It’s a question we get asked a lot, so it was time to track down the former ODU head football coach.
NORFOLK, Va. — “I’m still in Hampton Roads. I’ve spent the last two years interviewing for jobs and it just hasn’t worked out, haven’t got the right fit yet, so what I’ve been doing is coaching quarterbacks.” There, that’s what Bobby Wilder says he’s been up to.
He’s been coaching around 30 middle school and high school football quarterbacks and receivers. He says, “It reminds me of when I first started 32 years ago. I’m a position coach. I’m actually coaching. When I became the head coach at ODU, that was a CEO role.”
Often when you ask Wilder how he’s doing he’ll say, “I’m living the dream.” It begs the question, what is the dream now? His response, “The dream is this right now, coaching like I am but getting another head coaching job. I’d really love to get another opportunity.”
Wilder built the ODU football program from scratch and was the perfect man for the job. Things fell into place. He says, “I’m proud of how successful we were as quickly as we were.”
In Wilder’s last three years, the Monarchs went 5-7, 4-8 and 1-11. How did it all go so wrong?, “We had such dramatic success early that nobody, including me knew what failure looked like. Nobody who was around or supported the program knew what failure looked like. So, I really feel like when we didn’t have that same consistent success at quarterback it effected the rest of the operation and ultimately it’s me.”
For now, he is holding off on taking as assistant coaching job with the hope that there is a big whistle position for him somewhere, “A lot of people wonder why do you want to get back into that. I just love the interaction with everybody on the team, the recruiting, the fan base. I miss that part of college athletics.”
Author: Scott Cash
Published: 6:48 PM EDT May 5, 2022
Updated: 6:48 PM EDT May 5, 202
