USA TODAY International Edition
Dantonio retires after 13 seasons at Michigan State
Football coach’s announcement surprised school, program, players.
LANSING, Mich. – Mark Dantonio’s retirement as Michigan State football coach caught everyone at the school off guard.
There were no indications Dantonio was headed out the door, multiple sources told the Free Press, though Dantonio said he and the administration had talked about possible plans for if he stayed or left.
School president Samuel Stanley was informed by athletics director Bill Beekman on Tuesday afternoon of Dantonio’s decision, university spokeswoman Emily Guerrant told the Free Press.
The power brokers of the university expected Dantonio to coach at least one more year. They believed him when he said in November he was staying.
“My intentions are to be the head football coach here,” Dantonio said then. “I’ve always said I live in the present. I’ve always said that. There’s certain things that you have control of, there’s certain things you don’t have control of. I can’t control anything, but my intentions are there, yeah, absolutely. My father always talked to me complete the circle, complete the circle. That’s what I’m trying to do.”
So what changed?
“I work in segments of my life,” he said in a news conference Tuesday evening. “I put it into different periods. I started to go into schools, even last week ... as I would walk in there, I found myself saying there’s going to be a gap if I leave after next season. I just felt like this was a decision that had been weighing on me ... for quite a while. It’s something I’ve thought about.
“Obviously it was very sudden.” Both his team and the coaches found out at the same time Tuesday afternoon, Dantonio said.
Dantonio crafted his statement of resignation last week while on various flights, he said Tuesday night.
He also said an “avalanche” of items pressed in on him and left him struggling to “come up for air. At times, it becomes complicated and I wanted to uncomplicate my life.”
There was no indication Dantonio was being pushed to end his 13- year career as the Spartans’ head coach. All throughout last season, university administrators repeatedly said in private conversations the decision to stay or go was Dantonio’s to make.
There have been high- profile issues since the season ended, chiefly an ongoing lawsuit by Curtis Blackwell, a former football staffer let go by Dantonio in a May 2017 phone call while Dantonio was on a train in Italy.
Blackwell’s lawyers fought to get Dantonio to sit for a deposition and have been including sections of it in various court filings since.
Late Monday night, the lawyers alleged in documents that Blackwell knew of several NCAA violations committed by Dantonio, including offering jobs to family members of recruits. In the court filing, Dantonio’s lawyers called those charges frivolous and pressed the court, again, to sanction Blackwell’s attorneys.
Did that influence Dantonio’s decision? He says no – but even those normally in the know at Michigan State are scratching their heads over the timing.