Nebraska found out quickly that their new athletic director, Steve Pederson is an aggressive AD. His first big move, firing Frank Solich, stirred things up. He could have taken the easy way out, and let Solich have one more year before unloading him, but he fired him now and willingly takes the heat.
Losing Pederson was something Pitt fans didn’t want, because he dragged Pitt’s athletic department kicking and screaming into the present. Notwithstanding the change of the color scheme, he did a lot of good for Pitt, that wasn’t appreciated when he first did it. Mainly the razing of Pitt Stadium to build the Petersen (no relation) Event Center; and moving Pitt football off-campus to Heinz Field.
A really good article from the Lincoln Journal Star recounts some of the Pitt days.
Call anyone in the Pittsburgh athletic department and there’s a good chance you’ll hear the same greeting.
“Hello, Pittsburgh Panthers.”
Like the Petersen Events Center and the football practice facility across the Monongahela River, the friendly welcome is a Pederson production. No detail slipped his attention.
“He’s not a control freak, he’s a visionary,” said swimming coach Chuck Knoles, in his 14th season at Pittsburgh. “He moves very quickly. He’s very decisive, and either you believe in him or you don’t. We were fortunate here at Pittsburgh that everybody believed in him.
“Look, he tore down Pitt Stadium and let go one of the most successful football coaches in college football history in Johnny Majors. Hands were up in the air, eyes were wide open, chins dropped a few inches, but he did the right thing. Pittsburgh is a much better place than it was before he came here.”
While it’s hard to find a ready critic of Pederson’s results, the method he used to revive the Panthers’ athletic department rubbed many the wrong way.
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Even so, alumni sent Pederson hate mail when he announced plans to tear down the on-campus football stadium. He also alienated big-time athletic boosters and donors by not consulting them on plans for the new arena.“He doesn’t tell anything to the boosters because boosters like to go to the newspapers and act like big shots,” Beano Cook said. “No, he’s like a priest in confession. He keeps everything to himself. That’s the way he is.”
When a difficult decision needs to be made, Pederson usually forms a committee of one (see NU’s current search for a new head coach).
That did not sit well with small pockets of Pittsburgh boosters, who in the beginning resisted his sweeping changes.
The article also has a “no comment” quote from former failed Pitt basketball coach, Ralph Willard. Willard was fired right after Pederson came aboard.
