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Bower, USM silent on unsigned contract extension </span>
Eagles football coach has 2 years remaining on 4-year deal
By Tim Doherty
Clarion-Ledger Sports Writer
HATTIESBURG — It's been five months since Southern Miss football coach Jeff Bower was offered a two-year contract extension.
That extension remains unsigned and nobody is willing or able to say why.
"It's in progress," Bower said, declining further comment.
"I don't really want to comment on it and I'm not going to comment on it," USM athletic director Richard Giannini said.
"I don't have any information on that," USM counsel Lee Gore said. "I don't know."
Bower, 51, will be in his 14th full season at the helm of his alma mater's football program this fall. He has produced winning teams in 11 of his 13 seasons, including the past 10, and needs 11 wins to join the legendary Thad "Pie" Vann as the only USM football coaches with 100 career victories.
Bower has two years remaining on a four-year contract that will take him through the end of the 2005 season.
After USM, 9-4, won its last six regular-season games to win a fourth Conference USA football championship, Bower was offered an extension that would take him through 2007 and boost his contract back to the maximum four-year length permitted under state law.
Even under near-ideal circumstances, contract negotiations can drag, as lawyers representing the coach and the university dicker over provisions, clauses and wording in the final document.
The process can take a while. For example, Bower's current contract formally was signed on Sept. 13, 2002, even though both sides had agreed on that extension months earlier.
But these negotiations have been different. Gore, who had represented the university in contract negotiations in the past, was replaced by Jack Hanbury.
<a href='http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20040611/SPORTS030104/406110344/1025' target='_blank'>CLARION-LEDGER: Bower, USM silent on extension</a>