COLLEGE FOOTBALL / DAILY REPORT : FREEDOM BOWL : It Took Persistence to Get Hired

For 27 years, Ron McBride applied for head coaching jobs.

And always, the response was the same: No.

And through most of those years, there was one job he valued more than any other--at Utah.

He applied twice, and was turned down, twice.

McBride, a onetime all-City guard at South Gate High and later a guard at San Jose State, was an offensive line coach for 27 years before Utah finally hired him in 1990, on McBride’s third try.

His wife, Vicky, didn’t want him to apply again, to feel the hurt again.

“Ron, they don’t like you,” she told him in ’90. “They turned you down for the job twice. Stop wanting to be there.”

This time, he got the job. There were tears on his face when he was introduced at a news conference.

Utah has been firing football coaches for decades. Since 1950, the Utes have had losing seasons 21 times. One coach, Wayne Howard, once told Salt Lake City reporter Doug Robinson: “This place is jinxed. It’s impossible to win here and I don’t know what it is.”

So, what did McBride see in the job?

“I always thought I could recruit well for Utah,” he said.

“I could never understand why a kid wouldn’t want to come to Utah to play football. I felt the program was loaded with potential, and with patience and hard work it could really be a big-time program.”

McBride, in his fourth Utah season, is 24-23 and has taken the Utes to two bowl games in a row. Last year, he was given a one-year contract extension.

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Mike McCoy, Utah’s junior quarterback, has had a Rob Johnson-like season. The 6-foot-3, 197-pound player from Novato, Calif., threw 21 touchdown passes and gained 3,860 yards, completed 64.2% and had 10 interceptions.

Johnson, USC’s junior quarterback, 6-4 and 220, had 26 touchdowns, 3,285 yards, a 68.6% completion rate and five interceptions.

McCoy was playing for the late George Allen at Long Beach State when the school dropped football, in 1991. The day that announcement was made, Utah assistant coach Dan Henson was driving Southland freeways, on a recruiting trip.

He heard the news on the radio, diverted to Long Beach and recruited McCoy.

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Utah would like to upgrade its campus stadium, which seats 32,000.

It might get the chance, but not until about 2000. Salt Lake City is expected to bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and it’s anticipated that the university’s Rice Stadium would be expanded to 50,000 seats to accommodate Olympic stadium events--and Ute football.