FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Bret Bielema wants to make one thing clear: he has the best job in college football at Arkansas.
But that doesn’t make the events that led to his departure from Wisconsin any easier to handle. Specifically, his now fractured relationship with Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez.
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Bielema told Sporting News he hasn’t spoken to Alvarez, a man he considers a close friend and mentor, since he left Wisconsin in December of 2012.
“There are so many things I miss about him and what we had,” Bielema said. “Dinner three or four times a week, the vacations, the jokes and laughs. We have mutual friends that have said we’ve got to get you guys together.”
Alvarez hasn’t spoken at length about Bielema’s departure, only praising Bielema for he job he did. Bielema’s wife, Jen, and Alvarez’s wife, Cindy, are still friends and last week had dinner together in Chicago.
Bielema says he and Alvarez exchanged texts after Alvarez led Wisconsin to a win over Auburn in the Outback Bowl, and when the Wisconsin basketball team advanced to the Final Four.
Bielema coached Wisconsin for seven years, and prior to that was defensive coordinator for the Badgers and Alvarez’s hand-picked successor and coach-in-waiting. Bielema won 68 games at Wisconsin, and led the Badgers to three straight Rose Bowls from 2010-12.
But he lost six assistant coaches in his last two seasons to better paying jobs, and his salary pool for paying assistant coaches jumped from $1.6 million at Wisconsin to $3.2 million at Arkansas.
“I’m making $150,000 more a year here than I was there,” Bielema said. “But some people in Madison wanted to make it about me and money. Or that there was some friction between Barry and I. The only burning thing in my gut, the one scar on my heart that’s hard to deal with, is how my leaving was portrayed.
“I know I hurt him. He hurt me a little bit.”
The night he officially left Wisconsin, Bielema returned to campus to talk to the team. He was sitting in the Arkansas plane when Hogs athletic director Jeff Long had him sign his new contract.
“If he hadn’t, I might have just said, well, I’ll stay here,” Bielema said. “Because telling my team was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I was crying like a baby. When I was finished, I walked out the door and I didn’t know who was going to come out. Just about the entire team came out and gave me big hugs. Only three kids didn’t come out that front door. That made it bearable.”
Arkansas wasn’t the only SEC school to gauge interest in Bielema that offseason, and there were other job opportunities during his time in Madison. Bielema nearly took the Miami Dolphins job after the 2011 season. He left Wisconsin a year later, in part, because Arkansas had never won an SEC Championship — and because he wanted to take a life step with his new wife.
“A pastor once told me that the greatest step you’ll take in your life is one with your wife,” Bielema said. “I was single for so long, for 42 years. I needed to do something with Jen. There’s so much in the world that has already been done, but there are plenty of things left for people who want to go get it. I needed to go get it.”