Quiet Strength (10 page)

We went 5–11 in 1988, missing the playoffs for the fourth straight year. Chuck was under a lot of heat and asked me to step down as coordinator but to stay on staff as the defensive backs coach. I told him I would rather move on, so I resigned and started looking for a job. We were a long way from 1982, when Chuck had told a Pittsburgh paper that my coaching future was unlimited, that “[Tony could] go as far as he wants.” Now I was going much farther than I wanted—out of town.

Lauren and I certainly wouldn’t have left the Steelers if we hadn’t had to. This was the first time she had ever even thought about leaving her hometown of Pittsburgh. It was also the first time she got a feel for the tougher side of the
NFL
. Now I see that it was the Lord’s way of getting us to a different place, just like when I was traded to San Francisco in 1979.

At that time, there was no doubt in my mind that I was to continue coaching. I just didn’t know where. I was fortunate to get a lot of calls in the days after I resigned. Four options stood out from the others: Cincinnati, Kansas City, the New York Giants, and San Francisco.

My first choice was to go to Cincinnati. The Steelers played them twice a year, and I had known Coach Sam Wyche from my year playing for the 49ers when he was on Bill Walsh’s staff. Sam called me before Super Bowl
XXIII
and said he was probably going to lose his defensive line coach. He wanted to know if I’d be interested. I liked Sam a lot, the Bengals had a good team, and Cincinnati was a medium-sized city close to Pittsburgh. Although I didn’t know many of their players, I had become good friends with Anthony Muñoz while doing some camps with him for Athletes in Action. All in all, it seemed to be a good fit for us. Lauren and I rooted for the Bengals to beat the 49ers in the Super Bowl that year, all the time thinking we’d be working for the Super Bowl champs in 1989. They lost to the 49ers in the last minute of the game.

After getting back to Cincinnati, Sam called me with bad news. Mike Brown, who had taken over the ownership of the Bengals from his dad, Paul Brown, felt I was really a defensive backs coach rather than a line coach. He was also worried that I would not be content as a position coach and that I would probably be looking to move on if a coordinator position became available elsewhere. Sam concluded by reluctantly confessing that he couldn’t hire me.

Shortly following the conversation with Sam, the other participant in Super Bowl
XXIII
called. Bill Walsh told me he was retiring after their Super Bowl win and that George Seifert was going to take over as head coach of the 49ers. Denny Green had taken the Stanford head coaching job right before the Super Bowl, so Bill wanted me to coach the 49ers running backs. Although Bill was going to work in the front office, he obviously was not taking a hands-off role when it came to hiring a staff for George. While I had played for him in San Francisco only that one year, Bill Walsh and I had talked a great deal after I got into coaching, and he was definitely someone with whom I had a great relationship. He told me he felt I had a great chance to be a head coach and that I could make myself an even stronger candidate by moving over to offense and joining a championship-caliber team.

At the same time, an opportunity with the Giants was on the table. Although Bill Parcells was still in his early days as head coach of the New York Giants, he had already won one Super Bowl. The Giants had a cornerback on their roster, Harvey Clayton, whom I had coached for three years in Pittsburgh. Bill thought Harvey was well trained and brought me in to interview, which turned out to be great fun—considering it was a job interview. He already had Bill Belichick and Romeo Crennel on staff, and the four of us would have talked defensive football philosophy all day if the weather had cooperated. But a snowstorm was blowing into the New York area that evening, and Bill wanted to get me out before I got stranded. I wanted to get home too, although being stranded with those three wouldn’t have been a bad alternative.

Meanwhile, Marty Schottenheimer had just gotten the head coaching job in Kansas City after leaving the Cleveland Browns in a dispute over assistant coaches. Marty interviewed me for the Chiefs’ defensive coordinator position, but he had already decided he was going to run the system he had used in Cleveland and hire Bill Cowher as the coordinator. He wanted me to come as defensive backs coach. Marty said that part of his reason in hiring Cowher over me was that he couldn’t promote someone from the outside over someone from within. I appreciated his candor as well as that philosophy.

As I went through this decision-making process, I was surprised by the pay scale of these
NFL
teams—it was unlike anything I’d seen in Pittsburgh. Each of these teams offered me more to be a position coach than I had been making as a coordinator in Pittsburgh.

I liked all three situations, and once again there was no booming voice from the sky clearly telling me which way to go. I knew Bill Walsh, but he wouldn’t be my direct boss. I hadn’t known Bill Parcells at all but had come to really like him in the little time I had spent with him. Both the Giants and 49ers were definitely Super Bowl–caliber teams, but in the end, I just didn’t feel comfortable taking four-year-old Tiara and two-year-old Jamie to either of those two big cities. So after talking and praying about it, Lauren and I decided on Kansas City.

Although Lauren was initially worried about leaving her parents and siblings, Kansas City turned out to be a place of great growth for our marriage and for Lauren personally. She developed many new friendships and finally had her own home to set up and furnish, since she had simply moved into my place after we were married.

In some ways, life in Kansas City was easier for Lauren than it had been in Pittsburgh. In Kansas City, more of the coaches were closer to our age, which made their wives her peers. In Pittsburgh, the next youngest coach had been in his forties, with teenage children. I was so young when I was hired by the Steelers that we were closer in age to the players and their wives than we were to the coaches, which was somewhat awkward. In the space of two years, I had gone from being one of the guys to being management. Lauren had become close with Paulette Shell and Flo Stallworth, which was terrific for her but still a bit awkward since I was technically Donnie Shell’s boss. Those issues didn’t exist in Kansas City.

Working for the Chiefs continued to mold my coaching philosophy and reinforced my desire to maintain a balance between work and the rest of my life. Up to this point, we hadn’t realized the number of hours that some
NFL
coaching staffs were required to work. In Pittsburgh, I had been home nearly every night for dinner. That all changed in Kansas City.

I met Herman Edwards back in 1977 at the Hula Bowl and again at the Japan Bowl, both college all-star games. A cornerback out of San Diego State, Herm played on the West teams in each game, while I played on the East teams. He always reminds me that I was driving for the winning score in Japan—on my way to the game’s
MVP
award, according to him—when I threw an interception at the end of the game. To Herm. For some reason, we hit it off anyway and stayed friends as we both came into the
NFL
as undrafted free agents. We played at opposite ends of Pennsylvania—Herm with the Eagles, and I with the Steelers.

Many people who remember Herm’s playing career don’t remember him by name. Instead, they remember him as the hero of the “Miracle in the Meadowlands.” This play got the Giants coach fired and created a new formation. In the Victory formation, the quarterback takes the snap from the center and, rather than handing the ball off to a running back, merely drops to one knee while another player stands several yards behind as a safety measure. This ends the play while the clock keeps running.

Herm’s heroics came late in the 1978 season, with the Eagles needing a win to stay in the playoff chase. The Giants were leading 17–12 and merely needed to run the last thirty-one seconds off the clock. Their quarterback, Joe Pisarcik, took the snap but stumbled as he attempted to hand the ball off to the running back, Larry Csonka. Csonka never got the handoff cleanly. The ball hit the hard turf of Giants Stadium and bounced right up to thigh level in front of a hard-charging Herm. Herm scooped up the ball and ran it twenty-six yards into the end zone, giving the Eagles the win. After that, coaches everywhere began using the Victory formation to eliminate the possibility of last-minute disaster from games that should be already won.

Herm and I continued to stay close even after I went into coaching and he kept playing. When his playing career ended, Herm headed to San Jose State to become their defensive backs coach. Then in 1989, my first year as defensive backs coach with the Kansas City Chiefs, Herm and I spent more time together when he joined us as an intern for training camp.

Chiefs head coach Marty Schottenheimer had the disconcerting trait, at least in my mind, of not needing much sleep, often working late into the night. And back then, he was also a micromanager who wanted to be on top of
everything
that took place on the practice field and in the assistant coaches’ meetings.

Many an evening “concluded” with Marty pulling out the film from that day’s camp practices to watch individual drills one more time. Usually this was at eleven or eleven-thirty at night, which meant we wouldn’t finish the day until two or three o’clock in the morning. Whenever Marty started one of these sessions, Herm would cut a glance at me, shrug, and go off to fix popcorn. This late-night routine continued into the regular season.

Although I always longed to get home to Lauren and our children, there was never a question for me that I was born to coach, even as I endured Marty’s hours in the office.

Even though in Kansas City I sometimes found myself on the job at three o’clock in the morning watching film with Marty, I still enjoyed coaching more than anything else I had done. After those crazy hours, however, Herm and I vowed that if we ever had the chance to make the schedule ourselves, we wouldn’t spend, or allow our assistants to spend, that much time in the office. With Chuck Noll, I had seen firsthand that it was possible to work fewer hours and still be successful. I didn’t like the burden my absence in the evenings placed on Lauren, who was at home alone with the kids.

Bill Parcells and the Giants won the Super Bowl that year, and San Francisco went on to win two titles under George Seifert. As for the Chiefs, the 1989 season in Kansas City couldn’t have been more perfect. Working for Lamar Hunt was just as good as working for Mr. Rooney, and I also came to appreciate the approach of the other owners in that bunch, Mr. Mara of the Giants and Eddie DeBartolo of the 49ers. Lauren and I knew we had made the right decision to come to Kansas City. I learned a lot about taking care of details from working with Marty Schottenheimer, and I really enjoyed working with Bill Cowher.

It also didn’t hurt that I was coaching a tremendous group of defensive backs. All four starters were Pro Bowlers at some point in their careers. I still consider those three years, when I was responsible for eight players rather than the whole defense, to be my favorite years of pure coaching. Not only was I able to focus my attention on details that would make them better players, I got the opportunity to really know them as people.

After I had been with the Chiefs for three seasons, Chuck Noll retired from the Steelers, and Bill Cowher left Kansas City to replace him as head coach. The Chiefs lost to the Buffalo Bills in the playoffs in January of 1992. A week later, Lauren and I watched the Buffalo-Denver
AFC
Championship Game from the hospital while waiting for Eric to be born. Losing to Buffalo the week before was actually a bit of a blessing for me personally. If we had won, I would have had to make a tough decision. Would I have gone to Denver with my team for the championship game or stayed in Kansas City with Lauren, who was almost ready to deliver? I’m glad I didn’t have to make that choice. I like to think I would have made the right one, though.

I soon faced another choice, however, that was no less daunting, at least in Lauren’s eyes. Marty had previously told me that if Bill Cowher ever left, I would be his new defensive coordinator. Just as Bill was taking the Pittsburgh job, Denny Green left Stanford to become head coach of the Minnesota Vikings. Denny contacted me and asked me to become his defensive coordinator. I had gotten to know and like Denny when I played in San Francisco, where he was part of the 49ers coaching staff under Bill Walsh. But since I fully anticipated becoming the defensive coordinator in Kansas City, I planned to decline Denny’s offer.

Then Marty suggested that I go check out the Minnesota job. As it turned out, he had already decided to hire Dave Adolph of the Raiders as his new defensive coordinator. Dave and Marty were close friends, and Dave had been Marty’s defensive coordinator in Cleveland. Marty hadn’t yet told me of his decision to hire Dave, but Lauren sensed something was different with the Schottenheimers. Hiring Dave Adolph didn’t sit well with me, based on Marty’s assurance that I would be the next coordinator. I reminded Marty of the conversation we’d had three years earlier when he told me that he couldn’t hire someone from the outside over guys who had been within the organization. He did remember our conversation, but he said this was a special circumstance he couldn’t have anticipated.

Lauren wanted me to stay on as the Chiefs defensive backs coach, but I didn’t feel like that was a good option for me anymore, given the way things had played out. I knew I wouldn’t be able to put my heart into my work—a crucial ingredient for success. Lauren was suspicious that I had orchestrated the whole thing just to get back to Minnesota. But while I was really looking forward to working with Denny Green, my decision actually had more to do with my need to leave the Chiefs than with where we were headed. It wasn’t that I was mad at Marty Schottenheimer. I know he felt bad about going back on a promise, but he had never anticipated the opportunity to be reunited with Dave Adolph. I looked at it, once again, as God moving me in a situation where I would never have chosen to move myself. This wouldn’t be the last time it would happen.