by Gary Pinkel
On my last day in Washington, I decided I had to visit Coach James’ office one last time. I thanked him for all he’d done for me. We hugged. I wasn’t sure what he’d have to say. Maybe, “Good luck.” Maybe he’d have a list of things for me to remember when I’m running my own program. But he didn’t say anything. I walked out of the office…and then slowly walked back in. I wanted him to say something.
“Do you have any advice for me?”
He sure did.
“Gary,” he said, “when things get tough, and they’re going to get tough in this business, you focus on your job. You focus on that day, hour by hour. Then you go to bed, wake up all over again, you focus on your job and don’t let anything else get to you. I’ve seen it happen to others. This job can chew you up.”
Okay, Coach. I walked out of there unsure of what to think. Little did I know it was probably the most profound coaching advice anyone ever gave me. Countless times that advice helped me remain focused on my job, attend to what’s most important, and get through the day better than the day before.
• • •
When I became a head coach, I knew exactly what I was going to do. I played for a meticulously organized and disciplined program at Kent State. I worked in the same program at Washington. What we did at those schools was going to work at Toledo.
Nick Saban and I only occasionally talked socially, but we’d always visit at the annual coaching convention and catch up other times throughout the year. I have such respect for Nick. He was so sharp and genuine and sincere with his players. On the outside you’d see this serious, tough, bad-ass-looking guy, but he could relate to players on a personal level. He cared about them—and still does.
But my new staff at Toledo was used to doing things under Nick. I wanted to run things differently. There were some good coaches on the staff I inherited. Greg Meyer was the offensive coordinator and he’d later serve the same role under Gary Barnett in their historic turnaround at Northwestern. Phil Parker coached our defensive backs and he’d go on to have great success as Iowa’s defensive coordinator. Dean Pees coached the defensive line and would have a long career in the NFL. Tom Amstutz, a Toledo lifer who grew up in the town and played for the Rockets, stayed on and later became our defensive coordinator.
About a month after I settled into the job, Nick had all of his old staff over to his house in Toledo and he invited Vicki and me, too. At one point, everyone cleared out of the kitchen and it was just Nick and me. He had to get something off his chest. “Gary,” he said, “why have you changed so much stuff at Toledo? I had everything so organized.” I told him, “Nick, I’m going to do it my way. You did it your way. I’m doing it my way.” We got into a slight argument—until finally, Miss Terry, Nick’s wife, came into the kitchen to break things up. “What are you guys doing in here?” Then we both smiled and moved on to another conversation.
I held firm. This wasn’t going to be a democracy. I didn’t survey each coach and ask them how they wanted to manage the program. There was none of that. This is how our organization is going to run. It’s going to be done my way on a daily basis. It’s all about the process and the program. There was a method to the success we were having at Washington. We never beat USC or UCLA for recruits. It just didn’t happen. But we were getting players drafted that weren’t even being considered by the L.A. schools. Our approach worked. We looked for size, strength, and speed potential guys. We wanted athletes. Through our player development program we could turn them into good players. We’d do the same thing at Toledo.
Nick was influenced by Coach James, but he worked for other coaches, too, including Earle Bruce at Ohio State and George Perles at Michigan State. I always go back to that conversation Nick and I had back in graduate school. He told me, “You have to find a good horse and ride it.” Well, I did.
I got the Toledo job right before spring break. They had just tied for a championship, so things were going pretty well. But I was still the third head coach in three years, and for any organization, that’s a sign that there will be dysfunction. I wanted to hit the ground running. I wanted my coaches working 10-hour days every day until we had everything installed. But that just wasn’t going to work. These assistant coaches needed some time off. They had just finished the 1990 season and recruiting. We met individually and I told each one that I’d keep them for one season for sure. I was very demanding. They probably thought I was a pain in the ass, but I wanted things done my way—so it would become our way. And I refused to deviate from that way. But I tried to be fair and consistent, just like Coach James. I wanted these coaches to always know where they stood. A few guys left on their own. They could probably sense I wanted to make changes.
My first week on the job, I worked 18 hours a day while everyone was on vacation. I’d be there at eight in the morning and work until 2 am. I was working on pure adrenaline. I was just so excited about this opportunity. It wasn’t like I had all these decisions to make about how I’d run the program. I had a plan.
My first weekend in Toledo, a few buddies from Akron came up to welcome me back to Ohio and pull me away from the office. I was exhausted and slept until two in the afternoon that weekend. I needed some rest. I wouldn’t get much more.
• • •
Frank Lauterbur, Toledo’s head coach during the team’s glory years, lived in town and wanted to stay engaged in the program. He led Toledo to consecutive unbeaten seasons in 1969 and 1970 then went to coach at Iowa and later in the NFL as an assistant. He moved back to Toledo after he retired from coaching, and I embraced him and encouraged him to be around our coaches and players. Right before our first spring practice of 1991, I was freakin’ wired. It was my first practice as a head coach and I was ready to run through a wall. Coach Lauterbur walked into my office that morning and said, “You know, Gary, I love spring ball because there’s no pressure.” What? No pressure? Are you kidding me, Coach? Years later, I told him he was crazy for saying that.
I was about ready to explode with all my plans and all the things I knew we needed to get done. That’s how I handled that entire first season. You never know what it feels like to be a head coach until you’re bunkered down in the job. I believed in what I was doing, but I wasn’t surrounded by people I knew well or had coached alongside in the past. I made it clear after that first practice how we were going to do things differently. Those coaches looked at me like I was crazy. But I made it very clear to them, “I’m not criticizing you guys out of anger or disrespect, but we’re going to coach a certain way here.” You have to do it within your personality, and we were going to develop certain practice habits that would make Toledo a better program.
We talked for almost an hour in the kind of staff meeting that would normally take about five minutes. I was bound and determined that we would do everything exactly how I wanted it done. We weren’t taking any votes.
We opened my first season with two wins, a loss, and a tie, followed by a trip to Washington and Husky Stadium. The Huskies were ranked No. 3. Coach James’ team was loaded. A national championship was not out of the question. Mark Brunell had blown out his knee during spring practices and Billy Joe Hobert had taken over as the starter. As the bus pulled into a place filled with great memories from my time there, my focus was on my Toledo team. The first half was grueling. The Huskies controlled the game. In the second half, Coach James signaled the quarterbacks to let the clock run down to one second on the play clock every single snap. He wanted to get that game over as quickly as possible. A couple times I remember Brunell looking over to our sideline and not smiling but just nodding to me, like he was saying, “We’re taking care of you here, Coach.” Washington would go on to win the national championship. We barely got in their way. The final score was 48–0. Our offense never even entered the red zone.
At the time, my players at Toledo didn’t know me that well because I was so rigid and still trying to find my identity as a
head coach. I was probably trying too hard to act like Don James. I wanted to run his program, but I wasn’t doing it in my own skin. After the game, my focus was getting to Coach James to shake his hand and congratulate him on the win, but it took about five minutes because all the Washington players swarmed around me on the field. I never really got a chance to tell those players good-bye because I left so abruptly. But they were so kind after the game. Steve Emtman, Lincoln Kennedy, Billy Joe, Mark Brunell—so many guys came up and shook my hand and gave me a hug on the field.
Not until years later had I watched that moment on video. It was an awkward scene. My Toledo players witnessed the Husky players embrace me and must have thought, “Okay, this guy must know what he’s doing. Maybe he’s not all that bad.” They saw that player-coach reception and maybe that gave me some credibility in their eyes. Coach James was brief after the game. That’s just how he was. We talked for a few seconds and we went our separate ways.
We finished the season 5–5–1. Washington went undefeated, won the Rose Bowl, and finished first in the coaches poll, giving the Huskies a share of the national championship with AP poll champ Miami. I was thrilled for Coach James and all those players I had recruited and coached. Back in Toledo, I had problems to solve, starting with my staff.
Five of the nine assistants I inherited from Nick’s staff coached only that first season under me. I was demanding with my staff but always in a respectful way. I was never a screamer or name-caller. I never wanted to create uncomfortable situations. But a couple coaches retired or left the staff.
For the 1992 season, I brought in Mike Dunbar as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. He had been a successful head coach at Central Washington and understood the culture I was trying to build. He’d occasionally brought his Central Washington staff to Seattle and traded notes with the Washington coaches, so he had an understanding of the program I was trying to build at Toledo. Maybe most important, he knew how I coached quarterbacks. Dave Christensen joined the staff that year as offensive line coach. He played for Coach James at Washington and worked under him as a grad assistant. When Dave walked in the door he knew what I was doing because of his experience with Coach James’ program. I didn’t have to train him. I added Dave Steckel from Lehigh to help with the defense. Matt Eberflus, a Toledo player my first year as coach, joined the staff as a defensive assistant. He was a bright, young guy who grew up in Toledo. He was really sharp. He reminded me of myself when I was a young coach. He believed in what we were doing with the program. If you played for me or worked as a grad assistant, you had an idea of what we were trying to build. Craig Kuligowski, another former Toledo player under Saban, came on to coach on offense and later took over the defensive line. Cornell Ford and Brian Jones joined us from smaller schools. Later, I’d add Bruce Walker and David Yost, both offensive assistants.
Yost came to us as a grad assistant on the defensive side. In 1997, Dunbar left for the head-coaching job at Northern Iowa, so I promoted Christensen to coordinator—but I needed a quarterbacks coach. I interviewed a bunch of candidates but didn’t like any of them. I needed to have a gut feeling on a coach before I’d hire him. Mike told me, “Gary, you need to interview Yost because if you don’t promote him I’m hiring him at Northern Iowa.” That really grabbed my attention. So I brought in Yost and asked him some questions about the job. After about 30 minutes, it was obvious. He had what I was looking for. I could train him for the job, and I had that gut feeling that he could handle it. You’re only as good as your staff, and handing Yost the quarterbacks was our best move. He didn’t play college football—he went to Kent State, my alma mater, and joined the team briefly as a walk-on long snapper—but playing experience didn’t matter to me when it came to hiring coaches.
By then the bulk of my staff would be the core that followed me from Toledo to Missouri, and some of them coached with me for 20 years or more. That kind of staff continuity is incredibly rare in college football today.
They were very loyal to me. In almost every case when an assistant left my staff he was advancing his career and went to a better job. The staff is so critically important. We’ve all got to be singing the same lyrics to the same song. It has to be how Toledo runs its program, not how Gary Pinkel runs the program. There is nothing worse than having staff dissension. That happened a few times over the years, and one thing I learned from Coach James is you have to address those problems immediately. They don’t take care of themselves.
In our second season at Toledo we had a landmark win over Purdue, Toledo’s first ever win against a Big Ten team. We went 8–3 and finished strong with five straight wins. The MAC still only had one bowl partnership back then, so unless you won the conference, which we didn’t in 1992, you stayed home for bowl season.
• • •
In August 1993 we were preparing for our third season at Toledo when I got a phone call from Seattle. Coach James had announced his resignation. I was shocked, crushed, and, more than anything, angry.
The Pac-10 Conference had just punished Washington for NCAA violations by Husky players, including a two-year postseason ban. Billy Joe Hobert, the team’s quarterback, had accepted a loan from a booster that the university never knew about, especially the coaches. The league also barred Washington from earning TV revenue, restricted scholarships, and put the program on probation for two years. Washington had cooperated with the investigation, but the school believed the sanctions were too excessive. Coach James was so disgusted with the penalties that he resigned. He stepped down with more wins than any coach in conference history.
I was sitting in my office when I got the call that he had resigned. I started crying. I couldn’t believe it. This was a man of high integrity. I didn’t think it was right the way the program was getting criticized. It was a very sad situation. I called him and could barely talk. He just said, “This is the right thing to do. I feel very good about it.” He also got to save all his assistants’ jobs. The school promoted defensive coordinator Jim Lambright to head coach.
I was very angry. The players were angry. Everyone was angry at how it was handled. But it’s a classic example that life doesn’t always go your way.
I got my doctorate in coaching from Don James. I watched everything he did. How he talked to the team and to his coaches, how he responded to everything that happened, good and bad. Fortunately, Coach James’ reputation wasn’t smeared by the sanctions. That was always my biggest concern. I didn’t want this to impact his legacy.
When I was still a young coach at Washington, Coach James took us to the annual coaches convention one winter and invited me to sit with a group of his coaching friends. Lavell Edwards from BYU, Bobby Bowden from Florida State, Joe Paterno from Penn State, Michigan’s Bo Schembechler. Are you kidding me? How am I sitting at this table? That day Coach James introduced me to the game’s greatest coaches. That moment symbolized what he did for me and my career over time. I owed him so much.
• • •
Back in Toledo, we slipped to 4–7 in 1993. The last thing you want to happen after you taste some success is to take a step backward. Internally, things weren’t going well within the team. Our players hadn’t fully invested in the program. We had a good young running back in Wasean Tait, but we turned over the ball too much.
Around this time I was out to lunch with a close friend, Pat Gucciardo, who played at Kent State a few years before me and was the longtime successful coach at Whitmer High School in Toledo. We were clearly struggling at Toledo. I was not handling those struggles well.
I joked during lunch that I was going to eat as much grease as I could so that I would die of a heart attack. That’s how stressful this job had become. Pat heard me say this and he leaned over, real seriously. “I know you don’t want to make any changes, Gary, but I think it’s time.”
No way. Not me. “Gooch,” I told him, “I am never going to change. Never. I’ve seen this program wo
rk. I am not going to change.”
To this day Pat calls it “the defining moment.” And it really was. A lot of coaches in that situation would have blown up what they were doing and started changing things. I wasn’t going to change. The structure, the schedule, the discipline—it all worked. It worked when I was a player at Kent State. It worked when I was an assistant at Washington. I was going to make it work at Toledo.
Pat knew I was stubborn. He kept pressing. “Maybe you need to look at things here and ask yourself if you’re doing it the right way.”
I hit my hand on the table and yelled at him, “I’m not going to change!”
Pat cared about me. This was serious. He knew I was distraught over the struggles we were having to win games. He knew how intense I was every second of my life. But if I was going down, I was going down my way.
We recovered with a six-win season in 1994, but we were giving up too many points and losing games we should have won. We struggled to win close games. Coach James rarely called me to give advice, but that next summer he made an exception. He thought I was coaching too conservatively. “Sometimes you need to make some calls on game day in order to win,” he told me. “You’re coaching not to lose.”
In 1995, I was a little more aggressive with game-day decisions and we won a lot. Our only blemish during the regular season was a 28–28 tie at Miami. That year we didn’t have to worry about many close games, at least during the regular season. With a loaded offense, eight of our first 10 wins came by double digits.
Coach James’ advice came in handy when we played Eastern Michigan later that year. They spotted us a 21–0 lead, but Charlie Batch drove them back and got them within a touchdown in the fourth quarter. We faced a fourth down deep in Eastern Michigan’s territory. I got the punt team ready. There were about two minutes left. Then I vividly remembered Coach James saying I had to start coaching to win. The safe play was punt and play defense, but I didn’t think our defense was sound enough to rely on that strategy. I called off the punt team, put the offense back on the field, and we converted the first down. Charlie Batch never touched the field again.