Small Fowler Comment From The Amato Article

Chuck Amato General NC State Administration NCS Football39

We wanted to highlight a couple of quotes from different articles regarding Chuck Amato’s dismissal from NC State.

Based on our understanding of private information as well as some comments made in the public domain, we contended that Chuck Amato never knew his job was in jeopardy until Lee Fowler actually fired him. Additionally, it seems that Fowler had no choice in the matter as the firing was mandated despite Fowler’s wish/desire to ignore the situation and give Amato another year(s). ( Sound familiar?)

Was Amato naive? Yes.

On the flip side, isn’t part of any leader’s job – in this case the Athletics Director – to have open communication with his coaches and let them know where they stand?

If you take the various quotes made by Lee Fowler throughout the season (God knows he gives you plenty of quotes to analyze) then it becomes abundantly clear that Fowler was forced to pull the trigger on Chuck. Even Fowler’s very own quotes just three weeks prior to the end of the season highlight that Fowler did not make the decision on his own.

Fowler: Do you feel like entering the East Carolina game that Chuck Amato felt he was coaching for his job?
It would be something that Chuck would have to answer… not me. I know that three or four weeks before the North Carolina game he and I had a conversation and we both knew how important the North Carolina game would be.

I can’t remember exactly when, but it was probably the Monday a few weeks before we played North Carolina, and he and I both talked about how important the North Carolina game was going to be.

Q: Is it still difficult to realize that you’re no longer at N.C. State, which I believe you thought was everything you wanted and where you wanted to be as a head coach?

I’m proud of everything I did there. To have one bad year, and for what happened, I was devastated. I never saw it coming, but that’s part of the business.

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Chuck Amato General NC State Administration NCS Football

39 Responses to Small Fowler Comment From The Amato Article

  1. Buddygreen 04/09/2007 at 11:47 AM #

    It would be a shame if Amato felt as though he were blind sided. I feel he deserved better then that given what he did contribute to NCSU. I am very happy with the way TOB has handled any questions concerning the past. After being pressed by the media about the discipline issue. TOB Clearly stated he didn’t know what had happened in the past but he had found no discipline issues with this team. I am very excited about wolfpack football with TOB at the helm. Thank you Amato for what you did for NSCU football and best wishes to him and his family!

  2. highonlowe 04/09/2007 at 11:54 AM #

    That is a great interview by James Henderson. Several great questions in addition to the one highlighted above. Unfortunately, Fowler doesn’t seem to have the same perception of his performance as the fans do.
    A little self-reflection can be enlightening “coach”.

  3. highonlowe 04/09/2007 at 12:06 PM #

    Just look at his answer to this question,
    Looking back at the basketball search, do you feel like you would have used a search firm if you had to do it all over again?
    It smacks of arrogance and ignorance, as does his answer on the ‘lunatic fringe’ question.

  4. WolftownVA81 04/09/2007 at 12:28 PM #

    This article does not inspire any confidence in our AD. My advice to LF is to decline all future interviews. IMHO, NCSU would be better served if he just kept quiet and reeped the rewards/praise of his recent hires and let sleeping dogs lie. The BB coach search was a huge embarrassment that I’m sure we’d all like to forget.

  5. SuperStuff 04/09/2007 at 12:32 PM #

    I think Chuck was naive if he thought losing games to UNC & ECU would have been okay. The only way Chuck would have been allowed to keep his job would have been to fire the offensive coordinator Trestman. I wish Trestman could have done a better job because in the end it cost Coach Amato his job.

  6. WolftownVA81 04/09/2007 at 12:38 PM #

    WP 01, the AD should be a leader. A leader is one who inspires confidence and can motivate the troops (in military speak.) The very public utterance of our AD have proven over and over again that he doesn’t have what it takes to effectively lead. This site, for the most part, has presented the facts. Yes, I agree there is some bias, but I think it stems from seeing the results of such poor performance out of his office. Again, relying on my military training, you need to either lead, follow, or get out of the way. I’d prefer he got out of the way which I have also expressed to our Chancellor via email with with my name and contact info. Too bad he didn’t feel the need to respond.

  7. Par Shooter 04/09/2007 at 12:57 PM #

    Did you intend to link the article to the Jax newspaper that included Chuck’s quote? The one linked on Section 6?

  8. tractor57 04/09/2007 at 12:57 PM #

    Sadly the facts point to ineffective leadership in the AD position. It was time for Coach Amato to “explore other other options” and the sad thing about this whole affair is that he apparently never knew his performance was sub-par.

  9. WP 01 04/09/2007 at 1:06 PM #

    ^ why was my comment removed? I don’t think it was at all out of line or disrespectful. if so, i apologize. are opposing views of the blogger not welcome? I’m not trolling….I’m a obviously a Pack fan and for the most part have enjoyed this site for the year or so I’ve made a daily visit to and posted on occasion.

  10. joe 04/09/2007 at 1:06 PM #

    Amato had a very high opinion of himself. But that is not surprising since starting way back in 2000 many Pack fans put him way up on a pedestal. He was the 2nd coming of Bear Bryant to some Pack fans.

  11. legacyman 04/09/2007 at 1:07 PM #

    Amato’s performance was not “sub-par”. Beating Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl was not “sub-par”. One bowl game is not a career but it was better than what we have done in the past. Chuck needed to start winning more than three games but he should have gotten another year.

  13. old13 04/09/2007 at 1:24 PM #

    IMO as long a Foulup is in charge, the NCSU Athletics Department will always come off looking like a second rate program. One needs only take a look at GoPack.com, listen to/read the feeble utterances of Annabelle, and listen to/watch/read Foulup’s many “media events” to know what he is all about. He insults fans, us alumni and (past) contributors, and the very university on multiple occasions; yet he remains! What does he have on Oblinger! I’ve been ashamed to admit on many occasions due to him that I actually graduated from NCSU!

  14. tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc 04/09/2007 at 1:27 PM #

    Three words for Amato: Win more games.

    I can’t imagine that a coach that is routinely booed by the home crowd could be surprised that he was fired. I think it was Amato’s lack of understanding what was obvious to everyone else was his ultimate downfall.

  15. PapaJohn 04/09/2007 at 1:33 PM #

    I often think the SFN posters go overboard with the vitriol for Fowler. But the CTC firing was a mess! This is a case where we had exactly what we wanted, a former player, a guy with a good resume, and a guy that loved the Pack as much as any of us on this blog.
    A good AD would see the good and the community that supported him and give him a chance to recover. Tell him where he stood well before it got out of hand. That’s management 101. Force him to make wholesale changes within the organization. Tell him what is wrong. Make sure CTC knows that his job is on the line and he wants to see a dramatic change in the coming year, or he’s out. Set a specific goal (XX wins, bowl game, whatever) and let your inner circle of VIP advisors know.
    I’m no Pollyanna, I know that the way the coaching world works is you have a finite period of time to demonstrate success, or you’re out. But Fowler could have shown he was a leader by taking the high road, and treating him like the member of the family that he was.
    In the end, it would have helped them both. Fowler would have shown some backbone and the whole deal would have been done in a professional way. And if CTC had recovered, Fowler’s a hero. Or even if he found another positon for CTC here at State, Fowler’s a hero.
    As it was, it was a very disappointing performance.

  16. BoKnowsNCS71 04/09/2007 at 1:34 PM #

    Chuck was a nice guy. HS was a nice guy. One was image without coaching substance and the other coaching substance without image. One was bland and slightly above average and the other was charged up and slightly below average. One was smart enough to understand his limitations — the other could not see beyond his nose.

    What is clear is that, other than building facilities, our Athletic Director shoots for is the safety of the middle of the road. He’s gotten tired of thinking — but the road of life is full of flattened squirrels that couldn’t make a decision.

  17. brickman 04/09/2007 at 1:34 PM #

    legacyman you are right it was not sub par . it was worse than that !!! notre dame has been down some time now . rivers was reason we one games look at his record after rivers left i think it was 15 and 20 . not sure . with the players he had should have been alot better……..

  18. choppack1 04/09/2007 at 1:51 PM #

    One thing to Chuck should realized, because Lee soon figured it out:

    I have never seen the Wolfpack masses agree so much on a coaching change, so quickly since the internet became popular.

    Chuck went from a God to someone who needed to go w/in 4 years.

    I really think that the discontent began that Thursday night game vs. Clemson…This was the jumbotron game. Our performance that night seemed to crystalize all of the bad things about NC State football under Amato….Celebrating before a play was over, jumping offsides, etc…To be fair, that’s one of the only games where I’ve ever seen an Amato-coached team mail it in, but they mailed it in.

    The last 2 years turned this year into a referendum on his job. He should have realized that one winning ACC season in 7 years isn’t enough to keep your job. I personally think he’s just shocked about the way that everything fell apart.

  19. Cosmo96 04/09/2007 at 2:09 PM #

    ^I agree with Choppack. There are several who say he should have had another year, and I wonder what good another year would do. Things had been trending downward for the past four years. Coaching turnover seems to be a primary reason for that, so even if we had a new OC this year, what good would another year of Amato have done? IMO, the timing was exactly right to make a change.

  20. Sam92 04/09/2007 at 2:14 PM #

    if chuck didn’t see it coming, he’s naive

    on the other hand, maybe it’s understandable if fowler was consistently telling him he’d be around for another year. but anyway you cut it, fowler wasn’t giving him the straight dope — my guess is that it’s not that fowler was hiding it from chuck, but merely that lee is a baboon

  21. GoldenChain 04/09/2007 at 2:17 PM #

    Agreed, the best thing Jed can do is keep his mouth shut!
    With the Sid & TOB hire hopefully next year someone will think he’s a freakin’ genius and hire him away!
    Oh and Legacy, beg to differ. In 7 seasons CTC won against 1 ranked team outside the conference and against 7 ranked opponents total. Highest ranked opponent #9 FSU in ’05.
    MOC in 7 seasons beat 9 ranked teams, 4 out of conference; highest ranked, #2 FSU ’98 (what a game too!).
    It in it fact does appear that one out-of-conference win against the #11 team did in fact a career make…at NCSU anyway.

  22. Frank 04/09/2007 at 3:20 PM #

    If Philip Rivers had not come to NCSU, CA would not have lasted beyond his third year. He might have won two games a year without Rivers.

  23. Jimmy V 04/09/2007 at 3:49 PM #

    Fowler sometimes just needs to keep his big mouth shut. He oftentimes opens it and speaks ignorantly. It would be different if the man was intelligent in the things he said. If it was to him, Herb Sendek would have never left. HS would have been here twenty years. The discontent and vocal grumbling of the fans, through different communications means, including the Internet, radio show, actual games, and newspapers, got to HS. Fowler would have let him stay at State forever. I have little respect for Fowler. This is the same man who has said stupid stuff about critical fans. This is the same AD who has said you can be “very good and still not be as good as Duke and UNC in basketball.” “A third place is okay mentality.” We need high expectations in the AD chair and we need a leader. Lee Fowler is not a leader. He’s far from it. He probably manages the money side fairly well, but you have to be willing to let coaches go if they are not performing well. I don’t advocate or support firing coaches quickly and not giving them a fair chance. But Lee is very non-confrontational. He’s just not a very good AD. He has not done well in the handling of the basketball situation the last some years. He will judged now on the TOB and Sidney hires, which appear to be good choices.

    He’d do better just to keep his damn mouth shut about the fans and diehard supporters of NC State.

  24. packpigskinfan23 04/09/2007 at 3:57 PM #

    if Phillip Rivers had not have come to NCSU, CA wouldnt have been asked to do too much. We had a great kid leading the team at that time… it just so happened that after he left it all fell apart.

    I agree that Amato still fell short of expectations and the change was necessary, but with out Rivers here a LOT less would have been expected of Amato and I really think things would be totally diffrent right now.

    I cant wait for Sat!!! I sure hope the weather is better than the last 2 years!!!

  25. choppack1 04/09/2007 at 4:15 PM #

    That Fowler interview was good. Great questions…I’m concerned about the responses. I think the main thing that disturbed folks about the b’ball search was the leaking of the names and the fact that evidently Steve Lavin was considered for more than 1 second.

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