Quiet Strength (11 page)

Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave.

—Matthew 20:26-27

IT WAS 1984, and a new kid on the block and would-be competitor to the NFL, the United States Football League, had just been formed. Our defensive coordinator, Woody Widenhofer, left the Steelers to become the head coach of the USFL’s Oklahoma Outlaws. Woody was our defensive staff’s second loss in two years. George Perles, our assistant head coach, had gone to the Michigan State Spartans as their new head coach in ’82.

Although I was only twenty-eight at the time and recognized I was awfully young, I also knew I was the coach who knew our defense the best. I hoped I was next in line for the Steelers’ defensive coordinator position. A few days after Woody left, we were in New Orleans for the NFL Scouting Combine, an event where guys who will be in that year’s draft gather for workouts while NFL scouts watch. Chuck Noll asked if I wanted to go with him to Preservation Hall. I had no idea what or where that was, but I figured he must be getting ready to talk to me about becoming the defensive coordinator.

We met after dinner in the hotel lobby and walked out into the cool Crescent City evening. Chuck always was a fascinating conversationalist. He spoke of the 1974 Super Bowl the Steelers had been part of in New Orleans, and then he talked about a number of other topics, all unrelated to football. We arrived at Preservation Hall, a little hole in the wall with great New Orleans jazz. We kept talking while listening to a guy play the piano for about forty-five minutes, and then Chuck got up to leave.

“Wasn’t that great?” he remarked. I agreed, and we headed out into the chilly night air once again. Chuck began talking about jazz and its origins and how New Orleans jazz was distinctive. I can’t say that I learned a whole lot about jazz that night. The whole time we were together, I was trying to figure out if I should say something about the defensive coordinator position or just let the conversation play out, figuring he’d get to it soon enough.

He never did, though, and as we returned to the hotel, I realized that I must not be Chuck’s choice for the position. When I got home to Pittsburgh, I informed Lauren, who wasn’t as ready as I was to accept this decision. She was convinced that I should at least talk with Chuck and ask him why he seemed headed in a different direction. After going back and forth with her for about four days, I finally did just that.

“Coach, have you given any thought to what you’re going to do with the defensive coordinator position?”

He looked startled. “Of course, Tony. Nobody knows as much about our defense as you do. That’s always been my thought process since Woody left. You’re our defensive coordinator.”

I blew out a breath and gave a rueful laugh, a mixture of relief and exasperation evident on my face.

“Were you ever going to
tell
me that?”

“Tony, you’re our defensive coordinator.”

That was just the way Chuck was. Like when I went in at quarterback in 1977—I was the next man in line, even though I didn’t know it. Things just kept moving along as planned—at least in his mind.

The off-season of 1984 also brought us our first child, Tiara. We were in a position financially to allow Lauren to give up teaching and become a full-time mom. Up to this point, Lauren had always been firm in her resolve to keep teaching for a while before having children. But now, only two and a half years after the wedding, we found ourselves with a baby daughter and a single income. God apparently had a different schedule for us than we had thought.

Almost immediately Lauren and Tiara began to develop the same closeness I had seen Lauren share with her own mom. Being our first child and a girl, Tiara received the royal treatment—from us, from both sets of grandparents, and from everyone at our church. And not only did she receive attention, she also received
clothes.
I never realized just how much moms enjoy dressing up their little girls until Tiara came along. She was really a joy, and she got me thinking about the responsibilities of being a father. Up until this point, I had played a lot of golf in the off-season with Bill Nunn, one of the Steelers scouts. But after Tiara was born, I began to play fewer and fewer rounds, just feeling the need to be home as much as I could. Today, I hardly play golf at all.

Tiara was the sole recipient of our parental attention until 1987, when Jamie was born. He cut into her territory a little, but she didn’t seem to mind. Jamie, of course, set off those thoughts in my mind that I’m sure every father of a boy must have.
Will he follow in my footsteps? Will I get to play ball with him like my dad did with me? Will he enjoy going to my office as much as I liked going with my father?

I was very fortunate to be working for Chuck at this point. We had settled nicely into our coaching routine and never spent needless time at work. He was very family oriented, and I never worried that coaching football and raising a family might clash.

Looking back, I can see it was no accident that I felt led to choose a $2,200 signing bonus to play an unfamiliar position with the Steelers rather than take whatever the Bills or Alouettes had offered. In Pittsburgh I met Lauren, was surrounded by guys who were serious about their faith, won a Super Bowl, and started my coaching career. However, in spite of all these good things, God eventually kicked me out of the Pittsburgh nest.

In the spring of 1987, we drafted a very good defensive class—Rod Woodson, Delton Hall, Thomas Everett, Hardy Nickerson, and Greg Lloyd. Those guys all played some in 1987, and we anticipated that they would play even more in 1988. However, as we headed into the 1988 season, we lost some significant leadership. Both Donnie Shell and John Stallworth retired, and Mike Merriweather, the player we had counted on to be the cornerstone of our defense, became embroiled in a contract dispute and sat out the entire season. That was a big loss that we hadn’t anticipated, especially in light of the fact that we had let some other veteran leaders go to allow for the development of the 1987 draft class.

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.