by Joe Wessel
By the end of the season, the bowl outlook shaped up for a No. 1 Notre Dame vs. No. 2 FSU rematch in the Fiesta Bowl on New Year’s Day. Unfortunately, that matchup got derailed the following week when we lost, 41–39, to a Boston College team coached by Tom Coughlin. He’d go on to win a couple of Super Bowls as the head coach of the New York Giants.
Boston College kicked a 41-yard field goal as time expired to ruin our undefeated season. We dropped to No. 4 in the rankings, granting us an invitation to play Texas A&M in the Cotton Bowl for a second consecutive year.
In the weeks prior to the bowl game, Rick Minter, our defensive coordinator, was hired as the head coach at the University of Cincinnati. Pursuant to Coach Holtz’s policy regarding coaches who had accepted other jobs, Minter departed, paving the way for me to be promoted to defensive coordinator for the Cotton Bowl.
We played well on New Year’s Day of 1994 and beat the Aggies, 24–21. Florida State squeaked out a win against Nebraska in the Orange Bowl later that night. We all watched that game in the hotel, and we felt we’d share the National Championship with FSU. What more could I ask for, having cochampions between the school I worked for and the school where I’d played college football?
The following day, the Associated Press Poll and the United Press International Poll declared FSU No. 1 and Notre Dame No. 2. Coach Bowden finally won that elusive first National Championship. While I felt happy for him, I felt like we’d been shortchanged at Notre Dame. After all, we had beat FSU head-to-head.
The 1993 season should have been one of the best six months of my life. Although there were eleven wins on the field, the one loss off the field would never be forgotten and will be etched in my heart forever.
CHAPTER 18
On to the NFL
BEING AT NOTRE DAME AND coaching under Coach Holtz probably shaped me more as a coach and as a person than I had experienced in my life. Expectations at Notre Dame were off the charts, as were Coach Holtz’s.
Everyone who arrives at Notre Dame expects a National Championship. Coaches, players, staff, trainers, professors, administrators, and even the student body expected the Irish to be in the top spot once the season finished. Coach Holtz reminded you of that fact every single day. The roller coaster of emotions in a football season brings the best and the worst out in all of us. I had my share of life’s emotions during my three years at South Bend.
Coach Holtz knew how to motivate his players, a real master. His words, his preparation, his organizational skills, and his ability to push people past their tipping points made him unique. He ran the football organization like a hands-on CEO, challenging everybody all the time. At times, it might have seemed way too much, but many times it brought what the situation needed.
Coach Holtz held his players accountable, and he held his coaches even more accountable. It was something I’d always admired and replicated later in my life.
Following the 1993 season, I wanted to become the defensive coordinator at Notre Dame. I felt like a strong candidate, too; after all, I’d been the interim defensive coordinator during the Cotton Bowl. In addition, during my time at LSU, I didn’t have the defensive coordinator title, but I called every defense because I was the only coach who understood how to tie the defensive front to the secondary. Of course, when I got to Notre Dame, the same thing happened a couple of times. I knew I could do the job.
Two days after we returned to South Bend from our Cotton Bowl win, Coach Holtz and the staff took off for the coaches’ convention in Anaheim. When I got to the hotel, everybody I saw told me, “Hey, Coach Holtz is looking for you. He wants to interview you.”
Interview me?
I went to his room and knocked on his door. When he answered, he told me he wanted to schedule some time with me that week to interview me for the open defensive coordinator position. Coach Holtz wanted it to be a fair process.
Instead, I countered, “Why don’t we do it now?”
“You sure?” he asked.
I nodded. “Coach, you know me. You know what you’re getting with me. Let’s do it right now.”
Coach Holtz shrugged. “Okay, come on in.”
He only asked me two questions. After the second, he told me, “That’s good enough.”
At the time, I couldn’t understand why the interview had been so brief. Later, I realized he’d probably simply been checking the box that said he’d interviewed me.
A week or so after returning to South Bend from the coaching conference, I go to my desk and see a 5 x 7 card that read: “Joe, Bob Davie has accepted the defensive coordinator’s job at the University of Notre Dame!—Coach Holtz.”
That’s how he told me I didn’t get the job. I loved Notre Dame and I could have been happy staying there forever, but after that, I recognized the time had come for me to move on. I’ve never talked to Coach Holtz about why he chose Davie over me.
Coach Holtz knew I planned on leaving. That’s one of those sensitive areas where you usually don’t tell the head coach you’re leaving, but I needed his help when David Shula came calling.
My decision to leave Notre Dame was twofold—it had to do with my disappointment at not getting the defensive coordinator position, and the other part came down to getting a chance to coach at the NFL level. While every college coach can say he loves college, if somebody walked in and gave him an NFL contract, nine out of ten would take it.
Guilty as charged.
When old friend David Shula became the head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals in 1992 at age thirty-two, he became one of the youngest head coaches in the history of the NFL. After the 1993 season, he offered me a job on his staff coaching the defensive line. Larry Peccatiello had just gotten the job as the Bengals’ defensive coordinator, and he and Coach Holtz had coached together at William & Mary back in the 1960s.
Shula offered me the defensive line coaching job. I’d never coached that position before, but I assured him I could do it. I felt comfortable knowing the outside of the defensive end structure, and I knew I could learn the inside. I liked the experience the job would give me, since I’d already coached the defensive backs and linebackers. If I went to interview for another defensive coordinator position, I would have coached all the defensive positions. From a résumé standpoint, that would be huge.
Still, moving to the NFL brought some challenges. Naturally, I consulted with Dad about the opportunity. Typical of my father’s blunt speaking, he first asked if I knew what I was doing. I’d shared a lot with him over the previous nine years. When I told him I felt confident in what I was doing, he endorsed the move. He always trusted my judgment when making some of my biggest decisions.
Most assumed the money drove my decision. I did make a little more money—I made $56,000 at Notre Dame and $75,000 at Cincinnati. But the move really wasn’t a question of money. I wanted to have an opportunity to coach in the biggest arena, and I trusted David Shula with my life.
Coach Holtz decided to leave the Notre Dame job in 1996 without offering much of a reason.
Davie served as the Notre Dame head coach until getting fired after five years in the position. To this day, I still wonder to where I could have ascended had Coach Holtz made me the defensive coordinator. Dad and I spoke about this, but he rarely played the “what if” game.
Coaching in the NFL differed from coaching in college in many ways. In the NFL, if you didn’t think a player fit into your plan, you could get rid of him and go get someone else. Sometimes ownership would get rid of someone even if you thought that he would be a productive player.
Even though the Bengals had appeared in two Super Bowls, losing to the San Francisco 49ers in both, they had a unique organization. Mike Brown and his family ran the show.
Initially, I felt anxious when I began to work at my new job. Lucky for me, I had an experienced group on the defensive line, and they were very helpful. Tim Krumrie led that group. An eleven-year veteran, Krumrie had been an All-Pro selection and had played in the 1988 Super Bowl. Th
e experience he brought to the defensive line helped me a lot.
Since I’d coached the outside linebackers my first two years at Notre Dame, I had some perspective on the defensive line. I had one guy who rushed and one who played coverage. I studied a lot of film and talked and visited with several people. Tom Pratt, the Kansas City Chiefs defensive line coach, helped me a lot. I met him on a plane during a scouting trip. He’d played college ball at the University of Miami, and we just hit it off. Joe Greene helped me out a lot, too. “Mean Joe” had a Hall of Fame career playing for the Pittsburgh Steelers during their “Steel Curtain” defense’s heyday. Greene coached with the Dolphins at the time, so we had a connection.
That first season with the Bengals, I had Alfred Williams on my defensive line. He’d been a first-round pick out of the University of Colorado in 1991. Prior to the 1994 season, he wanted the Bengals to pay him more money or to trade him. That stance prompted him to become a holdout. I didn’t meet him until the first day of training camp. During that initial meeting, he went off on a tirade laced with F-bombs about how the Bengals ownership had screwed him. Once I got him calmed down, I promised him that if he did what I asked him to do, I’d help him get out of Cincinnati. Two weeks later, Mary Gayle and I were having dinner in an Outback Steakhouse in Cincinnati, when the waitress brought over a bottle of wine to our table. She told us a guy from across the room had sent the bottle our way, then she pointed out Alfred, along with Kanavis McGhee, another defensive end on the team. “Big Al” came over and apologized for his tirade and explained it wasn’t meant to be personal to me. I always remembered that and thought highly of him to do that.
By the time I coached with the Bengals, Dad’s singing performances had tapered off. He did sing with the Florida Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, and he performed for the Miami Opera Guild. Many times, Dad’s performances bordered on the operatic because throughout his life he’d been a stickler to old Latin in the Catholic church. He loved Italian opera. Luciano Pavarotti ranked as one of his favorites. Otherwise, Dad pretty much limited his performances to choirs, weddings, and funerals. He still had the talent, but being the perfectionist he was, I don’t think he felt comfortable with the sound he produced. However, he did perform “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Cincinnati’s Cinergy Field prior to the Bengals-New Orleans Saints game on September 15, 1996. I had heard they were looking for someone to sing, and I volunteered Dad.
I’d seen Dad perform before, but never the National Anthem. Standing on the sidelines while he sang gave me goose bumps, and I teared up while he delivered a flawless performance. That definitely ranked as a highlight from my days coaching with the Bengals.
While in Cincinnati, I played a lot of golf with Bruce Coslet, the offensive coordinator, and Kenny Anderson, the quarterback coach and former Bengals great. Dick LeBeau, Hall of Fame defensive back and defensive coordinator for the Steelers, joined us many times on the golf course.
I guess the fact that I played a lot of golf made me think of Dad and ways we could enjoy the game together. After all, he had taught me the game. Having the Nicklaus connection, some wild ideas began to percolate. I’m not sure if it was the confidence attained now that I was an NFL coach, but it was around this time that I started to think big. Still in touch with Steve and Jack Nicklaus, I wondered what Jack might say if I approached him about a golf outing at Augusta National.
So it was that I reached out to Jack by writing him a letter. Dad regularly traveled to play golf all over the world, so I asked Jack, if ever an opportunity presented itself where I could get Dad up to Augusta to play golf, whether he could help us make that happen. In response, I received a pleasant letter from Jack. He said he couldn’t accommodate my request. Of course, I understood he probably got fifty such requests a month. I appreciated him being open with me.
However, I had bigger frustrations to attend to, on the professional front. The Bengals had the top pick in the 1994 draft and selected nose guard Dan Wilkinson from Ohio State. My frustrations stemmed from the fact I felt as though Notre Dame’s Bryant Young would be a better player and had a bigger motor. During a predraft meeting, I expressed that opinion when asked which of the two I would take. They thought I had a bias to my opinion since I’d coached at Notre Dame. That might have been true, but ultimately Young played fourteen years for the San Francisco 49ers and made the Pro Bowl four times. He finished with 89.5 career sacks, ranking him at fourth all-time in the NFL in career sacks for defensive tackles, trailing only Trevor Pryce and Hall of Famers John Randle and Warren Sapp. Bryant also ranks third on the 49ers’ all-time career sacks list, placing him behind defensive ends Tommy Hart and Cedric Hardman, and owns the 49ers’ franchise record for career safeties, with three. Ultimately, he became a member of the NFL’s All-Decade Team of the 1990s. Meanwhile, Wilkinson played for four teams during a thirteen-year career that never lived up to expectations. In fairness to Wilkinson, expectations for him were extremely high.
Another draft story that didn’t exactly turn out well for the Bengals occurred the next year when we had the fifth overall pick. Heading into the big day, our plan had been to use our first pick to select University of Florida defensive end Kevin Carter. Then we planned to come back and use our second-round pick, the thirty-sixth pick of the draft, on University of Pittsburgh running back Curtis Martin. Instead, we traded our picks to the Carolina Panthers, who had the number-one pick, so we could select Penn State running back Ki-Jana Carter.
Sadly, Ki-Jana Carter’s NFL career never really happened. After tearing his ACL in a preseason game, he missed his rookie season. The next season, he returned to gain 2.9 yards per carry on 91 yards. In eight NFL seasons, Ki-Jana gained 1,144 yards and scored eight touchdowns.
Conversely, the St. Louis Rams drafted Kevin Carter with the sixth pick of the draft, meaning, in theory, he still would have been on the board when we selected with the fifth pick of the draft. Since the New England Patriots selected Martin with the seventy-fourth pick of the draft, he too would have been available had we just remained pat and stuck to our original draft plan.
Martin, of course, had a Hall of Fame career, and Kevin Carter compiled 104.5 sacks during fourteen NFL seasons.
On the positive side, David had a great rapport with the players. That didn’t come as a shock, since a lot of them were right around his age. He always remained positive and energetic—the eternal optimist—throughout his stint. Clearly, he had his mother’s remarkable outlook.
Under David, the Bengals went 8–24 in the two seasons before I arrived. We went 3–13 in 1994. After one season as the defensive line coach—a position I’d never coached—I became the special-teams coach prior to the 1995 season.
That 1995 season proved to be better than the previous season’s outcome. We won our first two games but lost the next four. The rest of the season felt like a yo-yo—win one, then lose one. Win one, then lose one. We couldn’t sustain putting back-to-back wins together and finished 7–9. Even though we’d finished with a losing record, Bengals fans had cause for hope heading into the 1996 season.
Away from the field, Mary Gayle and I got some good news. After three years of dealing with the loss of our baby and hoping, praying, and making plenty of visits to the doctor, we received the news we were expecting a son in September of 1996.
Having experienced heartbreak in the past, I couldn’t help but be skeptical, nervous, and anxious about what the future would bring. That had to be the longest nine months of my life. Every doctor visit came chock full of trepidation and anxiety. I wanted to be positive, but the loss lingered in the back of my head. My heart remained broken. Through it all, we never lost hope.
In mid-August, we agreed with the doctors to schedule an induced labor on September 3. That fell on the Tuesday prior to our second game of the season, against the Chargers in San Diego. Having the baby delivered on that day gave me more flexibility, because that was the players’ day off with no practice.
We’d lost the
opener, 26–16, to the Rams in St. Louis. Since we lost that one, we knew we had to have good game plan prepared for the Chargers. I did my best to keep my focus while my thoughts and emotions were all about getting through the next two days and bringing home my son.
My parents had come up to Cincinnati to help. Getting baby and Mom home presented a lot of logistical problems, and having them there to help address some of those certainly helped. However, their presence came mostly in the way of moral support.
Dad had a flight from Cincinnati to San Diego on that Thursday for the game. He would be staying with Jerry Sullivan, who coached the Chargers wide receivers. Dad got to know Jerry when we coached together at LSU, having attended dinner one night with me, Jerry, and John Mitchell, our defensive line coach. Jerry, having been born and raised in Miami, had a lot to talk about with Dad that night.
Finally, the big day arrived. On September 3, 1996, Mary Gayle, Mom, Dad, and I woke up early. At 11 a.m., we were introduced to a healthy baby boy we named Louis Trenton Hamilton Wessel—“Trent” for short.
Being there and watching the birth of a child is the most overwhelming feeling a human can ever experience. As the doctor gave me the scissors to cut the umbilical cord, I stood there in awe of God’s creation. To this day, thinking about it brings a smile to my face and tears to my eyes. After all the doctor appointments, along with the pain and anxiety we endured over the previous three years, we were finally bringing home a long-awaited, and cherished, gift.
I spent several hours getting Mary Gayle and Trent settled in the hospital, before I had to leave. The Chargers were our next opponent, and they didn’t care that I had had a new son. I had to get back to work to help put a game plan together for Sunday.
We lost to the Chargers, 27–14, before returning home and breaking into the win column with a 30–15 win against the New Orleans Saints. We then dropped three consecutive games to fall to 1–5 on the season.
We traveled to San Francisco to face the 49ers in our seventh game. Playing at 3Com Park—formerly known as Candlestick Park—we built a 21–0 second-quarter lead before the 49ers got busy. They ran off 28 unanswered points. Future Hall of Fame quarterback Steve Young ran one in from fifteen yards for the final score in our 28–21 defeat.