SLU Football New Coach

Southeastern Louisiana University

Football Players Association

Hammond, LA


Hal Mumme is introduced as Southeastern Louisiana University football coach as his wife June looks on at June 28, 2002 news conference. Mumme's task will be to revive the Lions program which last fielded a team in 1985. (news stories below)

June 28, 2002
SOUTHEASTERN LOUISIANA HIRES MUMME AS HEAD FOOTBALL COACH

HAMMOND -- Southeastern Louisiana University officials announced today that Hal Mumme has been named head football coach. The hiring was approved earlier in the day by the Board of Supervisors for the University of Louisiana system.

Mumme, who was most recently head coach at the University of Kentucky, becomes the Lions' first football coach since the program was discontinued due to budget cuts following the 1985 season. The school, whose 15 current sports compete in the Southland Conference, will resume play as a I-AA Independent in 2003 before joining the SLC in 2005.

"After an exhaustive search and review of numerous applicants, I am pleased to announce Hal Mumme as our selection for head coach," Southeastern President Randy Moffett said. "The search was extremely difficult due to the extraordinary number of outstanding candidates. The process thorough to be sure we had the right fit for the university.

"I feel confident that we have identified a coach who has the ability to guide our program through its infancy and bring an exciting and winning brand of Lions football to Hammond and the north shore community," he added.

"I'm excited about becoming a part of the Southeastern family," said Mumme. "It's a great opportunity for us and I look forward to the challenge of rebuilding the great tradition of Lions football. I'm certain with support from the community, faculty, administration, staff and students, we will be successful."

Mumme, who coached Southeastern Conference member-Kentucky from 1997-2000, led the Wildcats to a 20-26 overall record in four seasons. Previously, he guided Valdosta (Ga.) State University to five consecutive winning seasons and compiled a record of 40-17-1.

In his four years at Kentucky, the 50-year-old native of San Antonio, Texas, led the Wildcats to back-to-back bowl games in 1998 and '99 -- a feat accomplished only twice previously in the 109-year history of the program. Before Mumme, only a pair of College Football Hall of Fame coaches, Paul "Bear" Bryant in 1949-50-51, and Jerry Claiborne in 1983-84, had guided UK to consecutive postseason appearances.

He coached quarterback Tim Couch, the NFL's No. 1 draft pick by the Cleveland Browns in 1999, and in 1998 led the Wildcats to a 39-36 victory at LSU for its first road win over a ranked opponent in 21 years.

Mumme, who has collected eight collegiate coaching honors during his career, was twice named the GTE Region II Coach of the Year by the American Football Coaches Association and was named the 1999 South/Southwest Coach of the Year by Football News.

After the 2000 season, Mumme resigned his position at Kentucky following the discovery of NCAA violations involving recruiting. In its investigation, the NCAA found that Mumme had failed to monitor the activity of the football recruiting coordinator. The NCAA Committee on Infractions did not impose any sanctions against Coach Mumme personally, and he has no restrictions by the NCAA which prevent him from coaching immediately.

"I think I deserve a second chance and I want it to be at Southeastern," said Mumme. "I want to prove to everybody that I do have integrity, I have never cheated, and I have always drawn the line right there. I took responsibility by resigning, but that's all I did. I did not have any knowledge (regarding the infractions) and I proved that when I went before the Committee on Infractions. And I promise you that had I not proved that, they would have penalized me."

"We investigated extensively the circumstances surrounding Coach Mumme's tenure at the University of Kentucky, and the NCAA's investigation of University of Kentucky's recruiting violations," explained Moffett. "We are satisfied that Coach Mumme was not directly involved in these violations, as was found in the NCAA investigation. After an exhaustive investigation, the NCAA found that Coach Mumme failed to properly monitor his staff. No punishment or sanctions of Coach Mumme were levied by the NCAA, and he has been free to return to coaching at the college level."

Southeastern Director of Athletics Frank Pergolizzi echoed Moffett's statement.

"This is a position for which we had to make absolutely certain that we chose the best possible candidate and I believe we have," said Pergolizzi. "We were diligent in our research before beginning the campaign to restart football and those efforts were successful. That same effort, if not more, went into the search for this position. We are very fortunate to hire a coach with Hal Mumme's credentials and are looking forward to an exciting and successful start to Southeastern football."

Prior to elevating the Kentucky football program to its most competitive level in 20-years, Mumme did much the same for Division II Valdosta State University where he was head coach from 1992-96. Mumme guided Valdosta to the school's only NCAA Division II playoff appearances in 1994 and 1996 and advanced to the quarterfinals each time.

The five consecutive winning seasons is the longest streak in school history and the Blazers regularly earned top-20 national rankings in his tenure including a No. 1 ranking at one point during the 1996 campaign. The Blazers consistently ranked second or higher in the Gulf South Conference standings including the school's first conference championship in 1996.

Mumme entered the collegiate head coaching ranks at Iowa Wesleyan where he coached from 1989-91. He led the squad to a combined 25-10 record and advanced to postseason appearances in each of his three seasons.

Mumme also served as assistant coach at West Texas State from 1980-81 and was the offensive coordinator at Texas-El Paso from 1982-85.

Mumme is married to the former June Leishman and has three children.
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June 27, 2002
Mumme ready for 2nd chance

By John Lenz
The Daily Star

Hal Mumme said he's finally found a job that "makes my heart beat fast" - and it's the opening at Southeastern.

Mumme's candidacy has made other peoples' hearts beat fast as well. His candidacy and his previous coaching history have sparked as many backers as detractors, fueled a debate among fans and media. And his reticence when he came to Hammond to interview for the job two weeks ago only increased intrigue.

On Wednesday, Mumme broke his silence, granting an interview in which he addressed many of the questions and concerns that area fans have about his candidacy for the SLU job.

Mumme, 49, built his coaching resume around stints at Division II Valdosta (Ga.) State University and the University of Kentucky, which hired him after he went 40-17 in five seasons at VSU. He led Valdosta to two Division II playoff berths, losing in quarterfinals both years, won the school's first conference championship, and produced one Harlan Hill Trophy winner - the Division II equivalent of the Heisman - and a Harlan Hill runnerup.

At Kentucky, Mumme coached four seasons and produced the Wildcats' first winning team in 10 seasons. His pass-happy attack produced Cleveland Browns quarterback Tim Couch and a 20-26 record in four years.

But under his watch, the Wildcats were also hammered by the NCAA for numerous recruiting violations. Mumme's name was linked to only two of the allegations, but he resigned under fire and has been out of coaching for the past year and a half - until surfacing at SLU.

Mumme said he's intrigued by the area - his wife is an LSU grad and his brother-in-law lives in Mandeville - and by SLU's potential. "You look at what Erk Russell did at Georgia Southern, SLU's got a lot more in place going in than he had there," Mumme said. "It just sounds like a real exciting thing to be involved in and I'd like to be the head football coach.

DAILY STAR: How is this different from the other jobs you've had? I guess the Valdosta State situation probably comes closest to this situation.

MUMME: Valdosta State, nuts and bolts-wise, is probably closest to what I'd be doing at SLU. They'd been winning, but they had never been to the playoffs and had never had a championship, and the program was 10 years old. So in some ways it was the opposite of SLU.

There was a group of young former players out there that you could talk to and try and rally up to help in various ways, but there wasn't the group of guys that have established businesses and careers that can help, and I think that's a plus for SLU. It was always kind of a negative for us at VSU.

The No. 1 thing we had to do was to recruit local players. They didn't have a lot of local players and their attendance was mainly family and friends. There's a great talent base at SLU, a bigger talent base than we had at VSU. It's a bigger population area and the high school football speaks for itself.

DAILY STAR: That's one of the concerns that people have about your candidacy, is how heavily you'll recruit the local players.

MUMME: Let me go back to VSU for you. When I got there, there was one player on the roster from Valdosta High, and I think that anybody in football knows about the Valdosta High program. When I left, I think we averaged 12 or 13 a year. We really focused on that local 50 to 100 miles of that campus.

Funderburke was a good example of that. He was a guy who was hidden out at a little school in the local area there that nobody really recruited. I enjoy finding those guys like that and developing them. As a coach of a school like SLU or VSU, you have the ability to kind of focus the microscope on the area a little bit better than you do when you're at a bigger place.

That's the No. 1 reason our attendance went up. Yes, we were playing exciting football and yes, we were doing some good things, but the thing we really did a good job of was, we went in there and found those guys like Lance Funderburke, brought them over, developed them and gave them a showcase. The attendance went from just nil to I think we averaged 7,500 in five years. Last year they average over 8,000, they were sixth in the nation in attendance. So yes, I'm real sold on that. I know you have to do that.

DAILY STAR: The Kentucky situation - obviously a lot of success, but not ending the way you'd exactly like it. You have never addressed that situation (in the media). How come?

MUMME: I made a statement after it was over and I made a statement when I resigned. As far as the nuts and bolts of who did what, I always felt like, and still do feel like, the proper place to address that was in front of the (NCAA) Committee on Infractions, and that's what I did, and I received no penalties.

Now I was cited for failure to monitor, but that's something you can pretty much cite anybody that's in a managerial positon who has an underling who does something.

They can say, well, there were these allegations. I've read that in the newspaper here lately... You know, allegations are not proven facts. The proper place for that to be addressed was in front of the NCAA Committee on Infractions. I received no penalties, and I don't think we need to go any further than that.

I promise you this - there's nobody out there in America that wants to dot all the i's and cross all the t's on compliance more than I do, because once you have been through the year and a half that I've been through, you have no desire to ever do that again. It is one of the most hideous things that can happen to you in this profession.

DAILY STAR: Obviously that's the question that a lot of people have - that you have that taint from the Kentucky thing and Southeastern doesn't need to start out with a guy that has a record.

MUMME: I think everybody has baggage. Any coach that's got experience, you're going to find some sort of baggage. Mine happens to be with the NCAA. But how many people have been to court in America, accused of something and found innocent? Do they want to walk around for the rest of their lives being tainted?

I agree with what you're saying; I think that's out there. But I think I deserve a second chance and I would really like it to be SLU and I will prove to everybody that I do have integrity, I have never cheated, and I have always drawn the line right there. I took responsibility for that thing by resigning, but that's all I did. I did not have any knowledge (that the infractions were occurring), I was clean, I didn't condone it, or encourage it or know about it and I proved that when I went before the Committee on Infractions. And I promise you that if I had not proved that, they would have penalized me. That's not exactly a jury of your peers.

DAILY STAR: The other reservation people have expressed is that this might be a stepping-stone job for you, that you might rehabilitate your reputation and then move on to the next big venue. Your feeling on that?

MUMME: I've always had this philosophy that coaching football was a privilege and that's all I've every really cared about. The size of the stadium and the venue have never been important to me. I've never looked at any job as a stepping stone, and I'm certainly not looking at this one (that way). This is too great a place.

The north shore is an area we enjoy being in. They've done a wonderful job of organizing the approach to bringing football back, and I can see it as a place where I could build a record. I'm more interested in winning a lot of games. If I can build a program in a place where I can win a lot of games, I'm not going to be able to find very many reasons to ever leave.

DAILY STAR: But you're going from a $800,000 job to a $75,000 job. That's a big cut in pay.

MUMME: I've never done this for money. If I was doing this for money I wouldn't have taken a $30,000 cut in pay to move from a 5A high school in Texas to an NAIA school in the middle of Iowa. We've never done this for money, and as long as we can pay the bills, I'm happy.

DAILY STAR: If you get the job, what's the first thing you've got to do?

MUMME: It's just like any of the jobs I've gotten but it's even more pronounced, because you're starting with one helmet and one football. The first thing I've got to do is build relationships and friends in the community, on the campus, certainly in the high school ranks. You've got to approach this as a two-hat job. I've got to manage the football program, which includes recruiting and setting the pace on the field, but you've also got to manage the development of the program.

They've done such a great job raising that money to get the program started. The more folks we can put in the stands, the more people we can have give to our program, the more people we can have advertise on our radio and TV, that's dollars we don't have to spend out of that money that they have and at the end of five years hopefully we've got a pretty good-sized endowment. We want to build a program at SLU that never goes away again, so I've got to go out and bridge all those gaps.

DAILY STAR: Your offensive philosophy is well-known. I've heard it described as "fast-break football". How would you characterize it?

MUMME: When we went to Kentucky that was the obvious analogy. We just always called it attack ball. We like to be on the offensive. When we have the football we like to think we can score on any play, and if we can't score we'll at least keep the ball away from you. We like to do it by throwing it; we're going to do that first. When they figure out a way to stop that, we usually have a good running back that can rush for 1,000 yards... Through the years, it's worked. A lot of people are copying it.
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SLU hires Hal Mumme as coach

By JASON RUSSELL
Advocate sportswriter

HAMMOND -- With opening kickoff more than a year away, Southeastern Louisiana University took a big step to bringing its football program back to where it once stood.

SLU hired ex-Kentucky coach Hal Mumme as its head coach Friday, as the sport returns to campus after a 17-year hiatus.

After approval by the University of Louisiana Board of Supervisors early Friday, Mumme signed a five-year contract through the end 2007 with a $75,000 base salary.

"When I came here for the interview, I knew this was something I really, really wanted to do -- to be part of this rebirth of Southeastern football," Mumme said.

Mumme has a record of 85-53-1, including a 20-26 mark at Kentucky.

Mumme, who was one of five finalists for the position, said he learned of the opening from a professor at Valdosta State, where Mumme coached from 1992-1996.

"I heard about it about six or eight months ago and was very interested," he said. "I approached them about the job."

Mumme resigned from Kentucky after the 2000 season after the NCAA discovered numerous recruiting violations within the program. The NCAA Committee on Infractions found Mumme guilty of only a secondary infraction, that of failing to monitor the activity of the football recruiting coordinator.

Mumme said the problems he had at Kentucky were blown out of proportion.

"Allegations are not facts," he said. "I think the fact that I went before the committee on infractions and presented my side and was not penalized speaks volumes."

He said he was ready to move on with his life.

"It really doesn't have any affect on me doing the job here at Southeastern," he said. "I'm just going to do my job here and when people want to know who did what, I'm just not going to address that because I've already addressed it to the people that need to hear it."

SLU Athletic Director Frank Pergolizzi was adamant that he, SLU President Randy Moffett and the football search committee are all comfortable with Mumme despite his checkered past.

"I'm confident in him," Pergolizzi said. "We've spent a lot of time with this gentleman so we've gotten to know him in a way that no one else has. I'm confident that as our fans and our alumni and the community get to know Hal Mumme, that they are going to find out what we found out -- that he is a warm, generous human being, wants to coach and is a man of great integrity."

Mumme's past ruffled a few feathers around the area over the past week, with state Sen. John Hainkel, R-New Orleans, one of the most prominent of Mumme's opponents.

"I am perhaps extraordinarily sensitive to the message that Louisiana sends out," Hainkel told the New Orleans Times Picayune earlier this week. "Deserved or not, we've had a bad reputation for political corruption and ill dealings and so forth. Simply given the time and place, I don't think we ought to take a chance (on him)."

Pergolizzi did not deny increased pressure will be put on the program to operate cleanly.

"We know there is going to be more scrutiny on him and on us," Pergolizzi said. "I think it's in all of our best interests to have as much scrutiny as we can in how we conduct ourselves.

"We have a compliance coordinator and I have a background in compliance. With all our coaches, we expect you to follow the rules and if you don't there will be consequences."

Moffett said Mumme was the best fit for the job, no matter the past problems.

"I spent more time checking into Hal Mumme than the other candidates," Moffett said. "But I think under the circumstances, I would have been remiss not to do that.

"I'm convinced that after doing that -- and I know what the NCAA ruling were and he's not prohibited from coaching anywhere -- we felt like this is the right decision, right time and right place."

Mumme will begin work Monday and he said the first thing he needs to do is compile a list of tasks he needs to get accomplished.

"I'll be here Monday ready to get going," he said.

Mumme said he will be his own offensive coordinator and plans to run the same offense he ran at Kentucky.

"We'll throw the ball as soon as we get off the bus and won't stop until the gun sounds to end the game," he said.

"Everyone is welcome to comment whenever you want, particularly on some of those fourth-down gambles that don't work out. As long as you buy a ticket, you can say whatever you want."

He also said he expects to have a coaching staff in place as soon as possible and wants to look at area coaches as possible assistants.

SLU also plans to release its 2003 10-game schedule shortly and announced it will play its home opener on a Thursday night on Aug. 30, 2003, against Arkansas-Monticello.