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Friday Afternoon Courses: A Coach, Two Teams and a University
Friday Afternoon Courses: A Coach, Two Teams and a University
Friday Afternoon Courses: A Coach, Two Teams and a University
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Friday Afternoon Courses: A Coach, Two Teams and a University

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"I've spent much of my career writing about sports as well as the civil rights movement. In Mike Banzhoff's new book, Friday Afternoon Courses: A Coach, Two Teams, and a University--which, like Friday Night Lights, takes place in Odessa, Texas--injustice is found on the golf course. A skilled, well-liked, and big-hearted coach from Pennsylvania, Banzhoff becomes the pawn of University of Texas of the Permian Basin officials who, for questionable or bizarre reasons, strive to bring him down. Based on such crimes as his "chicken soup" comment, the affable Banzhoff finds himself suspended, fired, jailed, and plastered on the TV news--the scandalized golf coach at UTPB. This book is Mike's side of the story. It's riveting reading for anyone touched by this scandal--and anyone who despises injustice."
--David Aretha, award-winning author and editor of such books as Arnold Palmer: A Tribute to an American Icon and Martin Luther King Jr. and the 1963 March on Washington
LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 21, 2017
ISBN9781619846630
Friday Afternoon Courses: A Coach, Two Teams and a University

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    Friday Afternoon Courses - Michael Banzhoff

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    Prologue

    Sitting on Jupiter Beach in Florida, I knew my Professional Touring career was over. I just blew three straight tournaments, each being more painful than the one before. Less than two hours earlier, I was one shot back of the lead in a tournament when I hit the worst shot of my professional career. I pulled a 7-iron left of the green, never found the ball, and wound up making a triple-bogey 6. Immediately, I fell out of contention. I was also done mentally. It was another blown tournament. As I stared out into the ocean, I knew that was my last tournament. I wouldn’t compete again. It was time to stop chasing the dream of making the PGA Tour.

    I grew up in McConnellsburg, a small rural town in south-central Pennsylvania. The youngest of four children, I immediately loved playing sports. I started playing golf when I was ten because there wasn’t much else to do in the summer. I fell in love with the sport from the beginning. I even built a golf course around the farm I grew up on. In my first-ever golf tournament, at age eleven, I finished second. The next year I won almost every junior tournament I entered. Golf had become my passion. I would go on and win at every level: junior golf, high school, college, amateur, and professional.

    On the beach that day in Jupiter, I pondered many things. What would I do now? What direction should I go? How am I going to make a living? All I had known was pursuing my dream of playing on the PGA Tour, and that came to a close. Now what?

    For the last couple of fall seasons, I got involved in something I really enjoyed, helping a local high school golf team. The coach initially approached me while I was giving lessons at a driving range. He asked if I would work with his players. He was a baseball coach so he didn’t know that much about golf. I accepted the offer.

    Little did I know the team was 0-90 in the history of the program. That is, they had never beaten anybody. Within two weeks of me working with them, they beat their first team. It was historic, their first win! A local TV station even came and did an interview. Although I declined, they wanted me to go on camera. They knew I was the reason they got that first win.

    They ended up getting more wins that season, and it made me very proud to be a part of it. I really enjoyed it. The next season, they almost went .500, recording a 19-21 record. It was a truly remarkable turnaround. I had no idea I would like coaching as much as I did, but it was very rewarding, especially with all of the success.

    Right before my third season working with them, the Penn State Mont Alto golf coach asked if I would work with his players. Since I really enjoyed working with high school guys, I thought I might like it even better to coach college players, so I accepted. Once I started working with them, we started winning everything. It was at Penn State Mont Alto where I decided I wanted to pursue coaching to the highest level. It was so much fun, and the success was just a bonus. Said the school’s head golf coach, Bill Burke, As a golfer and coach, I’m thankful to have known Michael as a person and golfer all these years. Michael was put on earth to coach golf and I am sure he will continue to play out his dream.

    After two seasons working for Penn State Mont Alto, I was offered the job at Penn State Harrisburg. What I liked about Penn State Harrisburg was they were in the NCAA, a Division III program. I had a good bit of success there as I coached a number of individual tournament winners and we won a few team events. When I got there, we were ranked around 200th in the country. When I left, we were ranked in the top 100—quite a jump.

    Next, I would get my dream job. Or at least I thought it was. The University of Texas of the Permian Basin hired me to start up a men’s and women’s golf program. I was thrilled at the opportunity. Once I got to Texas I hit the ground running and began to form relationships with coaches and players. I built the two teams from nothing in eight months, and we embarked on a historic season.

    Then it all started to unravel. Out of the blue I was in a meeting with Human Resources and was put on administrative leave. Before I knew it, I was fired. A month later I was arrested and put in jail. I went from being on top of the world to the lowest I’ve ever been and I still didn’t know what had happened. I didn’t think I did anything wrong, at least not to have been fired and later arrested.

    When I was arrested, the media found out and my mugshot was plastered all over TV. I was in jail at the time so I didn’t know. I had no idea I had been made into some kind of threat or some kind of monster. It was devastating. For the previous seven years in coaching, my record was impeccable. Beyond that, there wasn’t one disgruntled kid in my background. Now, my name, reputation, character, and everything I had built was being destroyed. I wrote this book to tell my story. No one at the university would allow me to speak. This book will now be my voice.

    One Week

    Where am I at? What am I getting myself into? These were the kind of thoughts I was having as I was being driven around by Dennis Peterson, the men’s soccer coach at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin (UTPB). Dennis picked me up at the Midland International Airport and I quickly noticed the brown flat landscape surrounding the area.

    My flight had been delayed, so I was getting in a couple of hours later than expected. I found out they had an itinerary for me, from the time I arrived until the time I left the next day. I had already missed a few things on the list so Dennis decided to drive me around before dropping me off at the MCM Eleganté, my hotel for the night. He drove me through a part of campus and showed me his soccer fields, which happened to be adjacent to the driving range. I took notice of the range. Even though it was flat and the Bermuda grass was dormant, it looked decent enough for practice.

    After the brief tour, he dropped me at the hotel and said that Steve Aicinena, the athletic director, would be by later to take me to dinner. That would be the last item on the itinerary for the day. I had about an hour so I practiced what I would say to certain questions he might ask. I felt like I was prepared because I had done a fair amount of studying about him, the university, and the town. The only thing I knew about the town, prior to any of this, was from Friday Night Lights, a movie I had seen about five times.

    I decided to wear dress pants and a long-sleeve collared shirt. I didn’t think a tie was appropriate for a dinner meeting. I went down to the lobby a bit early, but that was always my nature. Most of my life had been based around a tee time, so being on time was a priority for me and one of my pet peeves. I was a little nervous because I believed this was a great opportunity. Steve came in and I immediately recognized him from the pictures I’d seen online. He was wearing blue jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, which I came to know was his regular attire. We went outside and he introduced me to his wife. She was joining us for dinner.

    We went to Casa Ole, a Mexican restaurant, and I noticed they still allowed smoking. That was something I wasn’t accustomed to anymore, but we sat in a section where you could barely tell. Again, I was prepared for all kinds of questions. Strange thing was, his wife asked most of them. Steve, for the most part, just sat there and ate his meal. I found that to be really odd because I thought Steve was doing the hiring. If you’re hiring the first-ever golf coach in the history of the university, wouldn’t you want to know about him, his coaching style, and what he’s like? He hardly asked any of that. It was strange to say the least.

    The next morning, I had a breakfast meeting at the Eleganté with Steve Buck, the men’s and women’s tennis coach. I didn’t know much about Steve prior to our meeting so I didn’t know what to expect. I knew he had started the tennis program a few years back. Since the golf program was starting from scratch, I guess the AD thought Steve would be a good person to talk to.

    When Steve arrived, I noticed he was tall and looked to be in his sixties. He didn’t appear to play tennis anymore, but you don’t need to play it to coach it. He came across as very friendly and personable. Right away he was very open and honest about things at the university. He flat out told me I would struggle and gave examples from the early days of the tennis program. The main reason behind it was Steve Aicinena’s tiered structure throughout the athletic program. He explained that golf, like tennis, would be in the third tier. That meant I would have a very small budget with little scholarship money to give out. It’s tough to compete when your competitors have larger budgets and more scholarships. That was a little disheartening to hear because I was excited. For the first time in my coaching career, I would finally be able to give out scholarships. Now, I was hearing there would be very little scholarship money available. I didn’t understand it. How could the athletic director have a tiered system and discriminate against other teams? How could he give one team almost everything, and almost nothing to another team. It didn’t seem ethical. Wouldn’t that create jealousy within the programs? I left the meeting feeling a little uneasy, but I appreciated him being honest about the way things were in the Athletic Department.

    Next, it was off to the university, where I was scheduled for more meetings. I met with President Watts. He was an elderly man who closed his eyes when he spoke. I thought that was a bit strange. He knew very little about golf. He spoke about Austin and how much money the University of Texas had. Even though UTPB was in the University of Texas system, we couldn’t get any of that money. He seemed to paint a dire picture. To him, everything depended on the oil industry. He brought up fracking because he knew I was from Pennsylvania. He told me the fracking they did here was different. It was an interesting conversation but I thought it was neat to get to talk with the president of the university.

    I then had a Skype conversation with Erin Bohn, the compliance officer. Skyping was a first for me. She had already gone home for the holidays, so this was the next best thing to a face-to-face meeting. She asked some good questions and challenged me a bit on things. I knew I wasn’t quite up to date on the NCAA Division II rules. Since I was coming from a Division III program, I knew I had to get more acquainted with the new rules. All in all, I thought our conversation went very well. If I got the job, it seemed like she would be really helpful to me during the transition.

    After that, I was put in a room where other coaches and staff were invited to come and ask questions. I thought there would be about three or four people but I think the entire staff showed up. Steve Aicinena, the AD, said we could talk about him, then left the room. When I asked about the AD, a few of them said he would leave you alone unless he was bringing bad news. They said he loved to bring you bad news. I thought that was an odd answer. Why would the AD love to bring you bad news? In my experience, the athletic director is the biggest supporter. After all, they are the head of the programs. I would think the AD would want the coach to succeed as much as the coach. Anyway, it seemed a number of the coaches were more interested in what I could get them, like golf balls, clubs, etc. All in all, it appeared to be a good group and I felt like I would be supported, if I got the job.

    My last meeting of the day was lunch with Steve Aicinena. He took me to Rosa’s, another Mexican restaurant, very close to campus. Again, he asked very few questions. I really didn’t understand it because I figured he would be the one hiring me. Other than that, it seemed the lunch meeting went all right. He then drove me to the airport. Before we said good-bye, I asked him if he could let me know as soon as possible if I got the job. I wanted to be able to tell my current players before they left for Christmas break.

    Backing up a bit, the first time I heard from Steve was Thursday, December 10. He called and left a message introducing himself. He said I was one of the final four candidates for the position of head golf coach at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. I waited a couple of hours to return the call because that was when he said he would be available again. I had forgotten I had even applied to UTPB. It had been about four weeks since I applied and I hadn’t heard a single word. When I called back, Steve told me they would like to do a conference call with me the next day at 3 p.m. my time. I went from no contact to all of a sudden I was a serious candidate to start a Division II program in Texas. How cool!

    On Friday, December 11, I called in at 2:58, prompt as always. On the conference call was the athletic director, marketing director, compliance officer, a coach, and a faculty rep. I don’t think any of them played golf. I thought my concepts and ideas went over their heads. I answered the questions they asked fairly well as they all seemed to be pleased with my responses. After the interview, the AD informed me they would be narrowing it down to two candidates and would bring them on campus the next week.

    Less than an hour later, Steve called back and said I was one of the two finalists. He mentioned his secretary would be sending me my flight itinerary the next day. When I got the info, I found out that I would fly to Texas on Tuesday. What a whirlwind! I went from not hearing a thing to one of the two finalists in less than twenty-four hours. I was going to Texas—unbelievable!

    I had already mentioned the conference call to my parents. They were excited that I may be getting a great opportunity. Then, I gave them the news I was flying to Texas on Tuesday as I was one of the two candidates to get the job. They thought it was fantastic.

    I told a few other people as well. One of them

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