GRANT TOWN, W. Va. — In January, at the request of the townsfolk here, Charlie Rosic found himself digging for a street sign in the city’s storage room.
Buried beneath some boxes and covered in dust from more than a decade of abandonment, the town’s mayor successfully unearthed the relic. The sign is simple and small, about only 18 inches across. In green font against a white backdrop, four words scrawl across its face.
HOME OF RICH RODRIGUEZ
No picture. No message. Not even a punctuation or nifty design.
Perhaps it is more than enough that the sign has reappeared at all. In 2007, after Rich Rodriguez left West Virginia for Michigan, the folks here vandalized the original, more grandiose sign that marks his birthplace.
“They tore it down and destroyed it. We don’t know who did it or where it is,” Rosic said. “When Mr. Rodriguez left in his midnight runaway, there was a bunch of people mad at him.”
Earlier this year, Rosic, like any good mayor, followed the instruction of his constituents: They wanted the smaller sign restored to its rightful place upon the rehiring of Rodriguez last December in Morgantown.
Now, at the town’s eastern entrance, along Paw Paw Creek Road, is a reminder of this tiny municipality’s most famous native son.
And, yes, Rich Rodriguez himself has heard the news.
“They took that son of a bitch down,” he says with a laugh, “and then they put it back up!”
Welcome home, Rich Rod.
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He’s back, returning to a place he left some 17 years ago in a messy divorce that featured dueling lawsuits, hurt feelings, broken promises and, now years later, public acknowledgements of regret.
Time heals wounds — at least most of them. Grant Town’s restoration of that sign is emblematic of a state that has forgiven, but not forgotten — something Rodriguez has learned in the first nine months back. During spring speaking engagements and summer tours across the state, he’s made clear at least one thing.
“It was a mistake to leave,” he says in an extended interview with Yahoo Sports in his office. “I shouldn’t have left.”
This is a love story gone bad — a man who felt unfairly vilified by his own people; a people who felt cruelly betrayed by a man. Seventeen years later, they are reunited, both seeking the same successful results as their previous time together.
“When it works, it’ll be one of the all-time great redemption stories,” athletic director Wren Baker said.
Rodriguez describes his 17 years away from here as a sort-of nomadic venture, almost a tour of duty, the consequence of leaving home. Six different jobs. Six different states. The Upper Midwest. The Arizona desert. The hills of north Alabama and Mississippi, swamps of Louisiana and even a Pacific island. “I’m like Forrest Gump,” he says with a chuckle.
Rodriguez smiles and laughs through the pain.
There is a deeply rooted emotional element at play here.
A man lost his home state, most of the 1.8 million people in it, many of them hard-working, blue-collar country folk whose pedigree is much like his own — a father and grandfather whose coal-mining careers led to lung complications and death later in life; a shrinking hometown forever changed from mine closures.
He didn’t visit this state often during his time away, perhaps too busy, perhaps too difficult emotionally.
“I think it truly did hurt him,” said Tony Caridi, the longtime play-by-play voice of the Mountaineers. “I think it was one of the reasons why he wanted to come back. ‘Let me go back there and fix this thing.’”
Similar to that destroyed sign in his hometown, many references to Rodriguez on campus disappeared. The head coach of the most successful stretch in school history — 32 wins and three top-10 finishes from 2005-07 — grew more difficult to find.
That includes within the new football facility, says Rhett Rodriguez, Rich’s son and his quarterbacks coach.
“This is the only mention of him in the entire building,” Rhett said while gesturing to some wall art with a caption that includes the coach’s name. “It’s almost like he was blackballed in the state.”
Rich noticed it this spring while walking recruits through the program’s hall of trophies. A timeline of key WVU football moments somewhat breezed over his tenure.
Says Rich: “The recruits were like, ‘So, Coach, what again did you used to do here?’”
Back like he never left? Not exactly
It’s Taco Tuesday in the West Virginia football facility and Rich Rodriguez is loading up: four taquitos with chocolate sauce and a pair of overstuffed beef and chicken flour tortillas.
A man’s got to eat, after all, especially in the midst of preseason camp.
Things are going about as well as expected through the first 10 days, Rodriguez says, if by well you mean that he’s learning everyone’s names.
West Virginia has 74 new players, a whopping 50 from the transfer portal — the second-most in the FBS. The team returns two starters — two! — from last year.
Often asked how he feels about the team, Rodriguez tells what he believes is the honest truth: I have no idea.
“He’s building a company with nobody he knows,” said Dave Alvarez, a longtime West Virginia booster who is from the state and is close to Rodriguez. “I think he can do it. Nobody works harder. A wheel barrel won’t move unless you push it, but if you do, it’ll haul a hell of a load. He knows how to push them.
“Can we win this year? S***, I don’t know. I believe it won’t be for a lack of hard work.”
Rodriguez is 62 years old now, but he’s still that fiery, demanding man who won 60 games in seven seasons here, the coach who claimed four conference titles and had the Mountaineers on the brink of playing for it all (he's still the nation’s leader in all-time wins without a national championship).
This time around, everyone is just a bit older; college athletics is a bit altered; and, oh yeah, there are two new traffic circles in Morgantown since Rodriguez last left, he says.
For all the changes, so much around him is the same, like his secretary, Lori, equipment manager Danny and sports information director Monty. Six coaches on his staff either played or coached for him in his first stint here and two of his staff members are his children: son Rhett and daughter Raquel, who presides over the team’s brand strategy and social media.
Rich Rodriguez isn’t so different from that guy in the early 2000s. He wants to win dirty and gritty. He preaches toughness and effort. He hates losing so much that he beats a punching bag in his coach’s locker before addressing the team after losses.
He still eats his steaks well-done with ketchup; enjoys soft-serve ice cream so much that he commissioned for a machine to be added to the football dining hall; and religiously each morning uncorks a two-hour workout featuring activities from a more bygone era ... the stairmaster, pushups, sit-ups and that punching bag.
He refuses to put up with crap, he says, from a generation that he believes is “soft” and entitled. He has banned TikTok. He won’t be “held hostage” by a teen or 20-year-old requesting more money (plenty who asked for raises left this spring). And he’s hell-bent on teaching the entitled youths what it means to have a “hard edge” and “earned success” — two longtime team mottos he employs today.
“People say it’s old school. People say they’re getting paid now so you can’t coach them. ‘F*** this coaching!’” Rodriguez says. “No, you can coach them harder because they are getting paid.”
In fact, his approach to athlete revenue sharing is one of the most interesting. He’s withheld a large pool of money for players who, eventually, earn a spot in the two-deep and starting rotation. He calls this “salary restructuring.”
“We had guys that weren’t starters — maybe projected to be starters — but they wanted starter money,” the coach said. “I can’t give them starter money. I haven’t seen them practice or play yet.”
Whether such a philosophy leads to success will be learned over time, Baker says, but “in this era, there’s something refreshing about it.”
After a taco dinner on this hot camp day, the coaching staff and players gather in the main team meeting room. It’s loud in here, loud enough for the laughs, the music and the jawing to be heard from down the hallway as Rodriguez approaches the room.
He stops just before the entrance, purposely in eyesight of the players.
A hush hits the room. The music stops. No more talking. No more jawing.
The old coach takes the stage to assess today’s practice.
“There is not one time when you are being lazy or soft that it won’t be pointed out,” he tells the room.
“When you loaf,” Rodriguez asks the room, “what does that mean?”
Players, in unison, respond: “You are a traitor!”
A traitor? It’s the same description that so many in this state used toward the coach years ago.
Return of a legend
Rich Rodriguez answered the phone to hear a familiar voice on the other end.
“Hey, Coach,” he said to Nick Saban.
Saban, the now-retired Alabama head coach, is a West Virginia native himself. He still has deep connections to the state and often roots for its flagship university. On behalf of the school, Saban phoned Rodriguez a few days before his Jacksonville State team played in the Conference USA championship game last December.
The goal of the call: Find out if Rodriguez would be interested in returning to West Virginia.
Days later, Baker and members of his search committee visited Rodriguez’s home, dined on a buffet of goodies, including wife Rita’s famous nacho dip, and were convinced that a reunion could work.
But this wasn’t a one-man-focused exhibition.
Baker interviewed 17 candidates and spoke to four finalists in person. Some figures chose to remain at their current place of employment, such as Penn State offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki and Tulane head coach Jon Sumrall.
Though Baker declined to comment on specific names, many believe that Rodriguez and Army head coach Jeff Monken were the last two men standing.
“I wasn’t inclined to hire Rich for nostalgia purposes,” Baker said in an interview with Yahoo Sports this week. “We weren’t doing this to get the band back together.”
Rodriguez’s honesty and approach to his messy exit 17 years ago was a critical determining factor in the hire. During the interview process — a Zoom call and the in-person meeting — Baker asked Rodriguez three different times about his final days at West Virginia.
In the in-person visit, Rodriguez delivered a lengthy, emotional answer.
“I thought he did a really good job of articulating what he’d done differently and the regrets he had,” Baker said. “I was envisioning the press conference as he was answering. ‘If you can answer that question at the podium, with the emotion and the authenticity that you just did, you will win a good portion of people back.’
“And that’s what he did.”
So what happened all of those years ago?
“Rich didn’t get what he was promised,” said Dusty Rutledge, Rodriguez’s chief of staff, a longtime confidant and a man with firsthand knowledge of the coach’s decision to leave his alma mater.
Years ago, Rodriguez opened up about the decision, alleging to have three times caught university administrators misappropriating donations meant for football. Late on the night of Dec. 15, a day after interviewing for the job in Ann Arbor and a day before accepting it, the coach held a heated conversation with then-West Virginia president Mike Garrison at the president’s mansion.
Rutledge drove the coach to that meeting. Garrison greeted the men at the door in house slippers, pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, “Well,” the president said, “I guess we have to meet.”
The coach was searching for reasons to stay. He got none.
“Rich brought up things that were supposed to happen that hadn’t happened,” Rutledge recalled. “The tone of the other side was, ‘We’ve done enough.’”
Garrison lasted just 14 months as WVU’s president. His office was consumed with controversies of favoritism, and in the spring of 2008, the faculty voted to call for his resignation, which he gave that June.
At the center of Rodriguez’s exit was the infamous 13-9 loss to rival Pitt in Morgantown to end the 2007 season — a stunning defeat at the hands of a 5-7 Panthers team who entered 28-point underdogs. Many in West Virginia conflate these two events — Rodriguez’s exit to Michigan and a loss that cost the Mountaineers a chance to play in the BCS national championship game. Some even take it a step further, accusing the coach of purposely losing that game to secure the Michigan job.
Rodriguez describes that game as the biggest nightmare of his professional career, one that led to him vomiting in the locker room afterward. He’s offended that anyone would believe that his departure two weeks later was connected to his team’s performance that night.
“It pisses me off,” he said in a previous interview. “That is total bulls***. Bulls***.”
Take me home, country roads
Before the coal mine closed in 1984, Grant Town’s economy boomed.
The city reached more than 1,200 residents, featured at least four grocery stores and more than a dozen brothels, bars and saloons, says Rosic, in his fourth year as mayor. There was a movie theater and bowling alley, too.
Forty years later, there isn’t a single commercial business in the town. Its population has dropped to under 600.
Several dozen towns in West Virginia have experienced similar declines. The state as a whole lost 3% of its population since 2010 (60,000 residents), the most by far of any of the 50 states. For all of its beauty — the tree-lined mountains, blue-running rivers and stunning sunsets — West Virginia is slipping away, a product of coal mine closures.
Grant Town is a microcosm of a larger problem.
“Once the grade school and mine shut down in the '80s, there wasn’t much opportunity left,” said Dave Mazure, a clerk with the Grant Town Water Department.
While some townsfolk want a larger sign to honor the new West Virginia head coach, there isn’t enough money in the coffers. The town’s annual budget is $236,000, Rosic said. The city can’t afford street paving and the mayor is unsure if the town will keep its municipal designation in the near future.
“We can’t spend $3,000 on a sign,” Rosic said. “Everybody knows where he’s from. He got an $18 million contract, right? He can buy a bigger sign.”
One of those 550 remaining residents in Grant Town is Arlene Rodriguez, Rich’s 85-year-old mother. Rich hasn’t visited this place since he returned as coach — he’s been busy building the foundation of his new program. So, Arlene made the 40-minute drive to see her son earlier this spring.
In Morgantown, she witnessed a sort-of comeback story that only the best fiction authors could write. The community is ecstatic. More than 33,000 season tickets have been sold — the highest since 2013 and a number that represents the third-largest city in the state.
“West Virginians are forgiving, particularly to one of their own,” said Michael Benson, who took over this summer as the university’s new president, “but he’s got to win.”
For some, there is an uneasy feeling: Can this really work?
After games against Robert Morris and at Ohio, Sept. 13 serves as a litmus test. West Virginia meets Pitt in Morgantown.
“I think there are still a lot of people with one leg on the other side of the fence about the hire,” Caridi, the radio broadcaster, said. “A lot of people are focusing on that third game. If they get it done, they’ll bring that leg over to the other side.”
A single game is one thing. But can a 62-year-old lead West Virginia back to where he did nearly two decades ago — atop the college football world? The athlete revenue-sharing era of college sports puts an emphasis on money more than ever.
In most recent reporting figures from USA Today, WVU’s athletic budget ($105 million) ranks sixth in the Big 12 and 45th among the 70-some odd power conference schools. According to Forbes’ latest research, the state of West Virginia has no billionaires. For comparison, one of its border states, Ohio, has three people worth a combined $20 billion.
In a college sports world increasingly dominated by revenue-generating giants in the SEC and Big Ten, can West Virginia win?
“The short answer is yes, but it’s probably more difficult,” said Oliver Luck, the former West Virginia athletic director and an alum of the school.
Baker says the school will compensate its athletes to the max in Year 1 of revenue share: $20.5 million, an amount reduced by $2.5 million in new scholarships. Roughly two-thirds of the $18 million is expected to come from funding outside of the athletic department, such as the university itself and foundation, some of that derived from a new student athletic fee.
Rodriguez is raising cash himself. He’s restarted a booster club that began during his first stint here. The “1,100 Club” has already hosted a few meetings. The name derives from the group’s original goal in the early 2000s of fundraising for WVU coaches to use King Air private jets for recruiting purposes.
Back then, a King Air cost $1,100 an hour to rent. While inflation has changed that figure, the club’s name remains the same. The 1,100 Club is back in action with more than 200 members so far.
There is money here, perhaps not the money that there is in Columbus, Ohio or Austin, Texas. But money, nonetheless.
“Are we Ohio State or Texas A&M? No,” said Alvarez, the booster and longtime friend of Rodriguez. “But it’s not all about money. You’ve got to establish a culture.”
Luck sees what Rodriguez is doing and grows excited about the future. It’s the toughness and grit he’s instilling, the attention to detail, the fast-paced schematics.
“When West Virginia is good, we’ve punched above our weight,” Luck said. “I think how historically we’ve done that is to be scrappy, to be tough and have an edge. We got away from that and we’re getting back to that. That gives everybody hope that we can begin to have success.”
Rodriguez knows what the fans here want. “They want to bring that magic back,” he said with a smile. “I wasn’t brought back to play the highlights of the 2005 Sugar Bowl. I was brought back to take us to another one.”
Can he really do it?
He’s already done something so few believed was possible. He’s returned home.
Mike Patrick, the former longtime college football broadcaster and West Virginia native, once joked that there were armed guards posted at the state’s border to keep Rodriguez out forever. When asked if time would heal the wounds, Patrick quipped, “We’ll all be dead by then.”
Mike Patrick passed away at the age of 80 this past April — four months after Rodriguez’s hire.
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