No hesitation: Ash wants to be in Bozeman

By JEFF WELSCH Chronicle Sports Writer

After each of the four last suppers, athletic director Peter Fields had three questions for the finalists vying to be Montana State's 31st head football coach.

To Fields, and anybody else who makes frequent hires, the key question was the last one.

Once Rob Ash, Larry Kerr, Dale Lennon and Mike Van Diest proffered opinions on the search process and gave suggestions for improvement, each was asked if he was prepared to take the job at that moment.

"It takes some of them longer to get back to me," was all Fields could, or would, say of the process.

In other words, of the three favorites, only one responded with an adamant affirmative.

Rob Ash.

"You're getting a coach who really wants to be here," Ash, Drake University's 18-year head coach, told an approving crowd Monday when introduced as MSU's successor to the deposed Mike Kramer.

Carroll College's Van Diest and North Dakota's Lennon weren't as unfettered. Van Diest openly aired his uneasiness about leaving his players and legacy in Helena; Lennon provided a more certain public face while his heart kept tugging him back to an empire he's built in Grand Forks.

Ash, 55, was equally entrenched in Des Moines, where he won 125 games guiding a non-scholarship Division I-AA program, but never did he waver.

All three head coaches are proven winners. All are adored by their fan base, respected by their players and supported by their administrations. All run their programs with discipline and high character expectations for players and staff - a key issue for a football program riddled with off-field issues.

In a search where MSU officials were stunned at the caliber of candidate, and in a three-horse race where the thinnest of hairs split the difference, Ash's yearning for Bozeman was the deal-maker.

"He raised the bar from the very start," said Bozeman's Tom White, a member of the search committee. "He set the standard that the committee had to reach for with all the candidates."

So much so that the search committee held its breath when Ash was called and told he was among the finalists. Was he still interested?

Yes.

"As soon as he answered the phone, the whole room had a sigh of relief, because we knew we had a great person and a great candidate," Fields said.

Ash's big-picture approach to coaching is readily apparent, and it factored into his certainty about MSU.

When he saw the job opening, he Googled the area, the university and the program to get a thorough grasp on a possible life change. He considered his place at Drake and he noted that his two children are out of the nest.

"It's the right opportunity at the right time," he said. "It's the right opportunity because I could see the combination of a commitment to academics and a strong football program, the upper level of Division I-AA. It's the right opportunity for my family; my children are gone, so it's just my wife (Margaret) and me home alone with the dog. We've had a great run there, some great seasons, so it's the best time to take on a new challenge.

"It's time."

As for speculation about Van Diest and Lennon, and all the possible reasons why they withdrew, it's now moot.

MSU officials were confident the program would head in the right direction under any of the candidates, but only one was absolutely, positively certain about wanting to be here to take the Bobcats to College Station, Texas, on the first Saturday in September.

"Was I happy with the process? Yes I was," Fields said. "Rob Ash is our person, and that's who we wanted to select. I'm pleased with the way the process worked out."

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