Friday, March 4, 2011

Mike Dunbar retires

The news of Mike Dunbar retiring — and leaving — the Aggie football program was discouraging and disappointing.

In my eyes, this is an indictment on the program. Dunbar and every other assistant on the coaching staff is underpaid when compared to their counterparts on a national scale. How can you build a winner if you have a constant revolving door at key coaching positions such as this? You can't. You're either going to attract young coaches who are learning on the job or veteran coaches who have experienced better and aren't happy.

Dunbar clearly picked a bad time to go — a month away from spring practice for a coach entering his second year with the program, a critical year for DeWayne Walker and his entire coaching staff. Bad timing on this one Mike.

But at the same time, I just get the feeling Dunbar grew tired of trying to push a boulder up a hill for less than $80,000 annually. He has nothing to prove — a long-time assistant coach on the college level. Why deal with the headache?

He chose not to, and now the Aggies are left holding the bag. Pretty soon they'll hire their fourth offensive coordinator in the last four years.