Row the Boat

Chapter 8Rowing the Boat at the University of Minnesota

P.J. Fleck

 

A Culture in Need of Change

After the Cotton Bowl, I was getting ready to sign a brand-new deal to keep me at WMU. Heather and I made a rule. We truly wouldn’t consider taking a different job until after the Cotton Bowl. Many jobs did not like this because they wanted me to immediately start recruiting, fundraising, and team building. There was no way we were not going to coach in that bowl game. Our players and staff gave everything they had to get us to a special bowl game and I needed to give them all I had and finish the season with them.

We continued to row and coach our team for the biggest game of WMU's history. After the Cotton Bowl I was asked where I'd be going after the game. I told everyone I was headed back to WMU, and that's what I intended to do. The schools that showed interest had hired their coaches already and I came to the conclusion that we were going to stay at WMU for a long while. A few days later I got a call from Mark Coyle, the brilliant AD at the University of Minnesota, asking if I was interested in the newly opened job in the Twin Cities. The job hadn't been available for long and I didn't really know much about Minnesota. But I did know what happened and why the job was open. According to Mark Coyle, the culture needed to be changed, and I was his pick to get that done.