Do You Love Football?! (9 page)

We just coached Jim the same way that Walt Harris coached Jeff Francis, and like Jeff, Jim bought into what we were teaching him. We graded every play in practice. We yelled and screamed at him. We worked with him on fundamentals and techniques. We gave him tip sheets. We taught him how to recognize fronts and read coverages, how to break down the strengths and weaknesses of a play, how to limit wasted plays with an audible or two. We schooled him up.

I liked the kid because he was smart, and I could see that he could transfer what he saw on the board to the field. He had some talent. He had a good, accurate arm, and he was tough.

He just needed to have some success at that period in his life, and we had some patterns I thought just fit him-some disciplined routes, along with some good protection where he could set up and throw the ball.

The highlight of that season was when Murray State, a Division I-AA school from Kentucky, came into Cape Girardeau looking to do some damage to our little Division II program.

We were playing out of our league, just filling out their schedule. They had nice, new buses to travel on. They had scholarship players. They had Michael Proctor, a big stallion quarterback who would go on to play in the World League and even spend some time in NFL camps. With the score tied at 13-13 late in the game, Jim led us on a two-minute drive deep into Murray State territory. I was in the press box, on the headset with Phil, who called the plays from the sidelines. Anticipating a blitz and wanting to avoid a sack, I suggested 64 Stubs, an old reliable from Tennessee that called for full protection and a short high-percentage throw to our tight end, Rick Aeilts. Phil called the play, Jim made the throw, Rick caught the ball and, after a chip-shot field goal, we had a stunning 16-13 victory.

It was a terrific sense of accomplishment. You hate to compare anything to winning the Super Bowl, but given the joy that all of us involved with that team felt at that moment it might as well have been. The thrill of victory is all relative.

As a coach I felt I was on schedule, but I also realized that there had to be more things I could bring to Jim Eustice's game. I still didn't know enough. I knew what we had done at Tennessee the previous year, but I kept hearing that Tennessee was doing more things that season and I was missing out on them. That pissed me off.

I would see the Volunteers play on TV and I wouldn't recognize a particular motion or formation. I was still teaching 64 Stay Meyer and 64 Stubs and 64 Oscar and 256 Z Shack and Waggle Right Z Wheel. Yet I didn't see Tennessee running those plays anymore. I saw them growing into a new arena and I wasn't a part of it.

After our season ended Tennessee was playing at Vanderbilt, which was close enough for me to take a drive to see Walt Harris. Once again Walt had me sitting in the press box, helping him just as I had the previous two years. It felt comfortable. It felt right. It felt like I had been reconnected with my past while also plugging into the future. When Walt became head coach at the University of the Pacific in 1989, he saw to it that we could resume working together by offering me a job on his staff.

"You're going to be my tight ends coach, Jon," Walt said.

"Tight ends coach?"

"Yep. It's time for you to learn offensive line play. And the best way for you to do that is to become a tight ends coach." I was crushed.

"But I want to be the quarterbacks coach, Walt," I said.

"I'm going to coach the quarterbacks, Jon. I need you to coach the tight ends and learn offensive line play."

I knew I had to take the job, because it was a chance to once again work with and learn from one of the greatest coaches around. You just don't pass up an opportunity like that. I also was getting a pay increase from $15,000 to $28,000 per year, and the chance to move from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to Stockton, California. But all I kept thinking was, This will not look good on my résumé. All my training was to be a quarterbacks coach. My dad told me to be a quarterbacks coach. The quarterback I had just coached at Southwest Missouri State played well. And what do I have to show for it? A job coaching tight ends.

Things would only get worse from there. We got our asses kicked that year. We were everybody's homecoming game. We opened up at Pittsburgh, at Arizona, at Auburn, and got crushed in all three games. We were bad. We finished 2-10, making it the worst team I was ever on, record-wise. Pacific, which has since dropped football, was a smaller Division I school, usually playing out of its league competitively. Opponents like Fresno State and San Jose State always had much better players.

The following spring Walt decided to switch from an offense that did a little bit of everything to the run-and-shoot, which was in its heyday at that time. He also switched me to receivers coach, which was fortunate because the tight end is nonexistent in the run-and-shoot. It's wide-open passing, with four or five receivers running routes every play.

Mouse Davis, who was the offensive coordinator of the Detroit Lions, was the leading run-and-shoot expert at the time, and Walt brought him in-along with some assistant coaches at the University of Houston-to speak to us about the finer points of the scheme. It was unlike anything I had ever learned about offensive football, but I understood why we had to do that at Pacific. We couldn't recruit the big-time, feature-horse tailback.

We couldn't recruit the big, classic offensive linemen who could come off the ball and thump people. They were going to go to the University of California or Stanford, one of the major programs. California did, however, have a lot of receivers we knew would love to play in a wide-open passing offense. It had a lot of quarterbacks, too. The junior colleges were loaded with guys who could throw and catch the ball, so Walt made the decision to go to the run-and-shoot to allow us to be more competitive.

In theory it was a very exciting offense because the receivers had so much freedom to run the route off the look of the coverage. If you had an out route, it might convert to something else based on the coverage look or how it was played. I was interested in the run-and-shoot, but at the same time I was very concerned about our involvement with it as coaches because the coaches who were using it at that time had their own little clique. Besides Mouse Davis you had June Jones, who, before bringing it to the Atlanta Falcons when he became their head coach in 1994, had coached it as an assistant with the Houston Oilers, and with Davis and John Jenkins when the three were on the staff of the Houston Gamblers of the United States Football League before that.

Walt Harris brought me up in this business. I had studied under him. I also was very aware that the run-and-shoot was catching the football world by storm. It was a great offense, but philosophically I just didn't want to go that route. Walt's decision to switch to it was the right thing to do for that program at that time. But I had my own thoughts on what was the right offense to be associated with, and it wasn't the run-and-shoot, which carried a label that a lot of people coaching in the NFL weren't ready to embrace. I was still on that mission to be connected with Mike Holmgren and learn everything I could about the "West Coast" offense, which I felt was the best in football and the only one for me.

SIX

Finding Harvard in San Francisco
Soaking Up Success and Brainpower with the 49ers

ONE DAY IN THE SPRING of 1990, the phone rang in Walt Harris's office. It was Mike Holmgren, offensive coordinator of the defending world-champion San Francisco 49ers. Mike was looking to interview me for a position that wasn't even in existence on the 49ers' coaching staff. He wanted a young guy to come in to help him, just be another set of eyes for him, and perform some general coaching/administrative duties, whatever he decided they would be. Although it didn't really have a title beyond "coaches' aide," the job Mike was describing was that of a quality control coach, which few, if any, NFL teams had at the time. He was kind of a pioneer in that respect.

Mike wanted to eliminate some of what he thought was wasted motion when he was in the office. Instead of drawing plays by hand, cutting them out, mounting them on paper, and Xeroxing them off for his players, he wanted to just hand a list of plays to someone, have that person draw them on a computer, and print them out to distribute to the team. That would free up Mike to spend more time studying videotape, coming up with new plays, and just going about his day-to-day chores with greater efficiency.

I didn't really care what I had to do, just as long as I was the one doing it. Every young football coach in America wanted to get in front of Mike Holmgren and have a chance to work for him. He was the hottest offensive coordinator in the business at the time. With George Seifert as head coach, the 49ers had just beaten Denver 55-10 in the Super Bowl. Their "West Coast" offense was in full rhythm. They were exploding on your ass, man.

I should point out that, while I might not have necessarily been counting on it, the call didn't come entirely out of the blue.

A few years earlier my dad-after five seasons as director of player personnel and running backs coach with the Bucs-had become a 49ers scout, responsible for the southeast region of the country. Whenever the opportunity presented itself, he would tell Mike about my strong aspirations to join the San Francisco staff so that I could learn the 49er offensive system. He also told him I would be a loyal, hardworking guy who wouldn't overstep any bounds at all. I realize my dad wasn't exactly objective-and I'm sure Mike understood that, too-but every little bit helps.

A second voice that kept putting my name in Mike's ear belonged to Dave Razzano, whose father, the late Tony Razzano, was the legendary head of the 49ers' scouting department from 1979 to 1991. Dave, who was an up and coming scout for the 49ers, had called me one day to say that he had heard of Mike's interest in hiring an assistant who would be willing to do a little bit of everything.

"He's not going to pay much money," Dave warned me.

"I will come there for nothing," I said. "Tell Coach Holmgren I'll pay him to take the job."

I was serious about that. After the interview I sat on pins and needles for two or three weeks, waiting for Mike to call. One day, sure as hell, the phone rang. It was the call I was waiting for my whole life up to that point.

"You've got the job," Mike said.

At the time it was my biggest break. I saw it as the beginning of learning relentlessly for the next four or five years in an offensive system that I truly believe is the best that I've ever seen.

I immediately called my dad. He was happy for me, but he also gave me the following advice: "Just work your ass off, but don't let your ambition get in the way of the respect for what these people have done-what you have not been a part of.

Don't be offended if you're not invited to do certain things. It isn't personal; it's just the way it is. Remember that you're a fly on the wall. Watch. Learn. But don't irritate them or they'll swat you with one of those little fly swatters, and you'll be dead."

I didn't lose sight of the fact that I wasn't just representing myself with the 49ers. I was representing my dad as well. By recommending me as strongly as he did, he had put his reputation on the line with a team that had employed him for three years up to that point. I knew he trusted me and was confident I wasn't going to do anything to embarrass him or myself.

Walt tried to talk me into staying at Pacific. He wanted me to be part of the vast improvement he knew that the run-and-shoot would bring to the program at that time. And, by God, eventually it did. That fall, Pacific would have some unbelievable offensive output and even set some NCAA records, but deep down I think Walt knew I had to jump on this offer. The 49ers were always Walt's vision of the perfect offense. From day one at Tennessee, he would do anything he could to get his hands on 49er film. He also had advised me more than once to do whatever I could do to go to San Francisco.

But I could never forget all that Walt has done for me. He is the one who got me started. He is the one who showed me the benefits of hard work and how to maximize my productivity.

He is the one who taught me how to study football, that it isn't just a matter of sitting in a room and looking at tape. He taught me that you have to watch situational football-red zone, goal line, short yardage-and that there are certain teams you have to look at and why you're looking at them. He taught me how to research opponents, how to put together game plans, how to be thorough, how to coach a young quarterback. If I had a chance to just ?oat down a river in a boat and talk about football and talk about life, he'd be the guy I would call.

At Pacific I was making $28,000 a year. I had free use of a new car from a local dealership. I had a nice little apartment in Stockton. How much did I want to work for the 49ers? I accepted a salary of $800 a month, about a third of what I was making at Pacific, with no contract. I bought a small, unfurnished efficiency apartment. I didn't have a car, so I rode my bike to work. When I worked late (which was most of the time), rather than try to make the long bike ride home in the dark, I would just sleep at the team's training facility and office complex. Not that that was a horrible experience or anything.

Team owner Eddie DeBartolo, Jr., spared no expense in building the Marie P. DeBartolo Sports Centre, named in honor of his mother. The place was like the Taj Mahal. It was a two-story, 52,000-square-foot building that sat on eleven acres. It had a state-of-the-art fitness room, a thirty-foot-by-forty-foot hydrotherapy indoor swimming pool, racquetball courts, a whole bunch of meeting rooms, and all other amenities to make for the most comfortable and productive work environment for players, coaches, staff and media. I'd sleep in a room adjacent to the giant office of Eddie DeBartolo, Jr. It had a refrigerator, a TV and a nice, comfortable couch. He was fine with that, and the best part was I didn't have to make the bed in the morning.

The 49ers' image was just stunning. They were on the cutting edge in every phase of football. Everything they did wasn't first class; it was above that. They had great coaches and players. They had Joe Montana at quarterback, Steve Young at backup quarterback. They had Jerry Rice in his prime, when he was really heating it up, when that fastball was two hundred miles an hour. They had John Taylor, Roger Craig, Tom Rathman, Brent Jones. They had guys who understood the system and who knew the responsibility they had to dominate. They were coming off back-to-back Super Bowls, and Eddie DeBartolo was going to make sure they had every reason to win the next one-the best coaches, the best players, the best facilities, along with the right kind of morale and chemistry to produce a winning attitude.