Columnist Ron Kantowski: Controversy finds Weaver at Va. Tech

Thursday, Nov. 30, 2000 | 10:57 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's column appears Thursday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.

He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who goes looking for controversy. Yet controversy always seems to find former UNLV athletic director Jim Weaver.

This past week, it finally caught up to him at his forwarding address in Blacksburg, Va., where Weaver wound up on his feet as athletic director at Virginia Tech after stormy stints in the same capacity here and at Western Michigan.

But don't feel too badly for Weaver. Anybody who gets run out of Kalamazoo only to surface at Virginia Tech -- just as it is moving into Florida State's neighborhood -- hasn't exhausted all of his lucky charms.

That said, there weren't many yellow moons or pink hearts for Weaver last weekend. When it appeared that Frank Beamer, the architect of Tech's football resurgence (and a Hokies alum), was set on taking his blueprints to North Carolina, Tech fans needed a scapegoat. And Weaver was it.

According to reports, had Weaver only agreed to spread $100,000 in raises among Beamer's staff when approached several months ago, he wouldn't have had to put that money and another gargantuan bonus and incentive package earmarked for his football coach into a duffel bag before dropping it on Beamer's porch Monday morning.

I guess Weaver, who during his 34 months at UNLV claimed he never read the local papers, never saw those Fram Oil Filters spots on TV, either. He apparently wasn't listening when Beamer put on a dark blue work shirt with a patch that read "Frank" on the pocket and told Weaver that he could pay him now, or pay him later.

When that story got out, it didn't sit well with Hokies faithful. According to the chat room vitriol and Sunday columnists, Weaver was responsible for everything from Michael Vick's bum ankle to the lame state motto.

Last weekend, Virginia Was For Haters -- Weaver haters.

David Viars, president of the Wytheville Chapter of the Hokie Club, the Tech athletic department's fund-raising arm, said everybody down at the hardware store he owns (I swear I'm not making this up) would have tossed their socket wrenches on Weaver's lawn had Beamer taken the North Carolina job.

"Most Hokies I've talked to, they would've wanted Weaver gone," Viars said.

"If they hadn't come up with the money to keep him, I would've called anyone and everyone to see if they would get rid of Jim Weaver, because it would've been his fault," said Frank Hess, another Hokie Club member.

Wrote Mark Berman, who covers Tech for The Roanoke Times: "It wouldn't be a big stretch to say that while Beamer kept his job in Monday's developments, Weaver might have saved his, too."

That was something he couldn't do here, after the Sun learned he agreed to a secret slush fund that paid the loathsome Rollie Massimino (who Weaver hired) beau coup bucks under the table, or at Western Michigan, where Weaver's legacy was firing popular football coach Al Molde, despite Molde's well preserved 62-47-2 record over 10 seasons.

As was the case here, Weaver resigned before Molotov cocktails disguised as mini-footballs came flying through his window.

"To me, it's good riddance," Jack Moss of the Kalamazoo Gazette wrote as Weaver was packing his bags. "Fortunately, he left before he could screw anything up."