Coach cleared of awkward beaver shots

[Kaos]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2014/01/30/college-football-minot-state-todd-hoffner-mankato/5058561/?post_id=520971844_10151898346891845#_=_

The next few days and weeks figure to be hectic for Todd Hoffner. There's national signing day, and a staff to assemble. There's a house to sell back in Mankato, Minn. His wife needs to find a job. There are myriad other tasks to check off the never-ending, forever-growing list of a head football coach.

In other words, things are finally back on schedule.

Almost 18 months after Hoffner's career was derailed by charges of child pornography – later dismissed by a judge – Hoffner was named head coach at Minot (N.D.) State on Thursday. A few hours after the introductory news conference, he was already going full-speed at the new job.

For the best indication of what it meant to be back in coaching, though, there was his address to the team Thursday morning at a conditioning workout. As reported by the Minot Daily News, Hoffner told the Beavers: "You don't know how freakin' good it feels."

In a phone interview, Hoffner told USA TODAY Sports that even after losing his job at Minnesota State-Mankato in the wake of the investigation, he never doubted he would return to coaching. But he said he is grateful to have the opportunity.

"The bottom line is, there was no wrongdoing," Hoffner said. "I was exonerated. In hindsight, it should never have happened, but that's the way it goes. I know it took Minot State a lot of guts to pull the trigger. I'm not gonna let 'em down."

Despite a solid coaching résumé, the most prominent feature of Hoffner's biography had become the saga that unfolded beginning in August 2012.

In four seasons as head coach at Minnesota State-Mankato, Hoffner's teams were 34-13. They won the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference championship in 2011. But in August 2012, Hoffner was suspended by the school and later arrested and faced felony charges for three videos, found on his school-issued cell phone, of his children dancing naked and partially clothed.

The charges were dismissed a little more than three months later, but he never regained his job. He was reassigned to a non-coaching position in the Minnesota State-Mankato athletic department and fired last May.

Minot State also plays in the Northern Sun, an NCAA Division II league, and is scheduled to play Minnesota State-Mankato in September.

Minot State athletic director Rick Hedberg told USA TODAY Sports the school checked into Hoffner's past before making the hire.

"Every place we turned, we did not find anything that would preclude us (from hiring him)," Hedberg said. "We feel real strongly he's a great person and that he can do great things for us here. ... You look at his record, what he's done coaching-wise, it's outstanding. He's had some unfortunate things come his way, but I'm happy to have him here."

Testifying in his own defense in a motion-to-dismiss hearing on Oct. 31, 2012, Hoffner said: "There's nothing inappropriate in any of those videos." He explained the children, then ages 9, 8 and 5, were simply playing and acting silly after a bath.

A judge saw it the same way. On Nov. 30, 2012, Blue Earth County District Court Judge Krista Jass dismissed the charges for lack of probable cause, ruling the videos did not meet the legal definition of child pornography. In her order to dismiss, Jass wrote:

"The videos under consideration here contain nude images of Defendant's minor children dancing and acting playful after a bath. That is all they contain."

When the charges were dismissed, Hoffner said: "Our lives have been turned upside down. I'm really looking forward to getting back to my life, my job and my family," and he noted that 102 seconds of video had led to 102 days of a "long, painful nightmare."

But by then, under an interim coach, the football team had completed an unbeaten regular season. Hoffner never returned to his coaching position. A grievance filed by Hoffner against Minnesota State-Mankato is pending, though it could be resolved as early as next month.

In interviews in October and November 2012 with USA TODAY Sports, several residents of Mankato, Minn., about 80 miles south of Minneapolis, referenced Jerry Sandusky and wondered if the scandal at Penn State influenced university and law-enforcement officials.

The three videos, which totaled 102 seconds, were discovered in August 2012 by a university technician after Hoffner turned in his malfunctioning BlackBerry. Hoffner was placed on paid administrative leave. Several days later, he was arrested and charged with using minors in a sexual performance or pornographic work and possession of child pornography. But searches of Hoffner's home and office turned up no other evidence, and a child protective services specialist testified there was no evidence of sexual abuse, either in the videos or during interviews with Hoffner's children.

In the motion-to-dismiss hearing, Hoffner took the unusual step of testifying. He explained how and why he recorded the videos on a summer evening in 2012. He said he was "working on football stuff" in the family's living room. The children took a bubble bath, then came downstairs wearing towels and asked him to record a video. As he did, they dropped the towels and danced naked.

Hoffner described his daughters attempting some sort of skit, "singing and dancing and laughing, doing silly things, having fun," while his son attempted to "sabotage" the girls' performance.

In dismissing the charges, Jass wrote: "At no time did the children perform a lewd or erotic act. In fact, none of the children's actions are age-inappropriate. They acted as any child, acutely aware of his/her nakedness, would act – playful and silly."

In a phone interview Thursday evening, Hoffner said during his time away from football – to their children, he and his wife called it a sabbatical – he "was a football junkie," studying film, visiting other coaches, "trying to grow professionally – basically, just trying to keep my saw sharp," he said. He applied for several jobs without success.

"I knew someday, a 25-year career was not gonna go to waste, and I was gonna get a job," Hoffner said. "I knew it wasn't gonna be easy. It was gonna be extremely difficult to acquire a position, because a lot of administrators would be scared to give me a second chance."

The Minot State job opened when former head coach Paul Rudolph left to become offensive coordinator at North Dakota. Minot State was 2-9 in 2013 and has won seven games in the last three seasons combined. Hoffner was one of three finalists.

"We've got a long way to go," he said. "But I'm fired up to get there. It's exciting, because I appreciate them taking a chance on me. A second chance is all I've wanted."