Gary Andersen Told His Son He Was Leaving Wisconsin at Same Time He Told Rest of Team

Gary Andersen left Wisconsin for Oregon State in a pretty hasty manner. It’s been out there previously that he took his new job without ever visiting the Corvallis campus, and did not inform his son Chasen, a freshman walk-on linebacker on the Badgers (who’s now transferring), before the rest of the team. As far as reasoning goes, the coach intimated in his introductory press conference that he was guided West by a higher power, and explained the decision to withhold information from his son Tuesday on Jim Rome’s radio show.

“It was hard for Chasen. I felt he needed to be educated in that process,” Andersen said, as transcribed by Coaching Search. “He was on that team and part of that team, and I wanted Chasen to be educated in that process the way the rest of the team was. He is a young man now. He is not a 13- or 14-year-old kid. He is not going to be living with us here and is out on his own. He was given an opportunity to hear it just like the rest of the team was. I think that took him a little bit by surprise, and I get that, but that is just what I thought was best as a dad and I thought that was best as a coach.”

That specific explanation is actually fair — why should his son get special treatment? — even as the reasons he left Madison (Academic standards? Barry Alvarez? The cold?) remain somewhat nebulous. As a Wisconsin alum, I’m still not exactly distraught with the development, and I thought Adam Hoge did a very strong job of summing up the Andersen era.