Patrick Kinahan: Nasty divorce aside, Whittingham's legacy at Utah not ruined

SALT LAKE CITY — Enough already on the prevailing script that Kyle Whittingham ruined the legacy he cultivated for over 30 years coaching football at Utah.

Eventually, the nastiness will subside and Utah's winningest football coach will get his due before adoring fans. As prickly as the relationship with Utah's administration is, Whittingham's accomplishments (among them being a perfect season in 2008 capped by upsetting Alabama in the Sugar Bowl and two Pac-12 championships) will forever stand the test of time.

Bruised egos on multiple sides will become distant memories at some point after he's done coaching at Michigan. The angst started, as documents released last week indicated, with his desire to continue coaching at Utah, but the administration clearly wanted Morgan Scalley to take over.

In paying Whittingham per an amended contract, athletic director Mark Harlan chided the departing coach for violating "a smooth and successful transition" as part of the separation agreement. Whittingham brought several Utah assistants with him to Michigan, a move Harlan said the university didn't like.

Had the situation been reversed, the university probably would not have objected to a new incoming coach taking several of his assistants with him. Viewpoints often vary, depending on perspective.

Messy divorces in sports happen often, but time will soften hurt feelings. There are plenty of examples, including at least two at Utah, of nasty separations going by the wayside as the years pass.

Look no further than one of Whittingham's mentors, the original coach to bring him to Utah. Ron McBride, who hired Whittingham as defensive line coach in 1994, didn't exactly leave Utah under the best of circumstances.

With McBride at the helm, Utah transformed from a mostly losing program into a consistent winner. In 1990 he took over a program that had only five winning seasons in the prior 16 years and had not been above .500 in Western Athletic Conference since 1985.

Two years after getting hired he led Utah to the Copper Bowl, the program's first bowl game in 28 years. Six bowl games under McBride is significant for a program that reached only three bowl games in the previous 97 years.

He also made the series with BYU an actual competitive rivalry rather than an annual one-sided beating. Losing 16 of 18 games to BYU before McBride, the Utes won six of his last 11 rivalry games.

McBride posted a record of 88-63 during his 13 seasons, which at the time made him the second-winningest coach behind Ike Armstrong. One year after the Utes went 8-4 in 2001, he was fired.

The divorce was predictably ugly, to the point two weeks later McBride sent a letter to the Board of Regents and university trustees wanting "to set the record straight," he said, according to a Deseret News story in December 2002.

Included in the story: "He was insulted that athletic director Chris Hill said his program had 'stagnated' over the past three years. He said he could have handled it if Hill had used Utah's six-game losing streak as a reason.

"McBride considered the 'stagnation' comment to be a condemnation of his players as well as him and his staff, and he didn't like that."

Ever popular, the 86-year-old has become a community treasure over the years. Like it will years from now with Whittingham, McBride got his name etched in Utah football lore when he was inducted into the Rice-Eccles Stadium ring of honor last season.

Then there's the case of Rick Majerus, the tremendous coach who led Utah basketball to incredible heights in the 1990s. Along the way, he managed to irritate or offend many in the athletic department for his, to put it mildly, eccentric behavior.

As one longtime administrator put it, Majerus was a "one-member dysfunctional family" during his 15 years at Utah. A national media darling, a view not shared by all his players and local media members, left the team in January 2004, citing health issues that repeatedly plagued him over the years.

The 2003-04 season was one of three that he didn't complete during his successful and volatile Utah tenure. But two months after he died at age 64 in 2012, a replica of the sweater Majerus wore during games was unveiled in the rafters during a ceremony in the Huntsman Center.

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