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Post by Bornthrilla on Oct 20, 2008 12:02:15 GMT -5
AGGIES MAKE COACHING CHANGE Ragsdale takes over football program on an interim basis
GREENSBORO, October 20, 2008 – North Carolina A&T athletics director Wheeler Brown announced the dismissal of head football coach Lee Fobbs today. Brown appointed George Ragsdale as the interim head football coach for the remainder of the 2008 season.
“We feel like this is the best decision for the program at this time,’’ said Brown. “I certainly want to thank Lee for all his efforts over the last 2 ½ years, and I want to wish him well in all his future endeavors. The program just needs a new direction.”
Fobbs was 2-28 as the Aggies head coach. Ragsdale, 55, has served as the Aggies running backs coach under Fobbs the last three seasons. He has been assistant coach on the collegiate level for 23 seasons. He started his coaching career as an assistant at N.C. A&T in 1983. It was the first of three coaching stints with the Aggies.
Ragsdale returned to N.C. A&T as a part-time assistant during the 2003 MEAC Championship season. Three years later he came back to coach running backs. He has also coached as an assistant at Morris Brown, Norfolk State and Arkansas Pine-Bluff.
“My job is to keep these young men focused on what is ahead of us and not what has already happened,’’ said Ragsdale. “We have four games remaining starting with Howard on Saturday, and that’s where our focus as a football team belongs. We have to make the best of what is left in this season.”
Ragsdale is a 1976 graduate of N.C. A&T. He is considered one of the best running backs to ever wear an Aggies uniform. Ranked ninth on the Aggies all-time rushing list with 1,989 yards, Ragsdale led the Aggies to a share of the MEAC Championship in 1975. He is a member of the N.C. A&T and MEAC Halls of Fame. He spent six seasons in the NFL – five with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and one with the Washington Redskins. He also played two seasons with the USFL’s Oklahoma Outlaws.
-www.ncataggies.com-
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Post by Bornthrilla on Oct 20, 2008 12:03:55 GMT -5
Not quite sure if I understand the move to promote Ragsdale to interim head coach. You are leapfrogging two coordinators and assistant head coach Kenneth Ray.
But really, how much does it matter at this point?
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DECKS
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Post by DECKS on Oct 20, 2008 12:06:42 GMT -5
I think the message is clear.
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DECKS
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Post by DECKS on Oct 20, 2008 12:08:05 GMT -5
Hide Post Go to Google News©2008 Google - Map data ©2008 Tele Atlas - Terms of UseNC A&T fires football coach 43 minutes ago
GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) — Lee Fobbs Jr. is out as North Carolina A&T's football coach.
The school said Monday that it fired the coach, who had a 2-28 record in two-plus seasons. Running backs coach George Ragsdale has been chosen interim coach for the rest of the season.
The Aggies (2-6, 0-4 Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference) lost all 22 games during Fobbs' first two seasons before opening this season with a win over Division II Johnson C. Smith. The win snapped a 27-game losing streak.
But A&T has now lost six straight and is coming off a 42-7 loss to Delaware State. The Aggies have been held to seven or fewer points in four of their last five games. The only exception was a 28-27 loss to rival North Carolina Central, which is in the second year of its transition to Division I.
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Aggie77
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Post by Aggie77 on Oct 20, 2008 12:24:32 GMT -5
I think you do understand.
If you were in this position, who would you trust the most to manage this situation to a ramp down to the end of the season. A HOF Aggie and former teammate or a couple of dudes you’ve known for half a season. I think if obvious Rags is the only likely hold-over on this staff. Plus it allows the Coordinators to do just that, coordinate, especially if they want to convince people that they aren’t the problem also.
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Post by Bornthrilla on Oct 20, 2008 12:32:00 GMT -5
"Fobbs, you can leave here by one of two ways: either the stairs or the window."
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Post by Bornthrilla on Oct 20, 2008 12:34:55 GMT -5
Shoulda chose the window
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Freeze
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Post by Freeze on Oct 20, 2008 12:46:49 GMT -5
Shoulda chose the window ROTFLMBAO!!! Man you are STOOPID!!! Now that is pure comedy...
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lilboy
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Post by lilboy on Oct 20, 2008 15:05:08 GMT -5
Makes sense to me Coach Rags knows more about football than anyone else on this staff.
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Post by AggieGroove on Oct 20, 2008 17:41:46 GMT -5
Hey thrilla...did you attend or record the press conference today?
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Post by Bornthrilla on Oct 20, 2008 17:44:19 GMT -5
Yes and yes. Now I just gotta find a missing cord so I can upload the audio to my computer.
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Post by Bornthrilla on Oct 21, 2008 8:31:42 GMT -5
Strike that. The audio quality of the tape I had was horrible. Didn't find out until I got home and tried to listen to it.
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Post by Bornthrilla on Oct 21, 2008 12:56:59 GMT -5
Ax falls on another Aggie coach Tuesday, October 21 (updated 8:01 am) By Robert Bell Staff Writer
GREENSBORO -- In the end, it was about confidence.
No matter how hard N.C. A&T coach Lee Fobbs tried to restore the confidence of those around him -- his football players, his assistant coaches, the athletics department and fans -- the damage done by underperforming players and all those losses was simply too much to repair.
That, more than anything else, was the reason A&T athletics director Wheeler Brown offered for firing Fobbs on Monday after just 21/2 seasons as the Aggies' head coach. Fobbs' dismissal took effect immediately.
Minutes after informing Fobbs he was being let go, Brown met with assistant coach George Ragsdale and named the former Aggies running back interim head coach for the remaining four games.
"Coaches are always being evaluated (and) this season was no exception," Brown said at a midday news conference that was packed with media, school employees and Aggies fans -- but, curiously, no football players or coaches. "This was not something from this year as much as it was a body of work. So after doing that, I decided it was time for a change."
Brown said he reached that conclusion after the Aggies' 42-7 loss at Delaware State on Saturday, the team's sixth consecutive defeat. Brown said the decision was his alone, but that he received the support of Chancellor Stanley F. Battle and other university administrators.
He acknowledged three years on the job wasn't enough for Fobbs or any coach to turn around a program that has struggled in recent years. "But three years is enough time to show progress," Brown said.
So, Monday morning Brown met with Fobbs and did what other N.C. A&T administrators before him have done three times in the past six years: fire the Aggies' football coach.
Fobbs, whose record at N.C. A&T was 2-28 overall and 0-20 in the MEAC (2-6, 0-4 this year), left the campus immediately after meeting with Brown. He did not speak with players or coaches and could not be reached for comment Monday night.
Brown said Fobbs was "naturally disappointed," but that the coach understood Brown's decision.
Fobbs agreed to a four-year contract through 2009 that paid him $165,000 a year. The university is not required to pay Fobbs the roughly $200,000 remaining on his contract, but Valerie Green, general counsel for the school, said both sides "are in discussions on the contract." She declined to elaborate.
Brown said he would begin a national search for a head coach in the coming days and would begin contacting candidates in December. He said he would like to have a coach hired before the end of the year, but was comfortable waiting until mid-January if the extra time could land him the right candidate. He said he had a short list of candidates, but would not elaborate.
Head-coaching experience will not be a requisite -- before coming to Greensboro, Fobbs was an assistant coach at Texas A&M -- but Brown added that the Aggies' next coach needs to do a better job of recruiting North Carolina athletes.
Football players met with Ragsdale late Monday morning. Ragsdale and the players were sequestered from the media all day. Ragsdale will hold his first news conference as interim head coach at 3 p.m. today.
The end officially came for Fobbs 48 hours after the Aggies were hammered by Delaware State, but Brown hinted that Fobbs' fate may have been sealed weeks earlier. Brown accused some of the players of not competing at 100 percent during games, a reflection, he said, of the coach.
He said Ragsdale, his assistant coaches and the players "have a four-game season to prove themselves."
Contact Robert Bell at 373-7055 or robert.bell@news-record.com
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Post by Bornthrilla on Oct 21, 2008 12:59:10 GMT -5
That's kinda strange. Usually a fired coach will at least have an opportunity to address his team one last time.
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Post by dj98 on Oct 21, 2008 13:04:54 GMT -5
(Usually a fired coach will at least have an opportunity to address his team one last time.)
The players would not have listened to Fobbs no way.....
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