The 100-Yard Journey

by Gary Pinkel

  Politics weren’t a big deal in our home, though my mom favored Republicans yet my dad was a Democrat. She and some friends in the neighborhood campaigned for Richard Nixon when he ran for president, but I don’t remember there being much discussion around the dinner table. There wasn’t much discussion about the Vietnam War around the house either—or it just wasn’t on my radar yet. My dad was a law-and-order guy because of his military background. He respected the rule of law as the backbone of our society.

  But my parents always talked about virtues. The golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” was a big thing with my mom. It wasn’t once a month or once every couple months you heard this from her. It was all the time, especially if one of us got into trouble for something. I don’t know how many times I heard, “Gary, if you don’t have anything nice to say, keep your mouth shut.” I heard that one a thousand times. When she got mad at me, that was her adjusted golden rule.

  “Respect all people all the time,” she would tell us. “No matter what color they are. White, black, rich, poor, fat, skinny, whatever. You respect all people.”

  When I was about eight years old, I was over at a friend’s house. Some of the neighbor kids had been using the N-word. Well, that was not something you said or heard in my house. This was 1960. Society was going through all kinds of changes at the time and for decades to come. One of my neighbors heard me use the N-word and it got back to my parents.

  I got home that day and my mom asked me if what she heard was true. At that point, I knew I was in trouble. I told her, “Yes, I did. Some of my friends were saying it, so I said it, too.”

  I didn’t get any sympathy points for being honest. She took me right into the bathroom and got a washcloth and a bar of soap. She lathered that thing up until the suds were bubbling off the fabric. She stuck it into my mouth and turned it and turned it and turned it—almost until I threw up. She got right up in my face. “You don’t ever, ever say that word again. Words like that will never come out of your mouth again. We respect everyone and you will, too, for the rest of your life.”

  I didn’t get in a lot of trouble growing up, but that was a moment that stuck with me forever. That’s how my parents brought us up. You never followed the crowd. You never let people talk you into doing something you know is wrong. My mom would always say, “You bring your friends up to your level. You don’t go down to theirs.” When I got older and went away to college, I probably wasn’t very fun because I never forgot what my mom taught me.

  This one stuck with me, too, from my mom: “If you’re around a bunch of friends and they’re talking about someone who isn’t there, guess who they’re talking about when you’re not around? You.” For me, that was profound. There’s a lot of gossip in college coaching, but my mom knew better long before I started my career.

  My dad’s influence was also profound, and I’d share this with my players: “You’re going to have many, many friends, but you’re going to be fortunate if you can count your really, really good friends on one hand.” I always come back to that message. For me, trust is so important, in life and coaching. Knowing who you can trust and who you can’t trust is a message that rang true several times during my coaching career.

  • • •

  From what I remember growing up, my mom never participated in sports. My dad ran track in high school, but otherwise he wasn’t a star athlete. But as long as I can remember I was interested in sports—and my parents always encouraged me to pursue what interested me. I played little league baseball at a young age as a pitcher and center fielder. When I was eight, I joined my first pee-wee football team. We played at Hamlin Field in Akron, where my dad helped build the broadcast booth and set up all the speakers at the field. My thigh pads drooped down to my knees and my knee pads hit around my shins. My mom played the role of equipment manager as efficiently as she ran our house. She would buy us jeans and tell us to roll them up so in two years they’d fit. Same thing with football pants. She’d buy them large enough to account for my growth. “They’ll fit eventually,” she’d tell me.

  Football in that region of northeast Ohio was ingrained in the culture. So many great coaches came from the state of Ohio. Bo Schembechler was from nearby Baberton. Ara Parseghian was from Akron. Woody Hayes came from Clifton. Don Shula, Paul Brown, Don James, Chuck Noll. They were all from Ohio. We also had Bob Stoops, Les Miles, Urban Meyer, and Jim Harbaugh. The state had the Cleveland Browns and later the Cincinnati Bengals and eight Division I college teams. We loved our football in Ohio. In 1963, the Pro Football Hall of Fame opened in Canton, just 20 miles away from our house in Akron.

  I loved the sport, especially the team aspect and camaraderie that developed within the team. When we weren’t in pads playing on the field, we were in the backyards around our neighborhood playing football for hours and hours. I was usually the quarterback.

  I dabbled in other sports, including baseball and basketball. During one baseball season, I came home and told my mom I was going to quit. I was probably 11. She looked at me straight in the face and said, “You’re not quitting. You don’t start something and not finish. After the season if you don’t want to play next year, that’s okay. But quitting isn’t an option.” That was such a great lesson to learn.

  I played a little basketball, too, but I had to work so much during the school year that by the time I got to high school, football was my only sport.

  Every summer my dad would take me to a couple Cleveland Indians games. In the fall, we’d catch a few Cleveland Browns games. Some summers we’d make the 45-minute drive to Hiram College where the Browns held their training camp every year. One year, I’ll never forget. I must have been in middle school, and my dad and I were the only fans on the field after the Browns’ practice. Here comes Jim Brown, the legendary running back. We said hello and the great Jim Brown put his hand on my shoulder as he walked by. The Jim Brown! I knew all the players on the team. Milt Plum at quarterback, Gary Collins at wide receiver. I was touched with football fever, and my passion for the sport would grow with frequent father and son visits to Canton to visit the Hall of Fame. Years later I’d have another amazing experience at a Browns game that strengthened my love for the game.

  Back then, dads were the disciplinarians of the house and usually worked the long hours. The moms kept the house in order, though my dad always helped with the laundry and the ironing, which was probably unique for that generation. My dad and I were close, but during that era, feelings weren’t always communicated.

  But over time, something changed, and about five years before he died in 2010, my dad started telling me he loved me. On the phone he would say it. In person he’d say it. I’d pull the phone away from my ear and stare at it, like, “Where the heck is this coming from?” But it was a profound moment in my life to learn and feel my dad’s love.

  I tell my three kids I love them, much more so in the last 10 years, but back when I was a kid, I didn’t hear my dad say that out loud. Our relationship really developed later in his life, and that was important to me.

  My dad was never one to pat me on the back. He was happy for my success in football, but the sun didn’t rise and shine because I was a good player.

  In 1973, I played my final college football game at Kent State, a home game against Central Michigan. We won the game 28–7. Back at my apartment after the game, I was in my bedroom changing clothes when my dad walked into my room. He just wrapped his arms around me and sobbed and sobbed. This went on for five minutes. He said, “Thank you, Gary. I’m so proud of you. Just so proud of you.” I was blown away. He was never like that, but it was such a personal, touching moment for me. My mother and I had a very special relationship. She was about tough love. She was about preparing me for life after high school. She was demanding! She always held me accountable for my actions. Most importantly, she loved me and communicated that to me daily. I loved her so much. What a wond
erful mother I had.

  Years later, I recruited a quarterback out of Texas, Chase Daniel, who helped take our program to new heights at Missouri. In his bathroom and bedroom at his parents’ home in Southlake, Texas, he had all these positive sayings posted all over the walls. He saw those messages every day and it’s how he lived his life. My parents didn’t plaster their wisdom all over our home on Winston Street, but their virtues and lessons had the same result. They raised us a certain way, and we became the adults they helped shape.

  • • •

  When I was around the age of nine and when my older sister was about 12, she started having trouble walking. I wasn’t paying much attention at the time and really hadn’t noticed that my parents had become concerned. When my sister got to high school she wanted to join the cheerleading team but her body just wouldn’t cooperate. She didn’t have the coordination. When Kathy was 14, doctors diagnosed her with a rare neurological disorder. Her symptoms persisted and became progressively worse. As time went on she lost her ability to walk. But it never stifled her spirit. She fought so hard to get from place to place but never complained about her challenges.

  The more her condition deteriorated, the more protective I became. I was her guardian, at least in my eyes. People would stare at her when she struggled to walk and it would make my blood boil. I would stare people down when they looked at her. How dare you stare at my sister? She’s fighting like hell just to move her body. Don’t you dare stare at her. It made me angry.

  Nothing pissed me off more than when I saw people park in handicap spots who didn’t need it. Twice I almost fought someone over disrespecting the sign and the law. One time when I was in college I saw a guy park in a handicapped spot. No sticker, no tag, clearly no disability. He got out of his car. I approached him and said, “Hey, pal, move it.” He said, “I’m not moving it.”

  “My sister can’t walk,” I told him, firmly. “She could drive here and need that spot.” Other times I had to cool my temper when I saw such disrespect.

  Years later at Mizzou, I had a couple players park illegally in handicap spots. The word got out pretty quick among the players. It’s safe to say it didn’t happen again. All through my life I’ve felt an overwhelming compassion for people with disabilities.

  After high school Kathy enrolled at Kent State and later transferred to Wright State, a school in the suburbs of Dayton. At 19 she started using a cane in college. Later at Wright State, she moved to a wheelchair. She resisted for years and dreaded the day she had to use the chair. It was a small campus with just a few buildings, but they were connected by underground tunnels, which made it more conducive for wheelchairs. The wheelchair brought her great relief. Suddenly she was able to get around so much easier. In the tunnels, she could zip around from class to class with much less trouble than trying to walk through campus.

  At Wright State she met a guy, Greg Grinch. He was from Columbus and had gone to Ohio State out of high school but then enlisted in the Marines during the Vietnam War. After he served his tour of duty, he came back to Ohio and enrolled at Wright State. He got to know my sister and one day she asked him if he liked football. Of course he did. He was from Ohio. She invited him to my spring game at Kent State. It was their first date—the first of many. He is an incredible guy.

  • • •

  Just like Kathy, I attended Kenmore High School, the public school in our district. By then, football was my game. I had mostly played quarterback throughout pee-wee football, but around junior high I moved to receiver. Why? I could catch better than I could throw. That was about the extent of my skills.

  Our head coach was Dick Fortner, who a few years earlier had come from Stow High School in Akron where he won a championship and coached Larry Csonka, the future Hall of Fame fullback for the Miami Dolphins. But in 1963 he came to Kenmore, a program that hadn’t produced a winning record in more than a decade. His friends probably told him he was nuts for taking the job—just like my friends told me when I took the coaching job at Missouri.

  Coach Fortner was upfront and honest with his players. You could sense he genuinely cared about us. He was also demanding. But you could talk to him like an adult. He wasn’t a dictator. He was in his mid-30s when I got to Kenmore, so he was young enough that he could relate to his players but experienced enough that he earned our respect.

  My senior year, 1969, he pulled off one of the greatest coaching moves I’ve ever witnessed. We were getting ready to play Garfield High, our archrival. They were undefeated and loaded with talent. They had Larry Poole, a running back I’d later play with in college who’d play several years in the NFL; Dave Brown, who’d become an All-American cornerback at Michigan and play for two decades in the NFL; Renard and Bernard Harmon, twin brothers, both running backs, who’d also play at Kent State. That year, Garfield had 10 players on the All-City Team. We had two, myself and our quarterback, Eric Schoch. Earlier in the year, Garfield had trounced us 34–0. In nine regular-season games they allowed only 14 points—and scored 298.

  That fall, we recovered, made it into the playoffs, and clinched a spot in the city championship game, the Turkey Day Game, played every year on Thanksgiving morning at the Rubber Bowl in Akron. Garfield had kicked our butt the year before and earlier in the year. The combined score in those games was 76–6.

  But Coach Fortner knew our team. He believed in us, maybe when nobody else in the city of Akron had any faith we could win the game. He knew he had to do something to make us believe the same. That week before the game, he had all of us over to his house. He lived just outside of Akron. We come over for dinner and then he turned on his 16-millimeter projector. We started watching footage of our last game against Garfield. By the time we were done, every player in that room was convinced Garfield didn’t beat us. We lost the game because of our mistakes. We were a better team than we played that day—and the film didn’t lie. Coach Fortner was a genius when it came to motivation. He made us believe we could win. It wasn’t going to be about Xs and Os. It was all about confidence. My buddies and I walked out of there convinced we were going to win the game—because it wasn’t about Garfield. It was about us playing our best game. This was a lesson I learned and used in coaching for years to come. We didn’t have to worry about all their star players. This was about us, the Kenmore Cardinals. In the week leading up to the game, Coach Fortner put signs in storefront windows up and down Kenmore Boulevard that said, average players win the big game.

  He was right. We won 21–12. We were city champions, just like he made us believe.

  Seeing the impact Coach Fortner had on me and my teammates, I started thinking about my future. Being a high school football coach was tempting and might be fun. I didn’t put much thought into it at the time. But I would.

  • • •

  If I look back on my early years in football and try to trace the steps that led me to coaching, there was a pivotal moment that came a year before we won the championship at Kenmore. My dad took me to the 1968 NFL championship game in Cleveland. The Browns were playing the Colts, and the winner would go to the Super Bowl. It was a few days after Christmas, and my dad got tickets at the last minute. We made the drive to Cleveland and we were walking into the stadium early in the first quarter. A limousine pulls up outside Municipal Stadium and out steps this man wearing a big fur coat and Russian fur hat. I stopped dead in my tracks.

  “Dad, Dad, that’s Vince Lombardi.” I was in absolute awe. He had stepped down from coaching the Packers the previous season but still served as the team’s general manager. We’re standing right in front of him. Next thing I know, the great Vince Lombardi walks over and introduces himself. Vince Lombardi is talking to me? He puts his arm around my back and starts walking with us to the stadium gates. He asked if I played football. He asked me about my goals. I told him my dream was to play college football and maybe play in the NFL someday. He told me I had to do well in school before anythi
ng else. Then he patted me on the back and said, “Good luck, son.”

  Consciously, at the time, I wasn’t thinking about a coaching career that day just because I had met the greatest coach in the world. But that moment and Vince Lombardi’s words always resonated with me. To reflect back on that day, and think that down the road I’d get into coaching and have some success, man, it’s pretty cool.

  • • •

  I played well enough my junior and senior years that college recruiters started to pay attention. All the Mid-American Conference schools were interested in me. I visited Miami (Ohio) and thought about playing there. Iowa State out of the Big Eight wanted to sign me. I talked to Michigan and Ohio State, too, but I wasn’t really on their radar—and probably rightfully so. I knew I could play at the next level, but I didn’t necessarily have the elite size and speed those schools wanted for a receiver.

  My decision came down to Miami and Kent State. Both schools offered me a full scholarship. Miami, in Oxford, Ohio, was about three and a half hours away. Kent was 20 miles from my house, just a short trip on Highway 76.

  I didn’t have that urge to go to school far away. When I was a kid, I was always a homebody. When I’d be out playing with my buddies until 11 at night, they’d stay up and sleep outside in a tent. I’d go home and sleep in my bed. I liked the comfort of home. That held true throughout my coaching career.

  Bo Schembechler had just left Miami to take over at Michigan, and the new Miami coach was Bill Mallory. Kent had me concerned because the team hadn’t been winning a lot. But they had a fairly new coach, too, in Dave Puddington. In the end, I accepted the scholarship offer from Kent.