Before Bobby Bowden finally retired as head football coach at Florida State, he'd often say that, when that day finally came, you wouldn't see him around Doak Campbell Stadium for a while.
But why, people would ask. Why not come back to enjoy watching the fruits of your labor after decades of building it?
It wasn't so much for his sake, but for the next coach's. He didn't want to be sitting in a suite when a play didn't go right and have some fan look over to him and ask, "Hey, Bobby, what would you have done there?" Bowden wanted to give the next coach, in this case Jimbo Fisher, the space to be his own man and work without interference.
At Wake Forest, football coach Dave Clawson found out that he never had that luxury - and that the interference was coming from the Demon Deacons radio booth.
The revelation that Wake Forest's radio analyst Tommy Elrod - a former player and coach for the Demon Deacons - had fed opponents confidential game preparation information since 2014 was a stunner for everyone, especially Wake Forest. Clawson called the betrayal "incomprehensible."
But is it?
A guy spends 20 years around a college football program as a player and assistant coach. A new head coach comes in and deems the guy unworthy of keeping around. Sure, he gets a nice job on Saturdays in the radio booth, but his dream of being a coach has been derailed. There might be some hard feelings.
So, yes, it's terrible. And, yes, it's stunning. But it's not impossible, as we now see.
But here's what's just as bad: Elrod was handing out that information. And other teams were taking it.
Louisville admitted it on Wednesday. Athletic director Tom Jurich said that Cardinals co-offensive coordinator Lonnie Galloway - a former Wake assistant (and former WVU assistant) - took a call from Elrod, who shared some information and Galloway then shared that info with Louisville's defensive staff.
Then came the attempts to minimize.
"None of the special plays were run during the course of the game," Jurich's statement read.
"Our defense regularly prepares for similar formations every week."
"Any other information that may have been discussed was nothing that our staff had not already seen ..."
As if any of that matters.
The bottom line: Elrod was giving away secrets. Galloway took them. And gave them to the Louisville coaching staff. Punishments had better be swift and severe. And if they don't come from Louisville, they had better come from the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Virginia Tech AD Whit Babcock said Thursday that one of the Hokies former assistant coaches also received info from Elrod, though Babcock's statement was much more contrite. He offered a personal apology and said, "The distribution of this type of information among peers or rivals is wrong and not in the vein of sportsmanship and integrity that we demand and expect."
Louisville could take pointers from the Hokies on that one.
The ACC is on the cusp of a horrible image problem, a radio guy from one conference team slipping confidential information to other conference teams, and at least one other team taking it. You ever see those commercials that every conference broadcasts during every football game, the ones where the league's coaches read stilted lines about sportsmanship and fair play? The ACC had better hope this "WakeyLeaks" scandal is sequestered to a few incidents. The bigger it gets, the tougher it becomes to believe those commercials.
The Elrod affair should be a lesson for any college athletic program - be careful to whom you give all the company secrets. You never know which former player or coach has a hidden agenda. You never know what grudges he might be harboring deep down. The guy you're slapping on the back at the stadium might be sneaking around, trying to sabotage your game plan when no one is looking.
As Wake Forest found out, making the wrong choice is dangerous. And, as the ACC may soon find out, the ramifications of that mistake could stretch far beyond one locker room.
Contact Derek Redd at 304-348-1712 or derek.redd@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @derekredd.