MORGANTOWN - You know, I've been wrong before, so you might be ill-advised to take this as a proclamation that the rough spots are behind us. In fact, anyone who thinks this won't get even messier is probably naive.

But I still can't help but believe that, in light of the correspondence between the two sides uncovered this week, Rich Rodriguez's chances of wiggling out of any substantial part of his $4 million buyout with West Virginia are dead.

Ditto any possibility that he will live to see the day that any Mountaineer forgives and forgets the way he exited his home state.

Why? Because whether through his own actions and attitude or that of his agent, Mike Brown (and the feeling here is the two are joined at the hip), West Virginia's former football coach has been outed as one of the most self-absorbed malcontents who ever blew a whistle.

Thirteen months ago, when he turned down an offer to coach at Alabama, he famously said the decision didn't boil down to reasons to leave, but rather reasons to stay. As it turns out, the only reason he stayed was an apparent belief there was nothing - including czar-like control over every facet of anything that remotely affected him or his program - he couldn't demand and eventually receive.

s Selling the school's athletic Web site and adding advertising to the walls of Mountaineer Field to raise more money exclusively for football? No problem.

s Creating his own Web site to put even more money in his own pocket? Why not?

s Completely eliminating the athletic department as a supervisory body over Rodriguez, who would apparently then answer only to president Mike Garrison or, perhaps, God? Sounds perfectly benign to me. How about you?

In the stacks and stacks of e-mails released to the Associated Press regarding all things Rodriguez, there are certainly different ways to paint the situation. It can, I suppose, be argued he was merely trying to strike while the iron was hot and that any and every delay by the school in meeting his demands was petty.

It's not easy, though, to portray Rodriguez and Brown in any sort of positive light given their constant demands for more. Particularly troublesome are Brown's e-mailed threats - and they can't be termed as anything else - that schools like Texas A&M and Florida State would soon be in the market for new coaches and if Rodriguez didn't get what he wanted he would be well received elsewhere.

Not as threatening, but certainly just as illustrative of their demands for control, was Brown's outrage over the school releasing Rodriguez's contract terms in the days following its August completion. Uh, actually Mike, the fact is Rodriguez was the one who announced that he had signed the deal on his radio show. WVU administrators actually refused to comment on it until he had said it himself, after which the university had no choice but to release it in full.

The crux of the correspondence, though, is even after agreeing last December to a deal which increased both Rodriguez's salary and WVU's football fundraising commitment for projects to almost unfathomable levels, the two apparently spent the next 12 months fighting over even more.

Much of it, including a retirement package that deferred some of Rodriguez's money in order to give him tax breaks (and cost WVU in the neighborhood of $50,000 just to arrange), the coach got.

When Rodriguez and Brown didn't get it all, though, they took their ball and went to Michigan.

But I still can't help but believe that, in light of the correspondence between the two sides uncovered this week, Rich Rodriguez's chances of wiggling out of any substantial part of his $4 million buyout with West Virginia are dead.

Ditto any possibility that he will live to see the day that any Mountaineer forgives and forgets the way he exited his home state.

Why? Because whether through his own actions and attitude or that of his agent, Mike Brown (and the feeling here is the two are joined at the hip), West Virginia's former football coach has been outed as one of the most self-absorbed malcontents who ever blew a whistle.

Thirteen months ago, when he turned down an offer to coach at Alabama, he famously said the decision didn't boil down to reasons to leave, but rather reasons to stay. As it turns out, the only reason he stayed was an apparent belief there was nothing - including czar-like control over every facet of anything that remotely affected him or his program - he couldn't demand and eventually receive.

s Selling the school's athletic Web site and adding advertising to the walls of Mountaineer Field to raise more money exclusively for football? No problem.

s Creating his own Web site to put even more money in his own pocket? Why not?

s Completely eliminating the athletic department as a supervisory body over Rodriguez, who would apparently then answer only to president Mike Garrison or, perhaps, God? Sounds perfectly benign to me. How about you?

In the stacks and stacks of e-mails released to the Associated Press regarding all things Rodriguez, there are certainly different ways to paint the situation. It can, I suppose, be argued he was merely trying to strike while the iron was hot and that any and every delay by the school in meeting his demands was petty.

It's not easy, though, to portray Rodriguez and Brown in any sort of positive light given their constant demands for more. Particularly troublesome are Brown's e-mailed threats - and they can't be termed as anything else - that schools like Texas A&M and Florida State would soon be in the market for new coaches and if Rodriguez didn't get what he wanted he would be well received elsewhere.

Not as threatening, but certainly just as illustrative of their demands for control, was Brown's outrage over the school releasing Rodriguez's contract terms in the days following its August completion. Uh, actually Mike, the fact is Rodriguez was the one who announced that he had signed the deal on his radio show. WVU administrators actually refused to comment on it until he had said it himself, after which the university had no choice but to release it in full.

The crux of the correspondence, though, is even after agreeing last December to a deal which increased both Rodriguez's salary and WVU's football fundraising commitment for projects to almost unfathomable levels, the two apparently spent the next 12 months fighting over even more.

Much of it, including a retirement package that deferred some of Rodriguez's money in order to give him tax breaks (and cost WVU in the neighborhood of $50,000 just to arrange), the coach got.

When Rodriguez and Brown didn't get it all, though, they took their ball and went to Michigan.

As poorly as it all makes Rodriguez look, though, I can't help but focus on another aspect.

While all of this paints Rodriguez in a completely different light than the one that shined on him throughout much of his seven years at West Virginia, doesn't it also force one to view West Virginia's administrators - particularly athletic director Ed Pastilong and his deputy, Mike Parsons - differently?

Remember, these are the two men - along with Garrison to a degree (although he was late to the fray) - who bore the initial brunt of Rodriguez's departure. Whether it be the outrage of fans, petitions circulated for their removal (one of which was signed by an obviously disturbed man who said he prayed nightly for their deaths) or nationally public blasts by donors like Ken Kendrick, Pastilong and Parsons were vilified across West Virginia. And why? Because they were universally seen as the two major impediments to Rodriguez's happiness. Who did they think they were, these paper-pushers who were acting like spoiled brats because they weren't willing to cede a little bit of control so that their football coach could do the things best for his program?

A dysfunctional athletic department and a couple of crybabies leading it? Well sure, if you happen to be aligned on the side of a guy whose ultimate career goal seemed not to be the coach of WVU's football program, but its dictator. And back when Rodriguez was all the rage, it was easy to side with him against his perceived enemies. That's why Pastilong and Parsons are to this day still viewed as detriments.

How about now, though? Don't Pastilong and Parsons appear to be the voices of reason? And don't shrug off their roles in this simply because Rodriguez largely tried to eliminate them from the equation and deal directly with Garrison. Their reluctance to bow to his every whim was exactly why they were being bypassed, and why they weren't even included in much of the e-mail correspondence.

As for Garrison, remember your outrage when you learned it was during a Saturday night meeting that the new school president essentially told Rodriguez the university would continue to work to satisfy his wishes, but that now was the time to get back to work on preparing for the Fiesta Bowl? All Garrison had to do was sign off on a few relatively minor items and Michigan would go away.

For a week or a month or a year, maybe. But that wouldn't have been the end of it. It never would have ended.

How all of this relates to Rodriguez's fatally damaged reputation in the state is obvious. You just don't recover from being an egomaniacal traitor. Not here. Not ever.

As for the $4 million buyout, that still hinges on whatever this Mike Brown "bombshell" might be, although don't we now have to take that with a grain of salt?

The prevailing assumption is, when push comes to shove, Rodriguez will argue he was forced to sign his contract in late August, even though he still wasn't comfortable with it. He will probably say that Garrison - and even Gov. Joe Manchin - essentially twisted his arm to sign the papers and get it over with before the start of the season. And you know what? He might be right.

Aren't you fairly certain, though, that everything and more that Rodriguez agreed to in December of 2006 - when he signed a preliminary agreement and, by the way, began getting paid under the new terms - was in the contract that he was "forced" to sign eight months later? And aren't you equally certain the reason he didn't want to sign was the absence of some of the seemingly ridiculous demands he and Brown were making during those eight months?

I'm sure there will be more to it than simply that. After all, isn't something new uncovered every day? But to think that he could agree to the terms of a contract, be given everything he agreed to and more and then argue that he was "forced'' to sign off on it after eight months of negotiations just stretches the limits of credibility.

And I think it's becoming obvious that credibility isn't Rodriguez's strong suit right now.

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