrath knows it takes two to kiss and make up, and Tuesday he was ready to pucker up in his disagreement with Seattle Pacific University.
The longtime SPU men’s soccer coach — who was either asked to step down or retired on his own, depending on which side is speaking — says he hasn’t lost his passion for coaching and would like one more year.
To do that, he has an idea: Put his differences with the university aside and return in 2008 as co-coach alongside his replacement, Mark Collings, who played and coached under McCrath.
It would allow McCrath to leave in a more dignified manner, he said, and take a final kick at the 10 victories he needs to set the all-time NCAA coaching record.
“Like A-Rod going back to the Yankees, that makes the most sense,” said McCrath, 71. “If that message can get to a warm spot in their (university administrators’) hearts, then we can all kiss and make up.”
SPU sports information director Chris Johnson said university president Philip Eaton and athletic director Tom Box would not comment beyond statements in a news release Monday praising McCrath.
McCrath’s teams won five NCAA championships, played in the title game 10 times and reached the playoffs 30 of the 38 years he coached at SPU. The 2007 team finished 7-6-7, recording the school’s 37th straight winning record.
McCrath said he would look at other offers to coach at the NCAA level, and noted he already has received calls.
“It’s not out of the question,” he said. “It’s one of those things I haven’t given any thought to for almost four decades. But as long as there’s a ball and some eager guys, we might just do something like that.”
Seattle Pacific issued a news release Monday saying that McCrath is retiring. He insists he has no intention of retiring now, and that the university asked him to step down.
McCrath wanted to return for a 39th season when he met with university officials early this month. Returning would give him a chance to win the 10 games needed to pass Joe Bean of Wheaton College in Illinois for the NCAA record in career coaching victories.
“I said, ‘How about we look at January ‘09 as the retirement date? The ‘08 season we can get the record so every kid who ever played here can say they played for the winningest program in history,’ ” McCrath said.
Instead, SPU officials decided it was time for a change, he said. Among the reasons they cited, McCrath said, were “manageability, control, that I didn’t care about the team and my passion’s gone.”
His response: “I worked harder than ever before.
“I have no problem with the university’s freedom to ask a coach to step down any time of day or night,” McCrath said. “You can ride to work naked on a camel as a professor with tenure, but as a coach you go until you’re stopped at the water fountain. Even though it was our 37th consecutive winning season, that would be a pretty good time for somebody to say that 7-6-7 has more ties than Men’s Wearhouse, that it might be time to start thinking about stepping aside.”
Snohomish High School soccer coach Dan Pingrey, who played for McCrath at SPU from 1979-82, said the university is losing an icon.
“At some point you know it’s going to happen,” Pingrey said. “He always promoted the game and made it better. We’ll lose that icon at SPU, but I truly believe he will be an ambassador of the sport and continue to be involved.”
If McCrath doesn’t coach again, he said he’ll spend more time with youth soccer programs, especially in a hands-on capacity with his camp at Fort Casey on Whidbey Island, which will begin its 37th year in 2008.
“If the university holds to where they are on this, I’ll still make speeches, from the Ford Motor Company to the Prickly Heat Cub Scouts in Oklahoma,” he said. “I still feel I have a lot to say to a lot of people.”
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