MORGANTOWN — Were it not for the endless work it creates every day, the voyeur in me might actually have enjoyed the mess that has become West Virginia vs. Rich Rodriguez.

Really, think about it for a minute.

Of all the mud slung during this ridiculous episode, most of it was just silly, stupid stuff you could sit back and laugh at. Sure, it was all very serious to the principles involved, but things that were done by both sides had an element of the Keystone Kops to them.

For instance, I have this image of Rodriguez hunkered over a shredder for almost three weeks while waiting for his original Jan. 3 resignation date to come, perhaps even opening new boxes of clean, white paper to destroy.

On the other hand, I keep seeing WVU settle on replacement after replacement for Rodriguez, only to have each of them squashed either by the governor or by second thoughts from the candidates themselves. The new coach is eventually announced at halftime of the spring game.

Guess what, though? All of that ended Sunday when Mike Brown and Calvin Magee decided it was time to up the ante and accuse WVU of racism in ignoring Magee as a candidate for the job.

Forget that the only evidence at all is an alleged off-hand remark by an unnamed school “administrator’’ to Magee — relayed to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette not by Magee himself, but by Brown, whose stake in all of this begins and ends with the cash he earns as the agent for both Rodriguez and Magee. It is Brown who insists that on the day Rodriguez resigned, this anonymous administrator flat-out told Magee he had no chance to earn the head coaching position because he is black.

Apparently this happened very quickly because this is what happened that afternoon. I know. I was there.

Rodriguez walked into a team meeting shortly after 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 16. Ten minutes later he walked out, as did the players, who had just been told he was their former coach. The players scattered, most of them to the locker room to prepare for the 3 p.m. practice that was to go on as scheduled. Most of the assistant coaches huddled briefly and then went about their business.

The only administrator I recall seeing at the time — or for the rest of the afternoon, for that matter — was communications director Mike Fragale. Mike Montoro, who is in charge of football communications and works under Fragale, showed up later.

The majority of the team was on the field for the 3 p.m. practice within 45 minutes of the end of the meeting with Rodriguez. The short practice ended at about 4:15 p.m. Almost immediately Magee was out of the building and on his way to Michigan for Rodriguez’s introductory press conference there the next morning.

Could Magee have squeezed in a career-defining conversation during all of that? Perhaps. But with whom? If the “administrator’s” answer was what Brown claims, Magee certainly didn’t ask Fragale or Montoro, two people trained in public relations and certain not to make that sort of gaffe. Athletic director Ed Pastilong eventually arrived at the building, but even if Magee was still there, Pastilong certainly didn’t make the remark.

All of which leaves only those associated with the football program itself, the people who work in the Puskar Center. And if one of them said it, while that perhaps qualifies as a WVU “administrator” in the strictest sense of the word, it is not what Brown wants you to believe, which is that it was a person in a position of power or influence.

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So why is this such an issue? Well, obviously it’s the first thing brought up by either side in this messy divorce that borders on the criminal. As we said before, most everything else initiated by either side bordered on the comical except to those involved.

MORGANTOWN — Were it not for the endless work it creates every day, the voyeur in me might actually have enjoyed the mess that has become West Virginia vs. Rich Rodriguez.

Really, think about it for a minute.

Of all the mud slung during this ridiculous episode, most of it was just silly, stupid stuff you could sit back and laugh at. Sure, it was all very serious to the principles involved, but things that were done by both sides had an element of the Keystone Kops to them.

For instance, I have this image of Rodriguez hunkered over a shredder for almost three weeks while waiting for his original Jan. 3 resignation date to come, perhaps even opening new boxes of clean, white paper to destroy.

On the other hand, I keep seeing WVU settle on replacement after replacement for Rodriguez, only to have each of them squashed either by the governor or by second thoughts from the candidates themselves. The new coach is eventually announced at halftime of the spring game.

Guess what, though? All of that ended Sunday when Mike Brown and Calvin Magee decided it was time to up the ante and accuse WVU of racism in ignoring Magee as a candidate for the job.

Forget that the only evidence at all is an alleged off-hand remark by an unnamed school “administrator’’ to Magee — relayed to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette not by Magee himself, but by Brown, whose stake in all of this begins and ends with the cash he earns as the agent for both Rodriguez and Magee. It is Brown who insists that on the day Rodriguez resigned, this anonymous administrator flat-out told Magee he had no chance to earn the head coaching position because he is black.

Apparently this happened very quickly because this is what happened that afternoon. I know. I was there.

Rodriguez walked into a team meeting shortly after 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 16. Ten minutes later he walked out, as did the players, who had just been told he was their former coach. The players scattered, most of them to the locker room to prepare for the 3 p.m. practice that was to go on as scheduled. Most of the assistant coaches huddled briefly and then went about their business.

The only administrator I recall seeing at the time — or for the rest of the afternoon, for that matter — was communications director Mike Fragale. Mike Montoro, who is in charge of football communications and works under Fragale, showed up later.

The majority of the team was on the field for the 3 p.m. practice within 45 minutes of the end of the meeting with Rodriguez. The short practice ended at about 4:15 p.m. Almost immediately Magee was out of the building and on his way to Michigan for Rodriguez’s introductory press conference there the next morning.

Could Magee have squeezed in a career-defining conversation during all of that? Perhaps. But with whom? If the “administrator’s” answer was what Brown claims, Magee certainly didn’t ask Fragale or Montoro, two people trained in public relations and certain not to make that sort of gaffe. Athletic director Ed Pastilong eventually arrived at the building, but even if Magee was still there, Pastilong certainly didn’t make the remark.

All of which leaves only those associated with the football program itself, the people who work in the Puskar Center. And if one of them said it, while that perhaps qualifies as a WVU “administrator” in the strictest sense of the word, it is not what Brown wants you to believe, which is that it was a person in a position of power or influence.

nnn

So why is this such an issue? Well, obviously it’s the first thing brought up by either side in this messy divorce that borders on the criminal. As we said before, most everything else initiated by either side bordered on the comical except to those involved.

This, though, is something that, true or not, makes West Virginia University look very bad. And the school continues to take a hit in the national media because of it.

Of course, for the most part the national media is terribly shallow and one-sided and has its own agendas, such as keeping in the good graces of high-profile coaches like Rodriguez. Almost universally they have fallen on the side of the former West Virginia coach.

Part of that is WVU’s fault because of the often-comical way in which the search for Rodriguez’s replacement was portrayed. One day Terry Bowden and Doc Holliday are about to be offered the job, the next Jimbo Fisher is backing away, the next Mike Locksley is in the mix and then, all of a sudden, Bill Stewart is the guy. All the while the governor is speaking to candidates and their fathers and vilifying agents for their hold over college coaches, and a booster, Ken Kendrick, is closing his checkbook and calling it all a farce. Look at it from the standpoint of a national columnist. Who isn’t going to assume this is some amateur operation run amok?

That’s the easy conclusion, though, and doesn’t go anywhere near the heart of the matter, which is that throughout all of this it has been West Virginia officials who have unquestionably taken the high road (Rodriguez’s term). Go ahead, name one thing WVU has done to antagonize anyone.

The only proactive step WVU has taken in all of this was to go to court in an effort to protect its interest in the $4 million buyout owed the school by Rodriguez — an action taken only because Rodriguez was on record in Michigan as saying his attorneys were working on the buyout. When the deadline passed for the first payment, the school then sued for breach of contract. Anything else would have been negligent on WVU’s part.

The shredding accusations, you say? Yes, WVU officials commented on it off the record, but the issue had festered for several days without a word from West Virginia until the media pressed the issue. At worst you can argue that was planted by WVU, but even if that were the case, the information about Rodriguez destroying files was true.

So just what has West Virginia done, as the national media wants you to believe, to make it seem like a psycho ex-girlfriend or Glenn Close’s character in “Fatal Attraction?”

The allegations that Rodriguez’s family was harassed and property vandalized? Fans.

The stories of Rodriguez calling potential recruits before he told his own team he was resigning? The Internet. It was right there on a recruiting Web site.

Rodriguez leaving without saying a word to virtually anyone — the administration, the media, the fans — and handing in his resignation through a graduate assistant? All true and all self-evident. WVU officials didn’t put any of that stuff out there.

Rodriguez immediately contesting the buyout in his introductory press conference? He said it on live television.

On the flip side, it has been Rodriguez’s agent (Brown), friend (Kendrick) and himself who have actively criticized everything WVU, from Kendrick’s initial charges that the administration was arrogant, mean-spirited and petty in allowing Rodriguez to leave, to Rodriguez’s “smear campaign” comments to Brown’s latest unattributed racial bias against Magee.

Perhaps, as Brown has said, there is a bombshell waiting to be dropped when Rodriguez files his response to West Virginia’s legal motions. In a way I kind of hope there is because it could be the first meaningful accusation of substance in this whole mess.

But I wouldn’t hold my breath.

To contact staff writer Dave Hickman, call 348-1734 or send e-mail to dphickm...@aol.com.