Ron Dickerson

Temple will introduce Ron Dickerson as its new head football coach at a news conference this morning, the school said in a statement last night. The former Clemson defensive coordinator will replace Jerry Berndt, who coached his last game Saturday, a 35-10 loss to Rutgers. The Owls finished the season with a 1-10 record. Dickerson, 44, becomes the only black head football coach in NCAA Division I-A. He said after Clemson's final game on Saturday that, although he had not formally accepted the Temple job at the time, he already had commitments from several coaches to join him as assistants.

Ron Dickerson changed his mind yesterday. On Saturday, minutes after probably the toughest loss of his career, Dickerson walked into his postgame news conference, choked back tears, and announced that he would resign as Temple's head football coach at the end of the season. Yesterday, after a three-hour discussion with his family, a couple of hours in church, more than 50 telephone messages from supporters, and a meeting with Owls athletic director Dave O'Brien, Dickerson asked everyone to ignore what he had said after the Owls' 53-52 loss to Pittsburgh.

When Temple football coach Ron Dickerson was the co-head coach at Colorado in 1983, 27-year-old Ron Vanderlinden joined the staff as defensive line coach. "We spent a lot of time together," said Dickerson, who also coached the Buffaloes' defensive backs. "We'd get together before the sun came up in the morning and go home under the street lights. " Today at Franklin Field, the two coaches will be on opposite sidelines as Vanderlinden's Maryland team (0-3) visits Temple (1-3)

That local college football team with the pennant-waving school president, the rich comedian as chief booster, the fancy new coach and the tickets it can't give away travels to downtown Ypsilanti, Mich., tomorrow to open a new season. Yes, the Temple Owls have all the maddening elements of a Big Time American football program - except one, of course. They just can't win. Their history of amazing futility now includes two winning seasons in 13 years, three wins in the last two seasons.

The sadness in coach Ron Dickerson's eyes was unmistakable yesterday. He was driven not only to tears, but to resign as Temple's football coach after the Owls squandered a 19-point fourth-quarter lead and lost to Pittsburgh, 53-52, at Pitt Stadium. Temple has lost four straight games since a season-opening win at Eastern Michigan, leaving Dickerson with a 5-33 record for his three-plus seasons as the Owls' coach. And after Billy West's 6-yard touchdown run with 58 seconds remaining capped Pitt's astonishing comeback, it was clear to most observers that this might have been the worst football loss in school history.

Temple's new football coach is a stickler about details. Early on in his first camp, Ron Dickerson called out the names - a long list of freshmen - who hadn't weighed in or had their ankles taped. His voice hardly lifted, but Dickerson's eyes screamed with disdain. And when a veteran defensive back was a little too aggressive during a scrimmage, hitting a receiver a couple of feet out of bounds, Dickerson was instantly nose-to-face-guard with the offending player. "It would be great to run a 4.2 40-yard dash or bench-press 500 pounds," Dickerson told the Owls one day as he preached about sweating the small stuff.

The ball was kicked, a Temple player fell on it, and with 12 seconds left in the game, Ron Dickerson thrust his arms in the air for the first time this season. Nearly 13 months had passed since Dickerson felt so elated, and so had 13 games. Temple's football coach repeatedly found himself awake on Saturday nights, wondering when a win would come. Last Saturday, he finally found himself in position to break out the champagne glasses. "Winning will do that to you," Dickerson said after his Temple Owls broke a 13-game losing streak with a 29-27 Big East victory over Pittsburgh.

Maybe it's only for the dreamers to believe that one of these years the Temple Owls will walk off the field glowing after a victory over Penn State. It's something that hasn't happened since 1941, something that hasn't happened the last 27 times the two teams have met, something that a lot of people around college football think will never happen again. If it does, though, State coach Joe Paterno will be first to tell everyone he knew the reason why. That would be Ron Dickerson, the Owls' third-year head coach who worked under Paterno as an excellent defensive backfield coach and recruiter from 1985 to 1990.

Ron Dickerson, the defensive coordinator at Clemson, will be the next head football coach at Temple, sources at the school said yesterday. Dickerson would become the only black head coach in NCAA Division I-A football. The sources said that plans were being made to announce the hiring of the new coach on Tuesday. Dickerson will replace Jerry Berndt, who will coach Temple in its final game of the season tomorrow, against Rutgers. School president Peter Liacouras told Berndt on Wednesday that he would be fired after that game.

Ron Dickerson Sr. has been hired as an assistant football coach at Gardner-Webb college in North Carolina. He will coach the defensive line. Dickerson's son, Ron Jr., is the first-year head coach at Gardner-Webb. The elder Dickerson was head coach at Lambuth University, in Tennessee, last season. He has also coached at Temple, from 1992-97, and Alabama State, 1998-99. He was drafted in 1971 out of Kansas State by the Miami Dolphins, but was injured in preseason in 1972, the year the Dolphins posted a 16-0 record.

Ron Dickerson Sr. has been hired as an assistant football coach at Gardner-Webb college in North Carolina. He will coach the defensive line. Dickerson's son, Ron Jr., is the first-year head coach at Gardner-Webb. The elder Dickerson was head coach at Lambuth University, in Tennessee, last season. He has also coached at Temple, from 1992-97, and Alabama State, 1998-99. He was drafted in 1971 out of Kansas State by the Miami Dolphins, but was injured in preseason in 1972, the year the Dolphins posted a 16-0 record.

They sat in the same seat, but a month from now Tom Bradley and Steve Sarkisian will be on different stages. Bradley, Penn State's defensive coordinator, will return to the Lions for his 31st season as an assistant coach. Sarkisian, Southern Cal's offensive coordinator, has accepted the head-coaching job at Washington. The two coaches, who were on hand for yesterday's Rose Bowl media event at the Downtown Marriott, represent dissimilar career paths for college assistants. The 52-year-old Bradley is the longtime Penn State employee that has said that he wants a head-coaching job, but at the same time, values loyalty and the stability of staying in one place.

The former Penn State player remembered Joe Paterno telling his recruiting class it would be his last as head coach of the Nittany Lions. "That was 1987," said Al Golden, who couldn't have imagined then that, two decades later, he would be preparing to coach the Temple Owls against Paterno at a place in Philadelphia called Lincoln Financial Field. Two decades after telling Golden and Sam Gash and the rest of the PSU Class of '91 that they would see him through to retirement, Paterno won't even entertain questions about the R-word.

When Al Golden called his former coach and boss after the 2005 season for advice about possible career advancement, he received the same admonition that another former Penn State assistant had received 13 years earlier. Don't accept the head-coaching job at Temple, Joe Paterno warned Golden, Al Groh's defensive coordinator at Virginia, in effect telling him that to do so was tantamount to career suicide. Golden, like Ron Dickerson before him, believed that Temple's moribund football program could be salvaged.

Temple football can never be really successful. Ask anyone in Philadelphia. They know that as well as they know condos will never sell in Center City, and neighborhoods like Fishtown and Northern Liberties will never come back. Al Golden has no use for the old losing assumptions about his football program, about his university, about the city that surrounds its campus. Temple's second-year coach expects success, and right now, with a three-game winning streak on his side, it's pretty tough to argue with him. "After the first win over Northern Illinois, it was like we won the Super Bowl," Golden said as he sat outside Temple's practice facility yesterday.

For most of Kevin Harvey's 24 years, fall was the loudest season, the best season. Every fall, from midget leagues through his four amazing years at Paulsboro, even along a bumpy path at Temple University, cheers rained on Harvey as regularly as the leaves fell. Now, for the first time in more than 10 years, autumn is the quiet season for Harvey. Now, he is biding his time, trying to stay in shape until the start of the Arena Football League season in April. It is a hard transition to make, from the fall to the spring.

So, when was the last time Temple was a road favorite? Glad you asked. Last September, the Owls were giving a point at Akron. They lost, 25-15. OK, when was the last time they were favored on the road in the Big East? That would be Oct. 31, 1998, at Rutgers, where they were giving three. They lost, 21-10. The time before that? Try Oct. 26, 1996, at Rutgers. Laying 11/2, they lost, 28-17. On Oct. 5 of that year, the Owls were favored by two at Pitt. Yep, again they lost, 53-52, which was enough to drive coach Ron Dickerson into a brief retirement.

When Temple opens its football season with a nonconference game against Maryland tonight at Franklin Field, it may be the Owls' most significant outing during the brief tenure of head coach Bobby Wallace. "We're playing off of our marketing slogan, 'We're building winners'. . . and this game may be the most important we've played since I've been here," said Wallace, who is beginning his second season. A win over Maryland - a program that's also rebuilding after going 3-8 last year - could set the tone for a season that includes seven road games and six teams that played in bowls.

It's Year 2 of the Bobby Wallace regime on North Broad Street. Year 1 was bad enough that Temple lost to Toledo, Akron, Maryland and William & Mary. And it was good enough that the Owls had the biggest road-point-spread upset in college football history when they beat Virginia Tech. Bottom line, Temple was 2-9. Nobody is yearning for the 8-47 in five years under Ron Dickerson. But the 11-33 in four years under Jerry Berndt suddenly doesn't look so bad. And the 28-38 in six years under Bruce Arians looks like a national championship.

After one season, Temple football coach Bobby Wallace is making some changes on his staff. Gone are Al Kincaid, the assistant head coach/offensive coordinator who came with Wallace from North Alabama, as well as defensive line coach Willie Jones, a holdover from Ron Dickerson's final season. Secondary coach Mike MacIntyre, who also just completed his second season on North Broad Street, left to join former Tennessee assistant David Cutcliffe, who just took over at Mississippi. No word on how soon the vacancies will be filled.