Mississippi Valley State's struggles on the gridiron are well known, but L.C. Cole doesn't want to hear about it.
If hired to replace Willie Totten as head coach at MVSU, Cole says he will build a winning program even though the Delta Devils have had just five winning seasons in the last 20 years.
"I don't understand losing," said the current Stillman College head coach, who has turned around programs at Tennessee State and Alabama State. "I have never lost anywhere I've coached, and I am not going to start now if hired at Valley."
Cole, the fifth finalist for the MVSU job, interviewed Friday on the Itta Bena campus and then answered questions from fans and media during a public forum.
One of the first questions Cole faced related to his past run-ins with the NCAA for rules infractions while coaching at Alabama State and Tennessee State.
Cole was fired at Alabama State in 2003 after three years on the job after university officials accused him of violating NCAA rules. The school released a report saying that ASU had violated 24 NCAA rules.
The alleged violations occurred from 1999-2003 and most involved the football program, including the participation of 25 players who were ineligible because they hadn't completed the required percentage of coursework toward their degrees.
In December of 2008, the NCAA slapped Alabama State with five years probation. The NCAA also banned the football team from postseason play in 2009, stripped the team of all its victories from 2000 and 2001 and placed Cole under a two-year show-cause order.
According to The Associated Press, Cole was ordered to attend regional compliance seminars in 2009 and 2010 and his new employer must submit compliance reports both years emphasizing its monitoring of the coach's actions to fulfill the terms of the show-cause order.
"I've learned from that, and I am much more knowledgeable of the rules after attending NCAA seminars," Cole said. "What happened in other places has nothing to do with what would happen at Valley.
"All of that took a toll on me and my family. I've moved on. That's in the past."
Cole, who was an All-Big Eight pick as a defensive back at Nebraska and a team captain for the Cornhuskers, considers himself a top recruiter, and he says that's one of the main things that would help him be successful at Valley.
"I am a great recruiter," Cole explained. "When you talk about building a program, the only way to do it is by brining in good athletes.
