4th and Goal

by Monte Burke

  But the football world is black-and-white. You are not given credit for how you play the game. Joe went 1-4 on the season. “You are what your record says you are,” Bill Parcells once famously quipped.

  But records still don’t account for everything. Bill Belichick went 37-45 in five seasons with the Browns before taking over the Patriots and winning three Super Bowls. Gene Chizik, the Auburn coach who won the national championship in 2010, went 5-19 in the two seasons with Iowa State prior to taking the Auburn job in 2009. Both Belichick and Chizik have said that those losing seasons were critical to their later success. Joe feels the same way. “There is no doubt that I am a better coach today than I was before the season,” he says.

  Joe is not going to give up. He will make one more attempt at getting a college coaching job. And if he fails? “Well, I suppose I could come back here, assuming there is a UFL next season,” he says. “But if the UFL doesn’t make it and I don’t get a college job…” His voice trails off. “Here’s the deal: as much as I want to spend the rest of my life coaching, I do not want to spend the rest of my life looking for a job. If an institution doesn’t appreciate what I can bring to the table, then so be it. I gave it my best shot. I put my heart—I put everything I had—into these last three years.”

  Joe doesn’t need to coach. Not like he needed the Merrill Lynch job. But in some ways, that’s what makes his quest—the pain, the sacrifices, the work—even more meaningful.

  Joe leaves the locker room. A moment later he is outside of the pressroom, waiting for Dennis Green to finish up his interviews. But instead of standing outside the door, he walks behind a half-pulled curtain by himself. He sits uncomfortably on stacks of unopened, shrink-wrapped bottles of Gatorade, his head in one hand. He is no longer crying, but his cheeks are red, seemingly stained by the tears. He is utterly alone.

  What happens to a dream deferred—and never attained?

  Epilogue

  The season is over.

  The UFL still exists, for now. In the week leading up to the 2012 Super Bowl, Huyghue resigns as commissioner of the UFL, citing a desire to let “the owners figure out funding.” Hambrecht says he’s determined to play on, that he has new investors queued up. There’s even talk about expansion. But as of early 2012, the UFL still has no national media contract and no true relationship, financial or otherwise, with the NFL.

  In the UFL championship game, the Virginia Destroyers beat the Las Vegas Locomotives 17–3, giving Marty Schottenheimer his first professional football title as a head coach. In January, he has a chance to get back into the NFL, interviewing for the vacant Tampa Bay Buccaneers coaching job. He doesn’t get it.

  Tom Olivadotti heads to south Florida, back to a life of semiretirement. “But, dammit, I still find myself waking up in the middle of the night thinking about what coverage to play against slots or trips,” he says. Olivadotti knows that if Joe gets a college job, he may ask him to come along to coach his defense. He has told Joe that he will do so only if he insists. Olivadotti no longer wants to recruit. He doesn’t want to drag his sore bones across the country for several months a year anymore, chasing down high school kids.

  Bart Andrus goes to Montana, where he has a house near a glacial lake. He awaits a call from someone else who is willing to take a chance on his offense. He is convinced it can work.

  Richard Kent drifts down south by way of a few coaches’ conferences and college all-star games. He carries with him now an impressive special teams coaching resume, which includes an advanced degree in the dark art of blocking kicks.

  Don Lawrence shuffles back to the Kansas City area with his wife. The Nighthawks season may have been the last in his professional football career, which he started in 1959 as a lineman for the Washington Redskins.

  Rick Mueller is hired by the Philadelphia Eagles as a player personnel executive.

  Eric Crouch is done with football, having finally found closure in his final act as a professional player in his one game with the Nighthawks. “My mind is at peace,” he says.

  Jeremiah Masoli is still determined to make the NFL. He will try out for a team in the CFL, looking to use that league as another stepping stone.

  Troy Smith signs with the Pittsburgh Steelers after their season and will compete for a job as a backup quarterback. He still throws a beautiful deep ball.

  Maurice Clarett stays in Omaha with his family, though he sometimes pines for Columbus, Ohio. He says he will try to play again if there is a UFL in 2012. Encouraged by Joe, Clarett, Matt Overton, and wide receiver Chad Lucas start a year-round football academy called Led by Pros, which focuses on teaching kids how to handle themselves on and off the field. For Clarett, the mentoring is yet another step in his journey to become the man he wants to be—no longer a tale of caution, but one of inspiration.

  Jeff Wolfert signs with the Cleveland Browns at the end of their season. He will enter 2012 training camp with the team, where he will attempt to forget the end of the 2011 UFL season and regain his confidence.

  Stuart Schweigert, despite his excellent season, never gets a call from an NFL team. He lives in Saginaw, where he runs his professional indoor football team, the Sting, and a sports-oriented foundation for kids, to which Joe donates $10,000. “I still want to play football,” Schweigert says. And he still wants a baby boy.

  Angelo Crowell and his wife are looking to buy more Jersey Mike’s Subs franchises. He retires from football. “I won’t miss it. I did it for so long. It’s time to start a family,” he says.

  Mike O’Connell starts to work out again once he’s clear of his concussion symptoms. He’s aiming for an invite to an NFL camp this summer. On the side, he is planning to start his own youth sports foundation, called Dare2Dream.

  Dusty Dvoracek spends the offseason hunting deer and hosting a daily call-in sports radio show in Norman, Oklahoma. He claims he is done with football.

  And then there’s Joe Moglia. He is a man who has seemingly everything he needs—his health, wealth, a loving family. He has worked hard on the latter. For the last decade and a half, Joe’s children feel that he has begun to make an earnest attempt to become more involved in their lives, to make up for his earlier absence. Joe has certainly succeeded beyond his wildest dreams in providing for them. His kids and even his grandkids are set financially, for life. And despite the rough patches they endured, the kids are all doing well. Kelly is a manager of a Head Start program in Vermont. Kim is a social worker. Kara worked at Merrill Lynch until she had kids. Kevin still works as an equities trader for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Joe’s stepson, John, works in mortgage servicing. Jeff is thinking about a career in finance.

  “All Joe’s done in his life is push, push, push. It’s what’s made him so successful professionally,” says his sister, Mary. “But he’s getting better at giving attention to his family. And he’s good at it. He’s giving and thoughtful and fun.”

  But Joe finds that he has one more professional push to make.

  A week after the season Joe embarks on what is his last attempt to find a college head-coaching job. He knows that most athletic directors will reject him outright because of his record in the UFL.

  But he believes, as he always has, that if he can just meet someone in person, to tell his story, to give someone a chance to actually see what they will be getting for a football coach…

  He applies to ten schools. They run the gamut in terms of size and prestige. He sends resumes to, among others, Fordham, Columbia, Memphis and, yes, even to Penn State, which has just let go of another coach named Joe.

  Four schools get back to him. Columbia, mired in a decades-long funk at the bottom of the Ivy League and in need of a radical change, conducts a quick phone interview with Joe. They never call back.

  Joe is a finalist for the job at Florida Atlantic University, a Division I FBS program that was built from scratch by Howard Schnellenberger, Olivadotti’s former boss at the Miami Hurricanes. But Joe is passed over for a familiar name: Carl
Pelini, the Nebraska defensive coordinator, brother of Bo, and a man with whom Joe had worked closely during his two-year internship with the Cornhuskers. Pelini immediately hires Marvin Sanders, the Nighthawks’ secondary coach, as his defensive coordinator.

  Joe is also a finalist for the Fordham job. The school’s athletic director, Frank McLaughlin, and president, Father Joseph McShane, were early supporters of Joe’s attempt to return to coaching. Joe is an alumnus of the school. In 2009, he received an honorary degree from Fordham and was the commencement speaker for its business school. He is a New York City boy. The football team is coming off a 1-10 season and needs not only a new coach, but a brand-new start. It seems like a perfect match.

  But the school seems hesitant. Joe has to practically beg for an interview. He eventually gets one, and the board likes him, but they still don’t fully commit. He’s one of two finalists. All coaching jobs carry with them an element of reciprocity: the prospective coach has to want the job—but the school has to want him, too. Fordham’s recruitment of Joe seems almost forced, as if it’s being done out of some sort of obligation. The vibes don’t seem right to him. With a heavy heart, Joe withdraws his candidacy.

  There is one more job opportunity. It’s at a medium-sized university in Conway, South Carolina, a Division I FCS program. The Coastal Carolina University Chanticleers need a new football coach. They call Joe.

  Surprisingly, the call doesn’t come from the athletic director. It comes from the school president, David DeCenzo. DeCenzo, starting his fifth year as president, has a track record of looking at the world a little differently, especially when it comes to the school’s athletic teams. In one of his first moves as president, he hired Cliff Ellis, a former Auburn and Clemson coach, to take over the Coastal Carolina basketball team. DeCenzo was widely ridiculed for the hire: Ellis had been out of basketball for three years and was perceived to be washed up. But DeCenzo’s leap of faith was rewarded. Ellis has completely turned around the basketball program, winning 75 games in his first three seasons.

  And now DeCenzo wants to take another leap.

  He loves Joe immediately, loves “his drive and his passion and his uncanny ability to achieve his goals.” He’s not scared off by his long absence from the game or by his record in the UFL. “I believe in the man,” he says, looking past the supposed credentials and pedigree, and sounding eerily like Mike Quinn at Merrill Lynch nearly three decades ago.

  He offers Joe the job, a five-year contract with an annual salary of $175,000.

  The job has everything Joe has ever wanted. A solid football program. Good academics. Top-notch training facilities. A firm commitment of support from both the president and athletic director. Brother Johnny lives fifteen minutes away. And Joe and Amy happen to own a beach house nearby.

  The Coastal Carolina Chanticleers (the nickname comes from the clever rooster in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales) officially hire Joe as their head football coach four days before Christmas 2011.

  The press conference is vintage Joe. He talks for a solid hour about his background and his desire to return to coaching. He talks, of course, about standing on your own two feet, accepting responsibility for your own actions, about being a man. He answers every question thrown at him by the assembled media.

  “No, I am not a billionaire.”

  “No, I don’t expect anybody to automatically and blindly accept me, but I would ask you to give me a shot, and I believe I’ll earn your respect over time.”

  There are, of course, legions of doubters. People take to Internet chatboards and openly wonder why this school would hire a guy like this and not, say, the defensive backs coach from the University of South Carolina. They say Joe bought the job. They wonder what the hell DeCenzo is thinking.

  Joe brushes it all off. Much of it is, after all, a very familiar echo of what he has heard all of his life.

  It’s a humid winter day in 2012. The clouds hanging above the sprawling Coastal Carolina campus are heavy with rain. Joe is in his new office in the Adkins Field House. A dozen unopened brown cardboard boxes sit on his floor. Various picture frames lean against the bare white walls. Joe is on the phone with a prospective defensive assistant. George Glenn, Brandon Noble, Mike Gallagher, and Brock Olivo have come with him to the Chanticleers from the Nighthawks (Joe has decided to let Olivadotti rest his bones). But he has many coaching holes to fill. And time is short: he is just a few weeks away from national signing day, when high school football recruits officially commit to a college. Joe is already putting in fourteen-hour days.

  He hangs up the phone. For a brief moment, he casts his gaze out of the huge window in his office, which overlooks the football stadium. The grass is pale brown, dormant for the winter. Faded teal-blue letters occupy the end zones. But soon—very soon—that grass will be green again, and the seats in that stadium will be filled with thousands of fans who have come to watch his team play a football game.

  Joe reins in his gaze, picks up the phone, and dials the number of another prospective assistant coach.

  Against the odds, he has reached his goal, the one he held on to for forty-two years, the one that he thought, lying in that cold storage room three decades ago, was derailed for good.

  But Joe doesn’t have time to dwell on the achievement. The intensity is building again, another journey is beginning. He has a program to rebuild, staff to hire, schemes to install, boys to mold into men.

  He has a team to coach.

  Acknowledgments

  My first thanks, of course, goes to Joe Moglia, who shared with me his life, both past and present. No topic was out of bounds; no question was left unanswered. Complete openness like this is such a rarity, and is to be cherished.

  The Omaha Nighthawks coaches and players, also without reservation, took me in and immediately made me feel welcome.

  I spoke to two hundred people for this book. Not every interviewee made the final manuscript by name. But each and every one of them helped.

  Steven Bertoni first introduced me to Joe and his story, and for that I will always be thankful.

  Peggy Henderson was an ever-smiling wrangler of facts, photos, and people.

  Mike Hainen provided wise counsel.

  Matt Boockmeier helped with accommodations.

  My agent, Richard Pine, was my constant guide throughout this journey. I was—and remain—in excellent hands.

  Rick Wolff and Jamie Raab made this project come to life. I owe them a huge debt of gratitude. Rick’s fine editing touch is felt throughout these pages.

  Beth Rashbaum and Charles Gaines read drafts of the manuscript. Their excellent edits, comments, and critiques were invaluable.

  Linda Carrington, my babysitter extraordinaire, kept the little girls to whom this book is dedicated at bay just long enough for me to get it done.

  My father’s spirit hovers over everything I do.

  My mother, Hansell, has always taken such incredible joy in her sons’ lives. Like Joe, I too am my mother’s son.

  My wife, Heidi, held down the fort while I was in Nebraska, and was, as always, unstinting in her encouragement and love.

  About the Author

  Monte Burke grew up in New Hampshire, Vermont, North Carolina and Alabama. He has been a staff writer for Forbes magazine for the past twelve years, covering sports and business. He has also written for the New York Times, Men’s Journal, Outside, Field & Stream, Town & Country, Golf Digest and Garden & Gun. His previous book, Sowbelly, was named one of the best books of the year by Sports Illustrated and was chosen for Barnes & Noble’s “Discover Great New Writers” program. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two daughters.

  Also by Monte Burke

  Sowbelly: The Obsessive Quest for the World-Record Largemouth Bass

  Leaper: The Wonderful World of Atlantic Salmon Fishing (co-editor)

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Introduction: Storage Room

  Chapter One: The Intern

  Chapter Two: Life in the Little Leagues

  Chapter Three: Nightmares

  Chapter Four: His Mother’s Son

  Chapter Five: Alternatives

  Chapter Six: Training Camp, Take Two

  Chapter Seven: Game On

  Chapter Eight: Young Father, Young Coach

  Chapter Nine: California Dreamin’

  Chapter Ten: Who the %#*! Is This Guy?

  Chapter Eleven: Know Your Limits

  Chapter Twelve: Baby, Vegas

  Chapter Thirteen: Somewhere in the Middle of America

  Chapter Fourteen: Endgame

  Epilogue

  Photographs

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Monte Burke

  Newsletter

  Copyright

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2012 by Monte Burke

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Grand Central Publishing

  Hachette Book Group