Category Archives: Bill Bradshaw

06.12.23
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An Award Temple football fans can get behind

Two weeks after Maryland beat Al Golden’s Miami team, 32-24, Bill Bradshaw congratulates Steve Addazio here for beating Maryland, 38-7. It wasn’t that close. After Maryland scored a late fourth-quarter garbage touchdown, Daz had the Owls take three knees inside the Maryland 5 instead of winning 45-7.

Nobody knows how many mistakes an athletic director is allowed to make but, at a place like Temple, the margin of error is smaller than others.

On Sunday, a guy who hit AT LEAST .666 on Temple football coaching hires got the most prestigious athletic director honor that can be awarded: The James J. Corbett Memorial Award is a US award given annually by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA). It is presented “to the collegiate administrator who through the years has most typified Corbett’s devotion to intercollegiate athletics and worked unceasingly for its betterment.”

Pretty precise language when it comes to Bradshaw’s contribution to Temple football.

When you’ve had collegiate football since 1984 (and the school was founded 10 years earlier), and you hire two of the best four college football coaches at said school, you’ve done a remarkable job.

Bill Bradshaw’s photo at the ceremony on Sunday. He seemingly gets younger with each season.

Very few people can argue that Al Golden and Matt Rhule were two of the best four hires in Temple history. (The other two are inarguable: College Football Hall of Famers Wayne Hardin and Pop Warner.)

For one AD to hire half, that’s a job well done and, at least at Temple, fit the criteria of “devotion to intercollegiate athletics and (working) unceasingly for its betterment.”

Put it this way: Compared to the three hires his successor made, Bradshaw knocked it out of the park. Pat Kraft hired, in order, Geoff Collins, Manny Diaz and Rod Carey. The less said about those three the better.

That also applies to the more said about the three prior football hirings: Golden, Rhule and Steve Addazio.

Pretty good for a guy who was a baseball player at LaSalle and came from a place (DePaul) that didn’t have college football.

To put it in Bradshaw’s best sports terms, Golden and Rhule were upper-deck home runs. Daz was certainly not a strike-out or fly out but the argument can be made that he was at least a gap double (first bowl win in over 30 years) or a hard-hit single off the wall while being thrown out at second (his 4-7 season the next year).

Bill sets the record straight on TU football attendance.

Although Collins won a bowl game with a worse record than Daz, he never quite fulfilled his promise (Mayhem) here and Diaz struck out looking while Carey was a swinging strikeout.

Bradshaw’s gift in my mind at least was a knowledge of Philadelphia (he went to LaSalle) and common sense.

He took a yellow legal pad with him to Charlottesville to interview then Virginia DC Golden, watched Golden pull out a binder of East Coast recruiting and coaching contacts, listened to what he had to say, and, on the way home, jotted down: “This is our guy.”

With Rhule, who finished second to Daz the first time, Bradshaw listened to all of the Temple players but still kept his options open. When Mario Cristobal asked for directions to Temple from the Philadelphia International Airport, Bradshaw had second thoughts. Everyone from the Temple police to the players to the cafeteria people met and loved Matt Rhule, who knew every nook and cranny of Temple. Then he ran into Temple icon (and assistant AD) Al Shrier in the hallway of the Liacouras Center.

“Bill, listen to me. Hire Matt Rhule.”

That was all he needed to hear.

Temple was off and running in football again, surpassing what even Golden had done. If you had Temple being unbeaten and hosting College Football Gameday (and then grabbing the all-time single-highest prime-time TV rating FOR ANY COLLEGE FOOTBALL game in the history of the nation’s fourth-largest market), then you might have been the only one. I never saw that coming. That was a day and night we might never see again for Temple football.

A large part of the credit for Oct. 31, 2015 goes to Bill Bradshaw.

For those of us who benefited that day, the Corbett Award is the least he deserves. Sainthood could be in his future, but let’s hope that is many years away. What he did for Temple football was perform the requisite three miracles.

Friday: That First Weekend

Monday: What’s the Deal?

05.02.13
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Bradshaw’s retiring a sad day for Temple football

“Now, Steve, you aren’t going to leave me after a couple of years, are you?”

The Catholic Church requires three documented Miracles in order for to qualify for Sainthood.
By those standards, Bill Bradshaw is a Temple football Saint.

TFF and Bradshaw through the years:
A compilation of stories on Temple Football Forever mentioning Bill Bradshaw through the years.

That’s why the news of Bradshaw retiring today (effective June 30) is truly a sad day for the program.
When the 2005 Temple president, David Adamany, formed a committee to “determine the future of Temple football” it was with one goal in mind:
To kill the program.
In December of that year, Adamany put the committee together and said “once their report is completed, it will be made public.”

Bill puts the myth
of Temple making up
attendance figures to rest.

That report was never made public because the outcome was not the one Adamany wanted or expected.
The Board of Trustees, led by then Chairman Howard Gittis, voted to keep football and strengthen it.
Behind the scene, Bradshaw worked the room for the “pro-football” people.
By the time the vote was in, he was exhausted.
“I didn’t know what the outcome would be, but football was saved by one vote,” Bradshaw said.
Miracle No. 1?
Check.
Then football was saved again by one trip Bradshaw made to talk to Virginia defensive coordinator Al Golden.
Bradshaw brought with him a yellow legal pad.
When he got out of the meeting, he had four words written on the notepad:
“This is our guy.”
Even though the university went through the motions of forming a “football selection committee” Bradshaw steered the committee toward Golden, who was just what Temple needed at the time. A young, energetic football surgeon who would spend 80 hours a week, sleeping at 10th and Diamond if necessary, to resuscitate a dying patient.
“I’m going to build a house of brick, not straw,” said Golden, and he did.
Miracle No. 2?
Check.
Getting Temple into the MAC for football was no miracle because the Owls were also being courted by Conference USA at the time, but getting the Owls out certainly qualifies.
When no power conference wanted Temple, Bradshaw pulled the Big East rabbit out of his hat by working the phones and commissioners on TU’s behalf. The signature moment that forced the Big East’s hand might have been a Sunday trip Bradshaw and  then president Ann Weaver Hart made to the Conference USA convention in Dallas.
Thinking Temple might take the largest available football market to CUSA, the Big East moved fast to lock up the Owls within a week after that reported meeting.

Interesting tweet from Florida’s Sharrif Floyd, a No. 1 draft choice.

Sometimes you’ve got to force the other guy’s hand and Bradshaw, a good poker player, knew how to do that.
What happened to the Big East after Temple signed up was beyond Bradshaw’s control.
Miracle No. 3?
Check.
When Steve Addazio left after two short years after saying Temple was “my dream job” and that “I could see myself staying here the rest of my career” the program faced another crisis.
Hire another name from a big-time program and risk losing him after a year or right a ship that faced the possibility of losing a head coach every year.
Bradshaw thought about it, listened to the players and parents and decided that stability was needed above all at this point and hired Golden disciple Matt Rhule.
Miracle No. 4?
Only if Rhule is able to produce on-field results like Golden was and the early indications are all positive.
There’s still time before the Canonization but, in my mind, Bill Bradshaw is a Saint and, thankfully, a living one.

Bill Bradshaw and Temple football 

Year
Action
Result
2005
Negotiated move into MAC
Gave TU opportunity to compete for automatic bowl bids
2006
Hired Al Golden
First bowl appearance by Owls in 30 years, MAC East co-champs (2009), bowl eligible 3 straight years
2011
Hired Steve Addazio
First bowl win in over 30 years
2012
Move to Big East, expanded football facility with $10 million addition
Gave Temple an upgrade in number and quality of possible bowl bids, solidified future recruiting
2012
Hired Matt Rhule
Stabilized a program hemorrhaging head coaches
12.08.12
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Coaching Carousel stops at Temple

Heck, Clawson would be a great sell for a Temple fan base irate with Steve Addazio leaving because Clawson beat Addazio last year with half of Addazio’s talent

When Bill Bradshaw finally sits down and hammers out a short list for Temple head coaching candidates, the good news is that the Coaching Carousel seems to have stopped at 10th and Diamond and a couple of good men fell off.
Just as of a couple of days ago, it looked like Dave Clawson, the Bowling Green head coach, might be headed for Cincinnati, robbing Temple of a prime choice of coaching beef. That job went to Texas Tech’s Tommy Tuberville instead.
Good for Temple because Clawson is a much better fit for the Owls than Cincy. Heck, Clawson would be a great sell for a Temple fan base irate with Steve Addazio leaving because Clawson beat Addazio last year with half of Addazio’s talent. Clawson has Philadelphia-area ties, having been a longtime coordinator for Andy Talley at Villanova.
Clawson then built a FCS champion at Richmond, giving Mike London all the players he needed (Al Golden-style) before heading to Bowling Green. Now, at Bowling Green, he has the 8-4 Falcons in a bowl game.
It also looked as though San Jose State head coach Mike MacIntrye could be headed to either Cal or USF but Louisiana Tech’s Sonny Dykes got the Cal job instead and Willie Taggart got the USF job.
Again, good for Temple because MacIntyre kicked Dykes’ backside with San Jose State talent last week.
MacIntyre could still be in line for the Colorado job, but that is looking more of a longshot now that former Super Bowl coach Jim Fassel threw his hat into that ring.
Taggart’s getting the USF job is doubly good for Temple because another head coach with solid credentials, Mario Cristobal, was rumored to be in line to take over that job.
The Wisconsin job is still available but there are strong indications that Notre Dame co-defensive coordinator Bob Diaco is the solid choice to replace Bret Bielema, who went to Arkansas.
If Temple should hire a “head” coach, and I really think that’s the only way to go at this juncture of the program, possibly the best three candidates fell off that carousel and right into Bradshaw’s lap. When Bradshaw hired Golden, he needed a program-builder. When he hired Addazio, he needed a recruiter. With the talent already in place, now needs a proven head coach who can get the most out of the talent and establish Temple as a national brand.
I can’t believe three of the best men on a crowded coaching carousel at the beginning of this week are still around at the end, but I’m glad they are.
According to any objective empirical analysis, these three guys have all proven to be better head coaches than Steve Addazio:

MacIntyre might bring to Philly something TU fans haven’t
seen in two years: A forward pass.

MIKE MACINTYRE _ Is familiar with Temple, but probably would be blown away with the facilities now, which are 100x better than they were when he was a defensive assistant in 1997 and 1998. He had San Jose State, a program with a history worse than Temple’s (the Spartans almost dropped football three years ago), 10-2 and ranked No. 24 in the country. He’s just what Temple needs, a guy who can outcoach the guy across the sidelines from him. Temple did not have that with Addazio. It would with MacIntyre. Now would MacIntrye, whose son is a hotshot California quarterback, want to come here? Why not? He interviewed at USF. We can confirm that, but can’t confirm reports that he was in Thursday to interview for the Temple job. I hope he did and I hope he’s interested. Maybe he’ll bring his son along to play for my other alma mater, Archbishop Ryan (Raiders need a quarterback, too).
DAVE CLAWSON _  MacIntrye is either No. 1 or 1A.  I’m not sure which because of Clawson, who could be the 1 to MacIntyre’s 1A. Clawson is familiar with the Owls, having coached against them in the MAC. He’s familiar with Philadelphia, having coached at Villanova.

This is our guy

He’s had the Midas Touch with every team he’s coached, from leading a powerhouse Villanova offense to stockpiling the talent for FCS champion Richmond to leading Bowling Green into a prestigious bowl game. Remember, he beat Addazio’s best team with half of Daz’s talent. He would be an easy sell to the Temple fan base. He would have the Midas Touch at Temple, too.

Was going to put a photo
of Mario here, but decided
on his wife Jessica instead.

MARIO CRISTOBAL _ One year ago, he was one of the hottest young coaching prospects in the country, after taking obscure Florida International University to two bowl games. A rash of injuries this year cooled his stock a bit and he was, in my mind, hastily fired after a 3-9 season. Still, I think Cristobal, with the Owls’ current talent (not even counting the recruiting class) could have Temple at least 7-4 in 2013. Last year, Cristobal finished second in the running for the Rutgers’ job to Kyle Flood and would probably like nothing better than to send the Scarlet Knights off to the Big 10 with a BE loss in Piscataway next year. Married to the beautiful Jessica Cristobal. Could have also explained the 3-9. As much as I love Temple, if I was Temple head coach and married to her, that would explain me going 3-9 because I  might be late for a lot of practices.
All three would do a better job than any current assistant coach on Temple’s radar screen, even the legendary assistant offensive line coach of the New York Giants.

Tomorrow: The $17 million gamble

07.13.11
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Steve Addazio needs $2 million in two weeks

Addazio poses with the greatest helmet
in the history of college football.

One of the disappointing things about not being in a position to be a big-dollar donor to the Temple University football program is that I don’t get a lot of the correspondence asking for money.
That might seem odd t to you but, as I’ve said before many times, if I had disposable income (like millions), I’d spend a good portion of it on the Temple football Owls.
Sadly, I don’t so I didn’t get the latest letter Steve Addazio penned a variety of big-ticket donors.

In it, he reportedly said that the uni was in the process of raising $8.5 million for expansion to the E-O and needed “$2 million in contributions by Aug. 1 to greenlight the project.”
Knowing Temple fans like I do, that deadline, to be kind, seems a tad ambitious.
You don’t go through 30 years of losing and post two winning seasons and expect $2 million in contributions in a month of the offseason.
Just doesn’t happen. The belief system is just not in place.
Yet.
I do my part in small ways, like this blog.
I had a haircut in Center City Philadelphia last Wednesday and proudly wore my “Temple Owls Football” T-Shirt and had a few thousand people take notice of it as I walked 20 blocks from the Inquirer building to the Barber Shop.


Temple vs. PSU single-game tickets
on sale now:



Hopefully, the advertising was subliminal.

Today, I stopped at the Lehighton Walmart wearing the same shirt (washed, of course) and a guy came up to me and said, “Temple. Go Owls.”
He was wearing full Phillies gear.
Lehighton is in the middle of Penn State territory (actually, anyplace north of Allentown is).
“This is the year we finally beat Penn State,” I said.
“God, I hope so,” the man said.
That’s what it will take to raise $2 million in less than one month, not a letter from a popular new head coach.
I hope I’m wrong, but 30 years of observing this fan base tells me otherwise.
If you have an extra $2 million or even $2,000 to contribute, please contact bill.bradshaw@temple.edu and I’m sure he will be able to give you further info on this project or direct you to someone who will.
If you do have $2 million, please make the payment contingent upon Addazio keeping the TEMPLE helmet.

01.12.11
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Addaziogate: Saying nothing says a lot

Now that Temple University, though a football spokeswoman, says it is not going to comment on a published report in the Hartford Courant that Steve Addazio’s “representative” contacted UConn regarding its football opening, that leaves a lot of room for speculation.

Too much room.
My feeling, as stated earlier, was that Addazio had to come out and say the published report was a lie or he was tacitly saying it was the truth.
There’s no wiggle room.
Making a public statement that the Hartford Courant was full of hogwash would have ended the matter once and for all.
Now it lingers and will linger and saying nothing is the worst thing Addazio, Bill Bradshaw and Temple University could have ever done.
Before Temple came out and said it was saying nothing, something had to be said privately between AD Bill Bradshaw and Addazio.
Since they aren’t saying what, we can only guess as to what went down:

BB: Now, Steve, I called you into this meeting today for a reason.
SA: Anything for you Bill. I told you the day I signed here was that we are joined at the hip.
BB: Yeah, about that.. ..
SA: I couldn’t be with a better man, Bill.
BB: Just wanted to ask you about that report in the Hartford Courant that your representative contacted UConn ….
SA: Yeah, I was meaning to tell you about that. Kind of slipped my mind.
BB: There’s no truth to it, right?
SA: Bill, you are a good man so I’m going to come clean with you. Yeah, I did. I didn’t know UConn was going to open up and, yeah, I thought I could maybe slip in the backdoor. It’s my home state and all. Plus, the walk to 11th and Diamond every day looks pretty dangerous.
BB: But what about all that “Destination Temple” stuff you said two weeks ago?
SA: Yeah, pretty good speech, huh? Think I could use it when I get the job up there. I could just change “Destination Temple” to “Destination UConn.”
BB: I heard Mark Whipple was going to get the job, though.
SA: Really? Damn, I must have been too late. I guess I’m stuck, I mean, committed, here.
BB: We should really say something, make a statement that you are committed to Temple and that you never applied for the UConn job.
SA: Now, Bill, why would I do that? You heard me talk about integrity a couple of weeks ago, didn’t you? You wouldn’t ask me to lie, would you?
BB: Yeah, I forgot about the integrity part.
SA: Bill, I got an idea. What if we just said nothing?
BB: You mean, bury our heads in the sand?
SA: Yeah, right, say nothing, bury our heads in the sand and hope this all blows over.
BB: I guess you are right, Steve.
SA: See, Bill, I told you we think alike. We’re joined at the hip, buddy.
BB: I’ll tell the press we’re saying nothing then.
SA: That’a boy, Bill. Anything else?
BB: I guess not.