Jeff Seidel

Detroit Free Press Columnist

KALAMAZOO -- Uncertainty continues to hang over the Western Michigan football program.

On his 36th birthday today, WMU coach P.J. Fleck talked about Friday's Mid-American Conference championship game against Ohio at Ford Field in Detroit (7 p.m., ESPN2), as rumors circulated about his future.

Fleck was asked whether he has talked to Purdue or any other schools seeking a new coach.

“I am 100% focused on Ohio,” Fleck said. “Talking to nobody until after the MAC championship game. Period. Period.”

You can't fault a hot, ambitious MAC coach from talking to bigger schools. It's natural, if not expected.

There are several reasons Purdue would make sense -- at least for Purdue. Fleck has proved that he can turn around a program, having built a new culture at undefeated WMU.

And he certainly knows how to recruit the Midwest.

But Jamauri Bogan, for one, just doesn’t believe that his coach is going to leave.

“We would be happy for him, but I don’t see him leaving,” said Bogan, a redshirt sophomore running back from Union, N.J. “He loves Kalamazoo. I don’t think he loves anything more than this.”

Bogan let out a laugh.

“Of course, he has his family, his wife,” Bogan said. “But he loves Kalamazoo. I don’t envision that. I see him staying here for a while. He always talks to us about standing for something and having a vision. When you go about your vision and you want to carry on that vision, you want to carry on that vision, to see itself out. Row the Boat has yet to see itself out completely, and if he stays here a little bit longer, I know it will.”

Bogan said it would be personally painful if Fleck left the program.

“It definitely would hurt,” he said. “We love him. We truly do love him. He has shaped our lives, and we will never forget ‘Row the Boat.’ We’ll never forget about ‘Change your best.’ … It’s ingrained in us. What he has taught us has made us who we are. Yes, the team would be hurt. But I don’t see him going anywhere.”

Perhaps, that’s just a player holding out hopes and dreams to keep his coach.

Perhaps.

But the longer Bogan talked about Fleck, the more reasons he was giving Purdue, or some other school, to swoop in and hire him.

“The guy is special, he’s different,” said Bogan, who was the only player made available to the media today. “I kind of see myself as being very different, the way I carry myself and go about my business. I wanted to be around someone who was going to elevate me to different kind another level, not athletically. Then years from now, when I take on a job, they are going to say, 'This guy is going to be something special,' wherever I go.

“I believe he can offer that. When I got here, and now I’ve been here, he has offered that to me. I’ve grown as a man in a way that I probably wouldn’t have grown in other places, because he’s so different in the way he goes about his thinking and the way he carries himself.”

Now, back to that birthday.

Yes, Fleck turned 36 today.

This coach, who has been at WMU for four years now, was born in 1980.

Let that sink in.

But his youth is on his side. There is no reason for Fleck to jump to another job unless it’s the perfect opportunity.

He certainly has time to wait and be picky.

Windsor: Western Michigan's P.J. Fleck rows boat to national stage

Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @seideljeff. To read his recent columns, go to freep.com/sports/jeff-seidel/.