A lot can change along the three-hour drive from Bloomington to Fort Wayne.
For IU football head coach Lee Corso, what changed in late 1982 was his understanding of his job status as head coach of the Hoosiers.
Driving to Fort Wayne to visit elite prospect Rod Woodson, Corso apparently heard he had been fired while listening to the radio in his car along the way.
Perhaps because he was still in disbelief of what he heard — and with no cell phones to confirm — Corso’s pursuit of Fort Wayne Snider H.S. phenom Rod Woodson did not immediately change.
But when he arrived in Fort Wayne, Corso’s pitch to Woodson was a bit unconventional, to say the least.
“‘Hey, before I get into this whole thing, I just want to let you know that I just found out that I was fired over the radio,'” Woodson said this week on the Rich Eisen Show was Corso’s introductory remark.
“But he still gave love to IU,” Woodson said.
Corso led IU to the program’s first-ever bowl win in 1979, but back-to-back losing seasons in 1981 and 1982 led to his firing — news that somehow reached the radio airwaves before he found out.
Woodson was probably good enough to save Corso’s job. He would go on to be a College All-American, a first-round NFL Draft choice, and a Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee.
But still in high school trying to determine his next step in life, Woodson couldn’t believe what he was hearing from Corso. He told Eisen he was considering IU for college at the time, but upon hearing Corso’s message, knew he needed to look elsewhere.
“I was like, ‘Wait, wait a minute, coach. They just fired you on the radio. They fired you on the radio, and you still want me to go down and do an official visit to IU? No, I can’t do that,'” Woodson said. “And I’m like, ‘Coach, if they treated you like that, how are they going to treat me? I’m just a player.’”
“But I tell you what, I gave him much respect because that’s a long drive. He could have been angry. He could have talked bad about IU, and all he did was give them love, and he still tried to get me to go down there.”
Indiana hired Sam Wyche to coach the team in 1983. He lasted one season. Then the Hoosiers hired longtime head coach Bill Mallory the following year in 1984.
The 90-year-old Corso is retiring from his longtime ESPN College Gameday gig this year.
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