[media-credit name=’Herald file photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′][/media-credit]Pat Richter calls it the end of an era. Chancellor Wiley calls it a difficult transition. But for Barry Alvarez, it was simply time to move on.

After 16 seasons as head football coach, Alvarez will step down at the conclusion of the 2005 season, the coach announced July 28. He will remain the university’s athletic director, a position he accepted in April 2004.

“Today’s announcement has been in the works for a number of months,” Alvarez said. “As one of my close friends told me, ‘you’ll know when it’s the right time.’ I believe it’s the right time.”

An emotional Alvarez handed the reigns to current defensive coordinator Bret Bielema, who will take over as head coach at the start of the 2006 season.

In naming Bielema his successor after just one season as defensive coordinator, Alvarez passed up a number of more experienced coaches on his staff. But after quizzing the former Iowa walk-on for weeks, Alvarez decided to pass the torch to his 36-year-old protégé.

“Although we’ve spent just one season together, I couldn’t be more convinced that Bret Bielema is the right man to replace me,” Alvarez said, adding, “He’s a rising star in this profession.”

Alvarez, 58, said his decision to step down as head coach was the result of a number of factors. Among them was the mounting stress that accompanied his dual role as head football coach and athletic director last season, prompting him to narrow his focus before his work suffered in either capacity.

“I have a sense that over a period of time, because of the demand on your time, it’ll take a toll on you physically,” Alvarez said of the dual role. “I think it’ll also take a toll maybe on not dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s in both jobs, maybe letting a few things slip in one job or the other, and I don’t want that to happen.”

The announcement came as a surprise not only to the throngs of reporters and cameramen that filled the Kohl Center media room, but also to the players, who first learned of their coach’s decision hours before the press conference.

“He called a team meeting, and we had no idea what it was going to be about,” quarterback John Stocco said. “We thought it was just going to be a getting ready to report for camp [meeting], and then he announces this. It was definitely a big shock to all of us.”

Though Alvarez had made his decision and chosen his successor months earlier, he kept it a secret even from his players. Stocco and wide receiver Jonathan Orr each said they had no idea this was coming, and that Alvarez had never made any indications to the team that he was considering retirement.

“I didn’t see it coming at all, to tell you the truth,” Stocco said. “As far as how everything went last year, everything was normal. He had a lot of other responsibilities, but nothing changed in terms of when he was around, him dealing with us. Nothing changed, so I had no reason to expect this.”

And Alvarez insists nothing will change this season either.

“I want to emphasize that my immediate focus is to coach the 2005 football team, and coach them to its fullest potential,” Alvarez said. “They deserve that because they’ve worked so hard in preparation for this season, and we will not let them down.”

Even as he announced his impending retirement, Alvarez’s focus was on the future of the program. His decision to make the announcement prior to the start of the season instead of waiting until the offseason was motivated by recruiting concerns. To ensure that the program would not lose any time or momentum, Alvarez handed the recruiting duties to Bielema.

“The only change that will be made during this football season will be the fact that Bret will head up the recruitment,” Alvarez said. “He will be in charge of identifying all the recruits.”

It was an emotional day for Alvarez, who spoke with his wife and two grandsons seated in the front row. The normally stoic helmsman had to fight back tears as he recounted a few of his most poignant coaching memories.

“My one-the-field memories could fill a book,” Alvarez said. “Things like clinching a Rose Bowl victory in Tokyo, watching an overtime win in Minnesota from a hospital bed in the Mayo Clinic, giving Ron Dayne a bear hug after coming down the sidelines the day he broke the NCAA rushing record…”

Alvarez took reporters on a nostalgic ride, reflecting on how it all began 15 seasons ago when an ambitious young coach set out to resurrect a program that could hardly remember success.

“About 15 years ago, I looked at the UW as a sleeping giant,” Alvarez said. “I was familiar with the campus, the community, the stadium, and we felt that we could put these pieces together and build a program.”

Alvarez reminisced about the early press conferences, in which he had promised to fill Camp Randall — a thought that seemed as laughable at the time as it now seems to hear Lisa Stone make the same assertion about her women’s basketball team.

“I think I maybe indicated that we could fill the stadium foolishly in my first press conference,” Alvarez said with a grin. “You know, someone says ‘did you ever think you’d stay there that long or have the success?’ I never thought of that. All I just worried about was that day and what we had to get done.”

Chancellor Wiley, who joined Alvarez on the dais, reminisced about a more recent chapter in the Alvarez story, drawing a parallel between the day that Alvarez replaced Pat Richter as athletic director and the present announcement that Bielema will replace Alvarez as head football coach.

“Two years ago we were sitting here, Pat Richter, Barry and I, announcing a transition and a plan for a transition that probably caught a few people by surprise and seemed a little unusual, but I think it’s worked phenomenally well,” Wiley said. “And what you’re hearing today is another transition plan that I expect will work equally well.”

The success of Alvarez’s current transition remains to be seen, but there is no doubt about the magnitude of the one he has already completed. In his first season as head coach, the Badgers finished 1-10. A few years later, they won the Rose Bowl.

Alvarez now enters his final season with a 108-70-4 career record, including a remarkable 97-48-4 mark since 1993. He is the only Big Ten coach to win back-to-back Rose Bowls, and he and Ohio State legend Woody Hayes are the only conference coaches to leave Pasadena with the title three times.

After building the program from the ground up, Alvarez guided the Badgers to the three winningest seasons in school history. Along the way, he has coached in 10 bowl games, winning seven, and become just the 10th coach in conference history to win 100 games at the same institution.

The only coach in school history to have an ice cream flavor named after him at Babcock Hall, Alvarez will retire as a Wisconsin legend. But despite all the accolades, it was a far simpler honor that drove Alvarez through years of sleepless nights.

“One of my greatest joys is when a fan simply says, ‘hey coach, thanks for a job well done,'” Alvarez said.

As Alvarez enters the twilight of his UW career, there will be no shortage of fans telling him just that.