Donahue was mediocre and lame according to bruin site

id Terry Donahue

https://www.bruinsnation.com/2005/12/29/9028/2408 9 By Nestor Dec 29, 2005, 6:00am PST

I have never been big fan of Terry Donahue, the former UCLA football coach, who is basically the godfather of mediocre Karl Dorrell. Donahue was a mediocre football coach at best who never got the best out of blue chip talents the UCLA football program stockpiled during the 80s. He was able to stick around Westwood for so long back in the 80s and 90s, because back then we Bruin fans did not have avenues to express the latent frustrations we were experiencing from constant chokes and let downs of the Donahue coached football program. Sure he took the Bruins to the Rose Bowl in 94, and ended with a 5 game winning streaking against those SCumbags from cross town, people still seem to forget he was responsible for the incredible letdown of hugely favored Bruin football team experience against the Badgers at our home turn back in 94. Not only that, Donahue was an insecure head coach who was never confident in his abilities. So much so he did not have the balls to promote Neuhisel from wide-receivers coach to OC, when Homer Smith left the OC position for the second time in 1994, right after the Rose Bowl. Instead of promoting Neuhisel, Donahue decided to hire Bob Toledo, a loser OC from R.C. Slocum's Texas A&M program, who was never going to be a threat to TD, unlike Neuhisel. Anyways, why I am writing about Donahue today? Well check out this Jill Painter profile on UCLA's poor man's version of Lloyd Carr (sorry Joey we feel your pain brother), who is about to get inducted into the "Hall of Fame" of a bowl game no one in the country (except for bunch of nerds in the Big-10 and Dorrell's family, friends, and some delusional UCLA fans who still think UCLA will experience glory under KD) gives a rat ass about. If you need a real picture/perspective on Donahue, check out this Ray Ratto piece on Dorrells' godfather, who after leaving UCLA in mediocre shape, became the general manager of the San Francisco 49ers, and played a premier role in the ruining of one of the gold franchises in the NFL. Ratto's piece on Donahue after he was fired based upon an ugly video tape scandal should bring anyone back to reality if he or she has any delusions about Donahue being some kind of football genius (emphasis mine and full disclosure - yes, I am a Niners fan): Of course, during the last several years we've seen that the franchise will stand for just about anything, including the hiring of Typhoid Terry Donahue. Therein lies the 49ers' truest regret. Oh, they're not happy about having crossed Mayor Gavin Newsom at a time when they're trying to get him to cozy up to the idea of a new stadium. Putting your political clout in a PR vise is no way to keep him as your political clout. Still, if you could get Tortoise-Shell Johnny to admit to his greatest sin, it was hiring Donahue in the first place. That is, unless the master plan was to deface the brand name to Eddie DeBartolo-Hires-Joe Thomas levels. Donahue helped make Bill Walsh inert in the 49er hierarchy (with York's active connivance). He spent a huge chunk of his time as general manager in Southern California, where the burdens of the work ethic would not unduly weigh upon him. He made personnel decisions that made your eyelids bleed. Mostly, he spent his time in San Francisco taking care of himself. Now, this. Donahue has denied sending the tape to The Chronicle, but his denial is no more convincing than his assurances that he could fix the team. There is no incontrovertible proof that he did it, but circumstances point with neon- intensity toward him as the prime suspect. He had means (he'd had the tape for months), motive (he was angry at York for having fired him, and was all but convinced that public relations director/nascent movie producer Kirk Reynolds helped to get him fired), and having been fired in January eight months after his contract was extended, he had five months' worth of opportunity. But even if you want to go with innocent-until-proven-treacherous, you still have the fact that because Donahue knew about the tape months earlier, he is at the very least as complicit as York. If Donahue had a problem with the tape, he could have killed it at the time, and if he didn't know about it, he should have. In other words, Donahue hurt the 49ers coming, he hurt them while he was there, and he hurt them going. When you put it that way, he was even worse than Joe Thomas.

4 Comments

Unknown member

Jul 07, 2021

From what I have read and in my opinion, "Nestor" was/is rumored to be Murshed Zaheed, a left-wing political operative. Many believed him to just spout nonsense that he himself did not take as fact for the sake of argument, practicing for his day job.

rwc1952

I agree with some of the BS you’re posting but you can’t overlook TD’s 8 straight bowl appearances winning 7 in a row and 4 of those were New Year’s Day games. You highlight 5 wins in a row over SC, big deal he beat them enough. My knock on Donahue is he should have won a NC with a couple of those teams considering the talent he recruited. Guys like Easley, Jerry Robinson and just a freak of a running back like Freeman McNeil to name a few. Donahue underperformed overall over his 20 years.

tempomacdougall

Replying to

Its not my bullshit, My bullshit is other stuff (just ask). I just dont think he is HOF material. UCLA had the aura of the 1960/1970s California boom lingering that helped it recruit and carry a reputation of strength. Now it has lost most of its lustre. Donahue without that advantage would have been a no-one at SDSU or similar. He would have been another dweeb in a sweater

BigBallss

when Terry left UCLA I thought that UCLA had seen it’s best days. Prophetic words. I was lambasted at the time, the passage of time has vindicated me.Donahue won more games than anyone at UCLA, 151 games, Sanders won 66 and holds 2nd. But a national championship? That’s the st@ndard you want to hold him to? At UCLA? The 1982 team was 10-1 and finished #5. That was it. The best finish. 5 top 10 finishes in 20 years For Terry. The peak of UCLA football. Toledo finished in the top 10 his first 2 years. Flopped after that, and no one has done it since. No top 10 finishes since Toledo ( with donahues players). Was Donahue the last ucla coach to win a rose bowl? just like I said when Pete left SC and one or two idiots on the board said it was a good thing ”checkers” left. There are shit for brains at both schools, unfortunately.