The Rhoades Not Taken: The Title That Almost Wasn’t

In January of 1986, the world of Troy, Alabama was thrown into crisis. For the second time of the 1980s, Troy Athletic Director Robert Stewart was going to have to hire a new head football coach.

Rick Rhoades resigned his position as head man of the Trojans on January 6, 1986 and kicked off a whirlwind 24 hours for the then-Division II program.

Rick Rhoades was a Colorado-born transplant in the Yellowhammer state, but much of his coaching experience was here. Rhoades knew Alabama well and had coached at many high schools in the area.

He had even had college coaching experience, with a stint at Troy in the 1970s, plus one at UNA, before Chan Gailey called him back in 1983.

While much of his past was spent coaching offense, when he became a member of Gailey’s staff, he became defensive coordinator. With Rhoades’ assistance, Gailey brought back a Trojan team that had faltered in the later years of Charlie Bradshaw’s tenure.

They turned a two-win team into a seven-win team in year 1. The very next year, 1984 became a legendary year for Troy, seeing them win the Gulf South Conference title and the Division II National Championship.

Chan Gailey used this to springboard to an NFL job, becoming an offensive assistant and special team coach for the Denver Broncos.

According to sources, on January 31, 1985, Gailey told his coaching staff he was leaving at 1:30 pm. At 3:15 pm, Troy President Ralph Adams had already hired Rick Rhoades to his first collegiate head coaching job.

Rick Rhoades handled the role well, rebuilding the team that season. They made the playoffs in 1986 and looked to be returning a very solid Trojan squad led by quarterback Mike Turk and defender Freddie Thomas.

After another good year, it looked like Rhoades would be building something very special in Troy.

Meanwhile, events 325 miles away had the potential to undermine all the hard work the Trojans had accomplished. Billy Brewer came to Ole Miss in 1983 to revamp the whole program after five dismal years.

In his first year, he brought a winning season back to Oxford for the first time since 1977 and even got their first bowl game since 1971 (an Independence Bowl loss to Air Force). The 1984 and 1985 campaigns saw the Rebels drop back to the bottom of the SEC.

1986 brought a return to winning. Ole Miss finished 8-3-1 and even won the Independence Bowl this time. However, the good times would be short lived.

In December 1986, Ole Miss was hit with a two-year probation by the NCAA for recruiting violations, such as paying recruits at camps. Eventually, the defensive ends coach and wide receivers coach were fired and the Offensive Coordinator was barred from recruiting. Running backs coach David Hines also left for personal reasons.

Needing to fill four coaching vacancies, Billy Brewer came to Coach Rhoades for help. On January 6th, 1987, Rick Rhoades resigned as head coach of the Troy State Trojans to pursue “some very promising coaching opportunities.”

While he never officially said at the time, it was expected that he would become the quarterbacks coach at Ole Miss. The news was a complete shock to all involved in the Wiregrass, as the Trojans looked poised for another trip to the playoffs in 1987.

Rhoades recently told me that the decision to leave had two parts to it. First and most understandably, as a young coach, he recognized that opportunities for moving up don’t come often, especially SEC jobs, even in the 1980s.

“I had a strong desire to advance in the coaching profession,” Rhoades said. “The chance to coach in the SEC was very appealing and I thought Billy Brewer was going to bring back Ole Miss football.”

Rhoades’ other concern was the direction of football in Division II. His main focus was the treatment of scholarships in the division. 

“When I first came to Troy, scholarship limits were at 55,” Rhoades said. “Scholarships were being cut almost yearly and had made recruiting, and more importantly, reasonable aid for student athletes, almost impossible to maintain.

“There was a coalition of schools pushing to lower scholarships to 36 which was an untenable position for me and for a lot of coaches in successful programs.”

For Rhoades, the potential challenges of recruiting with reduced scholarships were a definite negative moving forward. In hindsight, based on both of his reasons, it’s understandable that Rhoades tried to improve his career trajectory when he had the chance.

So as of January 6, 1987, Robert Maddox (more on him at a different time) was made interim head coach of the Trojans. Troy would be moving forward under his leadership until a new coach was hired.

In the span of 24 hours though, the state of Troy State’s football program changed—again. The turning point for Rhoades came when he talked to his players the Monday he handed in his resignation.

“I had a rough night after that. I felt extremely torn and had no peace,” Rhoades said. “Usually when you feel a lot of inner conflict, there’s a good reason for it.”

The conflict was seemingly resolved when Coach Rhoades arrived at work the next morning.

“It wasn’t until I came in to work on Tuesday morning that I realized I simply didn’t want to leave,” Rhoades said. “I agonized over the decision to resign in the first place, and I guess I was just slow to realize how much this school and the people here mean to me personally.”

“Rick had made it clear that he had done a lot of soul-searching,” Athletics Director Robert Stewart said later. “That this program just meant too much to him to leave at this point.”

While Rhoades would’ve considered the Ole Miss job an honor, he couldn’t do it and was thankful that they too were understanding of his change of heart. The most important group he had to tell though was his players… and he told them the whole story.

The response was extremely positive. Most players knew Rhoades had built a winning program and could lead them effectively into the new season.

“Campus dynamics are always tricky and things moved faster than they probably should have,” Rhoades said. “In the end, it just did not feel right to go to Ole Miss and let things work out at TSU. It is a real tribute to our players and coaches that we were able to get past this quickly and get on with the business of putting together a great football team.”

The 1987 season began with a loss to Southeast Missouri State and a tie with Nicholls State. Then, as the story goes, Troy State rattled off 11 straight wins before taking its second D-II title in four years. We’ll go through all that soon.

35 years after the fact, it is wild to think that a 24-hour period almost made Troy’s 1987 National Championship the title that wasn’t.