For me, it is just the total experience - from the time I first started as an assistant coach until I wound up at the University of Texas for 20 years.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My first career was as a coach and a teacher.
My first assistant-coaching job in football was at William & Mary in 1961. The pay wasn't much, so to get $300 more per year, I agreed to coach the golf team. I didn't even know how to keep score, and really, my main job was not to wreck the van on the way to tournaments.
I learned a lot in the Minor Leagues, spending six years there. I honed my skills, as far as coaching goes. I was able to work with the players in a lot of facets of the game.
All I did from day-to-day is coach. That's what my job was, that's what my passion was, and the fact that now it's something I'm being considered for is just mind-blowing to me, that I would ever be in that kind of company.
I think there is a lot of experiences you have in coaching, and if you learn from the experiences as you go through them, whether it's as a coordinator or position coach, a quality-control coach, a head coach, whatever it might be, and you learn from those mistakes you make.
If I had coached in high school for 60 years, I would have loved it. Getting to the top was not a goal. I welcomed the opportunities, but I just believed do the best doggone job you can, and good things will happen.
When I was in college, I was a landscaper. Other than that, coaching has been my life and my job. A lot of people like coaching college, but I would never do it again. There are too many NCAA bylaws, rules and politics.
I think what coaching is all about, is taking players and analyzing there ability, put them in a position where they can excel within the framework of the team winning. And I hope that I've done that in my 33 years as a head coach.
I fell in love with coaching. I loved interacting with young people, having the opportunity to make a tremendous impression on them.
In all the years that I've been in football - I went directly from coaching to broadcasting - I never really had a lot of experience watching it.
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