Listen to Zygi Wilf

Wilf: As you know, last night my brother (Mark Wilf) and I met with Coach (Mike) Tice and informed him that we will not renew his contract beyond the 2005 season. This morning I also spoke with the players, coaches and our staff. After significant evaluation we feel that now is the time to make a coaching change. For a big picture perspective for the club we think it is time to go in a new direction. We have accelerated our search for a seasoned football executive and immediately initiated process to select the very best head coach to secure a strong future for Vikings football. We will do this within the NFL guidelines. On behalf of the Vikings organization and our fans, I want to thank Mike Tice for his 13 years of service and commitment to the club as a player, assistant coach and a head coach. I have gotten to know Mike Tice since becoming owner in the past six months and I have gotten to know him very well. I have gotten to appreciate the heart and soul he has put into his work. He is a great teacher of young men. Under Mike's leadership the Vikings have led the league in player appearances in the community and this is something that will continue into the future. As I stated, I got to know him well. As a new owner I was in constant communication with him. I got to know him as a fine person, a fine coach and I have gotten to know him as a good friend. I appreciate all he has taught me and his work will build to make our team a better team in the future. We wish Mike well for his future endeavors and know he will be successful wherever he goes. There have been questions and comments about how and when we decided to inform Mike of our decision. Let me address that issue briefly. First, there is no easy way or good time to let someone know that their contract will not be renewed. We have great respect for Mike and once a final decision was made we did not want him to twist in the wind another night. The bottom line is it was a tough decision and a difficult thing to do and we informed Mike as soon as we could which is also something he requested. In closing, I would like to say again that the Wilf family and our entire ownership group are committed to doing whatever it takes to bring championships to Minnesota. We are focused on building a winning program, finishing on top of our division, getting a new stadium built and bringing Minnesota its first Super Bowl title. That is our focus, it always will be our focus. We wish to continue to build on a winning tradition and that is our goals.

Q: Why did you make this decision on Mike Tice?
A: I have been in contact with the ownership group over the last couple of weeks and it came toward the last couple of weeks. As I stated to everybody before I would wait until the end of the season and we waited until the end of the season to make our decision.

Q: Was that two weeks ago or yesterday?
A: A couple of weeks ago.

Q: Was your decision made while you were in the playoff race?
A: No.

Q: So it was made after Baltimore then?
A: We were in the playoff hunt and we were focusing on that and the decision was not made at that time.

Q: How long is your list?
A: We are diligently pursuing, getting like I stated, what we feel would be the best head coach and we are also pursuing to get the best football personnel director on board.

Q: Specifically, who is helping you make these decisions?
A: It is myself, my brother and the few executives we have on board that we are in touch with. Of course Rob Brzezinski who we've just renewed a three-year contract with him and we are moving forward towards evaluating all possible candidates for the various positions we are seeking.

Q: So those are the only three people?
A: And members of the ownership group.

Q: Will you have a GM?
A: There will be a person who will be making the final decisions on football personnel acting as a general manager.

Q: Would you hire him before a head coach and would that person make the decision?
A: That is a very strong possibility. Yes.

Q: Do you have a timetable?
A: The timetable is doing it as quickly as possible.

Q: Have you contacted the Eagles about Tom Heckert?
A: I have no comment on that.

Q: You said a lot of good things about Mike Tice, why fire him?
A: I had very good things to say about Mike Tice and I got to know him as a friend. He taught me a lot about coaching. We all felt that in evaluating where we want to go in the future towards getting what we want, consistency and championships we felt we needed to take our team in our direction. We felt we needed to make a change.

Q: What are you looking for in a head coach?
A: We are looking for the best potential candidate that can get us to what we want.

Q: What was the league office reaction when you told them you were going to be making a coaching change?
A: I don't know what the reaction was. It has been over January 1st. I think their offices are closed.

Q: What was their reaction earlier in the week when you talked with them?
A: I did not speak to the league office earlier in the week.

Q: Are you considering any in-house candidates such as Ted Cottrell?
A: Yes, yes we are. I will not comment on individual candidates, but yes we are considering individuals in our organization and as well as individuals outside the organization.

Q: Is the coach going to report to you or the personnel director?
A: We are in the process of formulating that, but we want to make sure when it comes to both positions we have a working relationship amongst ourselves. One of the things I have learned and it is a very important element, in the future of this ball club will be the necessity of having communication from the top all the way down. I think we have to put the best team on the field. We have to put the best coaching staff behind them and we hope to get the best ownership behind them and we have to communicate amongst each other. I think through that we will become the best team around.

Q: How far away is a decision on a coach?
A: We hope to do that quickly.

Q: What is very quickly?
A: Hopefully certainly before the end of the month.

Q: Was viewed Mike Tice a detriment to your pursuit of a new stadium?
A: Not at all.

Q: Did the off-the-field troubles have anything to do with this decision?
A: Nothing at all.

Q: Is the list of candidates short or is it a list that you still have to narrow down?
A: Well, I can't comment on that. All I can tell you that you see from what is happening around the NFL. It has become a very competitive field for the pursuit of coaches and we want to be up there making sure that the person we want, we get. That is the reason why we are trying to act as quickly as we can.

Q: Some of the players have said there is a need for a strong disciplinarian, do you see a need for a disciplinarian?
A: There are many aspects of coaching that I don't claim to be an expert on, but certainly discipline is one of those criteria.

Q: You are 25 Million dollars under the cap right now. The previous owner wasn't willing to spend the money. Are you willing to do that?
A: I think everyone here who has gotten to know me knows that my goal is to get a championship here. I will do whatever it takes within the guidelines. Money will not be an object to get myself a championship.

Q: Given the timetable you are on, are you eliminating coaches that are with their team in the playoffs from your list?
A: I can't say. There are certain rules and protocols that I can't get into, but as you know in the NFL while teams are in the pursuit of their goals right now I think there are certain rules that prohibit interviewing or anything like that.

Wilf: Like I said we are in the process to make this change as quickly as possible. We have an ownership group that is committed to certain goals. We worked hard at it in the first six months. We have gotten to know the operations quite well and I just want to again thank Coach (Mike) Tice for all he has done for the Minnesota Vikings organization. I spoke to the players and I was very proud of how the players responded to Mike. It showed me the respect the players gave to our coach at a time when everyone was pointing fingers at us and when we were down literally in the dumps. I just have to say I thank Coach for bringing me and our ownership group, in our first season, a winning record that we all can be proud of and to build on. Being in the first year of ownership, I will always be proud that Mike and everyone who has been associated with my first year of ownership will be remembered very dearly to me as the foundation for many years of winning tradition that we look forward to.

Former Head Coach Mike Tice

Listen to Mike Tice

Tice: Thank you everybody for coming out today. I see a lot of familiar faces, a lot of good friends. I was sitting with Diane last night, saying God, we've been here since 1992, and it's such a long time that we have been a part of this organization. It's been such a long time that I've tried to do the best I can whether it was as a second-string tight end or a position coach or a head coach. I tried to do the best job that I could to bring a championship to the region because this region deserves a championship. They will get one. Everybody that is going to be fortunate enough to be a part of this organization moving forward is going to find that they are blessed because the Wilfs are going to be great owners. They are going to do things the right way and they want to win. They have a passion to win. They've got some things to learn, but we all have things to learn. I remember my first year as the head coach, boy, did I have some stuff to learn.

I don't want to forget to thank Red McCombs for giving me that opportunity in 2002 to take a chance on an old blocking tight end and a line coach and giving him a chance to be the leader of this great organization. I have enjoyed coming to work every day, sometimes a little more difficult than other days, but I have enjoyed coming to work every day. I have enjoyed and been blessed to have so many wonderful people supporting me from the Dennis Ryans to the Chuck Bartas to the Bobby Hagans. Gosh, when I came here in 1992, Bobby Hagan was an intern. Scott Studwell, all of the members of the press that have been here for me, Bobbe Daggett upstairs that has been here since day one. There are just so many people. My wonderful assistant, Kirsten Lindberg, who I think very dearly of. She is taking it hard. She is not her usual bubbly self today. I nicknamed her "Bubbles" because she is always so bubbly. If you had a chance to work with her, then you know that. Working with Danny Barreiro has been an experience. Some people have a misconception, we actually like each other. He doesn't want me to tell you that, but I'm going to actually tell you that we do like each other. We have a great working relationship. I enjoyed doing that show every Wednesday, although sometimes it might come off that I don't. If you guys only knew what we do during commercials. We have a great time together and it's been a good four-year run. Pretty good ratings too, huh, Dan? I have enjoyed working with Channel 5 on Sunday nights. There are just so many things that have been just a pleasure to be a part of it.

Again, I really appreciate the players and coaches this year for sticking together. It was so easy at 2-5 for the coaches whose contracts were up, for the coaches to blatantly get on the phone and start shopping for jobs and players to give up. The players stuck together and grew together as a family, which is what I wanted them to do, and the coaches hung in there. They hung in there and they hung in there, and they worked their butts off to put a good plan together each and every week. I appreciate that. That is the best tribute that I could have been paid by the players and the coaches, is for them to stick together when we were 2-5. To get ourselves to the brink of the playoffs, quite frankly if we could have ran the table we would have been in the playoffs, but we weren't able to. We had a couple of bumps in the road there. I'm still proud of the fact that we finished with a winning record at 9-7. I'm still very proud of the fact that in the last three years there have only been two teams in the NFC that have had .500 records or better (each season), one being the Seattle Seahawks and one being the Minnesota Vikings. When you look deeper into that, you find there is only six teams in the entire National Football League that have done that. I think that is something to be proud of. That is something to be proud of. The expectations of the football team and the goals have not always met up with the support, but that's okay too. You still have to battle through injuries, you still have to battle through facilities, and all of a sudden at the end of the day facilities don't win games. Players win games. I'm very grateful for the chance, and I want to thank everybody for treating me with so much respect and hopefully I did the same with you. I'm going to leave this building with a tremendous amount of friends, people that will be a part of my life forever. I want to thank them again for being there for me. I don't have anything else really to say.

I think this year that I proved that I worked hard for four years to earn my stripes and hopefully there will be other organizations around the league that will see it that way. I love to teach. I love to teach. My son, Nathan, will graduate from Edina High School, which is a very important part of what Diane and I want to accomplish. He's been in the school system since the 2nd grade, so all of the decisions that I make on my future will evolve around Nathan being able to graduate from Edina High School. I'm not going to open up for any questions. I don't think I feel like doing that right now. Again, I want to thank everybody for coming out. I appreciate it. I appreciate all of your support. Happy New Year and God bless everybody.

Posted by maasx003 at January 2, 2006 03:55 PM