West Warned of Tiger Football Woes

Friday marks the last time Tommy West will take the field as head coach for the University of Memphis football team. The Tigers finish the season with a road game against Conference-USA rival Tulsa.

Although he was one of the school's most successful head football coaches, Tommy West will most be remembered for his emotional rant when he was fired three weeks ago. While it might have been the first time he'd gone public with his frustrations, we've learned West had been warning Tiger athletic officials for years they needed to fully back the program or see its decline.

We've had three weeks to ponder an emotional Tommy West's dire prediction about the future of Tiger football.

Earlier this month West roared, "At some point you gotta say, we gotta help this football program. You gotta do the things necessary to make this what we want it or do away with it."

But, as West took the field in Tulsa on Friday afternoon for his final curtain call as University of Memphis head football coach after nine seasons, a 2007 written report, obtained by FOX13 News, indicates West had been vehemently asking Athletic Director R.C. Johnson for the "proper tools" to make the program competitive in Conference-USA for years.

In his eleven page analysis, West made numerous comparisons to the multi-million dollar upgrades the five other schools in the C-USA Eastern Division had made in their football programs dating back to 2003, which dwarfed the financial investment the Tigers were putting into his program. Creating a major disadvantage, West said on the day of his firing, which would be inherited by his successor.

West then asserted, "You have to demand that you give him an equal stick to fight with within our conference. You gotta give him a level playing field to fight."

Dave Woloshin, Tiger play-by-play announcer, explains, "We are in Tulsa today. They just spent $57 million on renovating their facilities and their stadium. Earlier this year, we were at Central Florida. In the last six years they've spent over $100 million on their facilities. Houston's about to spend $64 million on new facilities. Look what they did at Southern Miss. That's $48 million worth of facilities. At the same time, the U of M really has done very, very little. It's an arms race and Memphis hasn't been keeping up."

In 2007, even on the strength of then four bowl appearances, West cited upgrades had to be made in video equipment, practice field improvements, a two decade old weight room and the need to build an indoor practice facility. Some deficiencies, now two years later, Johnson recently acknowledged were belatedly being addressed.

During a November news conference, Johnson observed, "The practice facilities. The turf field is supposed to be completed this month. The new football weight room is in Nashville waiting for approval, if it hasn't already been approved."

Yet, even with some renovations being made at the Liberty Bowl this summer, the investment in Tiger football continues to fall millions short of the competition. Earlier this week, a much calmer West was asked about what he thought was the state of the program in the wake of his nine year tenure.

West declared, "We moved it from one place to another. What we weren't able to do, unfortunately, was then move it from that place to the next place. It's what we didn't get done."

But, when you're not given a fighting chance, winning gets even harder.