Canzano: The back story of JaMarcus Shephard's hiring at Oregon State
Beavers' coach will be introduced on Tuesday.
JaMarcus Shephard got the job.
The 42-year-old Alabama assistant will lead Oregon State’s football program into the new-world Pac-12. He agreed to a five-year contract. He and his family will be introduced formally on Tuesday in a news conference in Corvallis.
Shephard spoke with me on the phone nearly two weeks ago as he prepared for his first interview with OSU’s hiring committee. I’d heard the former Washington and Washington State assistant was a fantastic recruiter with terrific energy. Now, that ball of fire was on the other end of the phone with me.
Shephard had good questions. He was curious about the inner workings of the athletic department at Oregon State and the economic hierarchy of the new Pac-12.
At the beginning of our talk, I informed Shephard he had a big problem. He’d never been a head coach before. It was unlikely, I told him, that the Beavers would take a flyer on another first-timer after Trent Bray’s meltdown.
By the end of our talk?
I wondered how big Shephard might win if OSU had the guts to hire him.
“I want this job,” he told me, before he hung up.
Athletic Director Scott Barnes and Glenn Sugiyama, head of the search firm the school works with, conducted interviews with three finalists.
This is the backstory of how Shephard won the job.