Quiet Strength (13 page)

At first glance, Herm and I seem to be almost polar opposites. He is emotional and talkative, while I’m more analytical and reserved. But he was exactly the type of guy that I wanted for that staff. I wanted teachers more than tacticians, smart coaches who were driven to accomplish our goals and could get those goals across. I also wanted coaches like Herm who would encourage players to maximize their talents. This was a group of players that was going to require a great deal of quality instruction and encouragement. While I was in Pittsburgh observing Coach Noll, I had learned that you need all types of personalities on a staff. The last thing I should do was surround myself with fifteen clones of me. Herm certainly met that requirement.

At the core, however, Herm and I are actually very much alike. We’re both old-school types. We came into the league in the same way—as undrafted free agents. We learned to focus on fundamentals and making sure things are done the right way. Herm is a mentally tough guy whose father was in the military. In addition, he is expressive, animated, and a great motivator. Most important, he has the same personal values that I have. I knew he would be a perfect complement to my coaching style. He would also help me turn around the mind-set of our team; he had done it before. The Eagles had been struggling when Herm began playing for them, but over time, they became winners. That’s what we had to do in Tampa—change a culture, in a team and in a city, that had been losing for a long time.

But no matter what I did to persuade him, Herm wasn’t ready to leave Kansas City. I interviewed other guys and tried to keep an open mind. None was quite the right fit. In the meantime, I continued to build the rest of my staff.

Monte Kiffin and I had been on the Vikings defensive staff together during my first three seasons in Minnesota. Monte had left in 1995 to become defensive coordinator for the New Orleans Saints. Jim Mora, the head coach of the Saints at the time, got along well with Monte, and Monte’s defense had performed very well. I interviewed Jim Haslett, whom Monte had tutored in New Orleans, but Jim didn’t want to leave New Orleans for family reasons. When Jim Haslett decided to stay, Jim Mora gave me permission to hire Monte as my defensive coordinator. I still don’t know how that happened.

Shortly thereafter, Joe Marciano, also of New Orleans contacted me. I knew Joe from my time in Kansas City and Minnesota, when we had practiced against New Orleans during training camp. I had seen firsthand how good Joe was at coaching special teams. I told Joe, however, that I was sure Jim Mora wouldn’t let him leave, especially since he had just given up Monte. Joe said that Jim would let him go if he could find a suitable replacement. He asked me to hold the position open for him, and I did.

Clyde Christensen, Charlie Williams, Tony Nathan, Chris Foerster, and Ricky Porter made up the offensive staff. I hired Mike Shula as my offensive coordinator because Mike’s offense in Chicago had always given us trouble in Minnesota. Although we were going to build up the defense first, I knew Mike would have the patience to lead the offense as we built it.

Other than Monte, I had to work a little harder to find coaches to fit our defensive scheme. I felt a little like Coach Noll, who never wanted to bring in players or coaches from other organizations because he didn’t want to have to overcome a prior way of doing things. He wanted everyone to immediately buy into the Steelers way, and he didn’t want any other influences to trickle in. That’s why, when he traded me to San Francisco, he didn’t trade for a player but rather for a draft pick. I knew exactly what I wanted to do on defense, and Monte was the perfect person to do it. I didn’t want other coaches to bring in other philosophies. I needed people who would teach what Monte wanted done.

I hired my staff with a few basic thoughts in mind. First, they had to be men of character and integrity. While I admire Christian faith, that was not a prerequisite. Integrity, however, is paramount with me. Second, they had to be good teachers; otherwise I wouldn’t consider them. I wanted men alongside me who recognized that as coaches and teachers—just like as parents—we are entrusted with the lives of others. We are responsible to help mold them into all they were created to be—as football players, teammates, role models, and productive members of society. Third, I was looking to create opportunities for African Americans who weren’t already in the
NFL
. Finally, I was hoping for guys who would make a long-term commitment to the Bucs.

The Buccaneers had become a way station for coaches. A coach would land in Tampa when he was looking for a job, then leave for a “better job” whenever a position became available. We needed Tampa to
become
that better job. I wanted the Buccaneers to become a place where coaches—and players—aspired to be.

Not everyone I contacted wanted to come. I spoke with Ron Brown, the receivers coach at the University of Nebraska, about joining us in Tampa. I had known Ron for years and thought he would be a perfect fit in light of his character and his coaching style and teaching philosophy. Ron asked me to give him a week to pray about my offer.

“What? Ron, I’ve got to put together a staff. I don’t know if I can wait that long.”

Ron was adamant, and I agreed to wait for him. We were both glad that he took his time. A week later, he called me back to decline. He said he would love to coach in the
NFL
and be a part of what we were creating in Tampa, but he believed the Lord wanted him to stay at Nebraska, where he was involved with a number of outreach opportunities.

“I know He’ll find somebody else to do His work if I go, but I really believe this is where I’m supposed to be right now.” Of course, I respected Ron’s decision and how he came to it.

Several of our college scouts recommended that I speak with Lovie Smith, the defensive backs coach from Ohio State. At the same time, they were also suggesting Rod Marinelli, the defensive line coach at Southern Cal. I had never met either one, but after interviewing them, I knew they would both be a perfect fit. I hired them both. All the qualities I was looking for—strong character, mental toughness, strength, passion, and a commitment to teaching fundamentals—were true of both Lovie and Rod.

Joe Marciano called again, asking me to continue holding the special teams job. I kept the promise intact. I wouldn’t fill it—yet—but time was becoming a factor.

Herm was still not interested in coming to Tampa. To this day, I have a written phone message from Herm that reminds me of the complete lack of urgency he felt to leave Kansas City to join me in Tampa: “Herm Edwards. Says he’ll be at home in California.”

Monte, Rod, and Lovie were all on board at One Buc and ready to get to work. I didn’t let them meet as a staff for the first month, though, because we still didn’t have a defensive backs coach, and I wanted the defensive staff to be complete before they started meeting together. Rich McKay started coming by a little more frequently, with an increasing sense of urgency about the status of my staff. In the
NFL
, there’s a tremendous amount of pressure to hire a staff quickly. The concern is that the longer you wait, the greater the chance that the best coaches will be under contract somewhere else. I was bound and determined to have the right staff, but I wasn’t pleased with the delay either.

After this went on for a month, I knew I had to push Herm. I played my last card by appealing to the one thing I knew would get him—his passion. I told Herm that this was what we had always talked about, starting with a clean slate and doing it our way. This was our chance. Our chance to show the
NFL
how to win.

Herm remembers it differently. He claims that I finally called and said, “You owe me.”

Either way, he came. What he may have owed me I’m not sure, but I’m glad one of those approaches worked. Herm became my assistant head coach and defensive backs coach. He also became our resident bad cop, a role I think he enjoyed.

Finally Joe Marciano called back. He had lined up a suitable replacement for himself in New Orleans, and Jim Mora had agreed to let him come to Tampa. I couldn’t believe it, but it was worth the wait. In fact, the whole situation was remarkable. Two coordinators, Monte and Joe, had been under contract to the same club, which allowed both of them to make lateral moves (not promotions) to the same opposing club in the same conference. I’ve never heard of another such thing, before or since.

Looking back, I truly believe the Lord brought that staff together. Since that time, all those guys have gone on to do some terrific things in the
NFL
and elsewhere. People have given me far too much credit for their success. There is no other way to explain the way this staff came together except to say that God orchestrated the process.

Herm had been one of the final pieces of the staffing puzzle for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. To celebrate his arrival, we went to lunch. Herm swears it was Miami Subs—and he’s still miffed that he had to pay. He says I’m cheap.

I’m not really cheap, although I did learn the value of a dollar from my dad. Once, when he was shopping for a television, my dad must have driven to every electronics store in Jackson, East Lansing, Ann Arbor, and Detroit. I finally pointed out that the twenty dollars he was going to save by his comparison shopping was more than consumed by the value of his time and the gas he used shuttling around southern Michigan. My words fell on deaf ears. And that wasn’t the only time he did that. Although we had cars that were new to our family, they were never truly new, always used. I think because my dad grew up during the Depression, he was conscious of carefully stewarding his resources. My dad did not waste anything, including money. Therefore, he was careful not to waste the things with which he had been entrusted.

As for me, I’m fairly frugal, just like my dad.

The fact that Herm ended up buying his own lunch at Miami Subs on his first day as the Bucs assistant head coach was simply because the establishment that he picked was cash only, and I usually didn’t carry cash. We ordered, and when I stepped to the counter to pay, I realized that I couldn’t use my credit card. I began feeling my pockets, even though I knew I wouldn’t find any cash in them. Herm had to pay for his own lunch.

And my lunch too. He’s never let me forget it.

Despite my excitement at being head coach of the Bucs, the team’s headquarters at One Buccaneer Place quickly brought me back down to earth. For the first two or three days, One Buc looked great to me because I was so excited to be a head coach. But after a couple of days, when I started really looking around and trying to figure out where I would put coaches and hold meetings—well, it was a letdown. In the words of Bucs defensive tackle Warren Sapp, One Buc was “its own third-world country.”

One Buc was a low, one-story stucco building. It had been built in 1976 just outside the flight path at Tampa International Airport. It was only several hundred yards from runway 18L/36R, one of the two main runways for the hundreds of flights in and out of Tampa every day. Its location was both a blessing and a curse. Being so close to the airport was very convenient for our scouts, for visiting free agents, and for our whole team when we traveled to away games. But the noise of flights taking off and banking in our direction was sometimes deafening. I guess there was one positive side effect of the noise: we never had to pipe in crowd noise when practicing for away games. However, the acrid smell of jet fuel that often blew into our building made us all certain we were shaving years off our lives.

We had no parking lot for visitors… or players. Some players used the small parking lot that belonged to an old public golf course across the street, but most opted to park in the grass beside the road in front of the building. They took their chances with traffic and occasional tickets from the airport police. Every so often we’d hear the screech of tires—too late—as a car unsuccessfully navigating the two-lane road sideswiped one of our parked cars. A small, wooden guard shack stood next to the sidewalk leading into the main entrance.

Inside, One Buc had a reception area for the few visitors we did have. The greeting area was relatively large—relative to the size of any other room in the building, anyway. Beyond that reception area, however, the uniqueness of One Buccaneer Place could be found. I was one of only two coaches whose office did not also serve as a meeting room. As the assistant head coach, Herm merited his own office. Actually, that wasn’t the reason. There just wasn’t room in his meeting room for a desk, so we cleaned out the tiny storage closet in the back of the meeting room and somehow wedged a desk and filing cabinet within its walls. However, his unique closet-office mandated an open-door policy, as the door could not be closed unless the desk chair was removed.

Frankly, I was never particularly bothered by One Buc. Once Herm got the grounds staff to strategically place rattraps behind our desks—and to check and empty them as necessary—One Buc seemed fairly hygienic as well. I often thought of my dad teaching in the “separate but equal” days. He always told us it didn’t matter what his building looked like; his job was to help his students learn just as much as the students in the other building were learning. Herm and I vowed that we would win a championship in that building. There were already enough excuses for the losing culture at One Buc, and we were determined to change that. We had to. That’s the nature of the business if you want to be around for any length of time.

Champions are champions not because they do anything extraordinary but because they do the ordinary things better than anyone else.

—Chuck Noll

“I
DON’T
YELL
A
LOT
. In fact, yelling will be rare,” I told the Buccaneers at our first team meeting. In addition to the change in coaching staff, I felt the culture of One Buc needed an infusion of fresh ideas. With that in mind, I believed this opening team meeting would be critical to setting the tone.