Anyone remember when we hired Ron Meyer as HC?

[TheBoris]

At the end of the 1986 season we fired Leon Burtnett and hired Ron Meyer as HC. Meyer flew to Indy and was waiting in the airport for the short flight up to WL.

Colts owner Robert Irsay intercepted Meyer at the airport and offered him the HC job with the Colts, right on the spot. Meyer took it and never made the flight to the Purdue Airport.

Purdue then made a panic hire of Fred Akers and the rest is history.

https://purdue.rivals.com/news/boilermaker-blast-recruitin-ron-meyer

 

[tigerchump]

Yes,I remember that fiasco very well.I guess Irsay could offer more money.Too bad.

 

[mk_peters]

Purdue President Beering then made a panic hire of Fred Akers and the rest is history.

Fixed for you.

 

[New Pal Boiler]

At the end of the 1986 season we fired Leon Burtnett and hired Ron Meyer as HC. Meyer flew to Indy and was waiting in the airport for the short flight up to WL.

Colts owner Robert Irsay intercepted Meyer at the airport and offered him the HC job with the Colts, right on the spot. Meyer took it and never made the flight to the Purdue Airport.

Purdue then made a panic hire of Fred Akers and the rest is history.

https://purdue.rivals.com/news/boilermaker-blast-recruitin-ron-meyer

Pretty sure the NCAA would have set up a satellite office in that strip mall across from Mackey if we had brought Ron in.

 

[nat100]

Pretty sure the NCAA would have set up a satellite office in that strip mall across from Mackey if we had brought Ron in.

Don't care. Would have been significantly better than Akers

You realize he was a big part of molenkopfs success right?

 

[tigerchump]

I can remember walking out of Ross Ade after a loss to Minnesota in 1990 and the guy with me asked if I thought Purdue would have been better off by hiring Meyer and I replied of course,but they would be on NCAA probation also.

 

[BoilerBonz]

At the end of the 1986 season we fired Leon Burtnett and hired Ron Meyer as HC. Meyer flew to Indy and was waiting in the airport for the short flight up to WL.

Colts owner Robert Irsay intercepted Meyer at the airport and offered him the HC job with the Colts, right on the spot. Meyer took it and never made the flight to the Purdue Airport.

Purdue then made a panic hire of Fred Akers and the rest is history.

https://purdue.rivals.com/news/boilermaker-blast-recruitin-ron-meyer

Irsay played for Meyer as a walk on at SMU. I heard Irsay went to the Indy airport just to greet Meyer and ended up offering him the job, apparently after Irsay got caught up in the moment.

Don't forget also that Jeff George would have stayed to play for Meyer! That could have been interesting!

 

[New Pal Boiler]

Don't care. Would have been significantly better than Akers

You realize he was a big part of molenkopfs success right?

You realize that later that year SMU got the death penalty, from which they have never recovered, and that Meyer played a large role in the first set of violations that earned that penalty?

 

[nat100]

You realize that later that year SMU got the death penalty, from which they have never recovered, and that Meyer played a large role in the first set of violations that earned that penalty?

Of course I do. Doesn't mean Purdue would have suffered the same fate

 

[TheBoris]

Robert Irsay may be the only person in sports history who was called out as rotten by his own mother.....

http://www.si.com/vault/1986/12/15/106777270/now-you-see-him-now-you-dont

 

[New Pal Boiler]

Of course I do. Doesn't mean Purdue would have suffered the same fate

Sounds like what all my IU buddies said when they hired Sampson.

 

[Bluto71]

Don't care. Would have been significantly better than Akers

You realize he was a big part of molenkopfs success right?

As it was for every team in that era.

 

[Cleanface]

Did not know this stuff.

Thx for sharing.

 

[pu1985]

Another 'what if':
Jim Young, after resigning in 1981 and taking a spot in the AD, had a change of heart and approached George King about getting his head coach spot back.
King however had already offered Leon Burtnett (after an "extensive" coaching search), Young moved on to great success at Army...and ,well , the Leon era began.

 

[BoilerBonz]

Another 'what if':
Jim Young, after resigning in 1981 and taking a spot in the AD, had a change of heart and approached George King about getting his head coach spot back.
King however had already offered Leon Burtnett (after an "extensive" coaching search), Young moved on to great success at Army...and ,well , the Leon era began.

 

[BoilerBonz]

Young's decision to resign as HC was a rash one, made when he was emotionally exhausted due to a number of issues. King should have seen this and encouraged Young not to resign, but to take a leave of absence, with Burtnett as an interim. Young was a very special coach and although many realized it at the time, King wasn't one of them. If Young had been retained and PU had supported football properly in terms of facilities and assistants' salaries, he would have built Purdue into a perennial juggernaut, just below the level of OSU and Michigan, and that would be paying huge dividends today for PU and the PU Athletic Dept. The missed opportunities and mismanaged of the PU football program since Mollenkoph are maddening to those of us who observed it all unfold. And all due to 40+ consecutive years of "leadership" by two short-sighted ADs and a series of disinterested Prezs and BOTs.