Stepping Into Retirement

Four coaching legends discuss life after football
by: Richard Scott
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Forget about Bob Stoops, Jim Tressell and Larry Coker. The best college football coaches in America are the former coaches who show up when they want to at home football games, sit in their suites or club level seats surrounded by family and friends and thank the football gods that they no longer have to sweat the outcome.

There’s nothing like retirement to make a head coach the second most popular guy in town, right behind the backup quarterback. He’s the professor emeritus, the coach who hasn’t lost a game in years.

“When I was coaching I was that dumb guy who ran up the middle,” says Don Nehlen, who retired in 2000 after 21 years as the head coach at West Virginia. “Now they call me a legend. I guess retiring is a pretty good deal.”

It’s been a good deal for Nehlen, but it’s not always a good thing for every coach. Retiring is usually a good deal for coaches if they’ve done these four things: chosen it, instead of having it forced upon them; prepared for it mentally and emotionally; prepared for it financially; taken good care of their health.

When Nehlen and his Merry Ann go to Ireland in May, they will be accompanied by former Brigham Young coach LaVell Edwards and his wife Patti and former Syracuse coach Dick MacPherson and his wife Sandra for golf and other tourist pleasures. You can’t do those things if you haven’t taken care of business with your finances and your health, or if you’re sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring and throwing darts at a photo of the chancellor who forced you to retire ahead of your own personal schedule.

“Coaching is a little like chicken fried steak. It’s fabulous. It’s great,” says Spike Dykes, who retired in 1999 after 16 seasons at Texas Tech. “But you can’t eat a truckload. Sooner or later you get all you can eat.

“Forty-two years – that’s plenty. I’ve got nothing but fond memories and I’m glad to be doing something else for a change.”

At some point, every American Football Monthly reader will have to consider the inevitability of retiring. We sincerely hope that your career ends on your own terms and you coach as long as you choose to, but let’s face it: that time is coming, maybe sooner than you want, and it’s a good idea to start preparing for it.

“Retirement has to be a big part of your planning,” former Washington coach Don James says. “Social security is nice, but that check isn’t going to get it. And you have to have something to do, too. You have to stay busy.”

You can’t spend all your time playing golf, no matter what you might think.

“Make sure you’re ready for it,” Edwards says. “Stay busy in your own way, getting involved in charity, other programs, maybe even a different line of work. You can only golf so long and then it’s going to drive you nuts.”

Not so sure? That’s why AFM interviewed Nehlen, Edwards, James and Dykes – four of the most successful Division I-A head coaches over the past two decades – to find out what they had to say about the issue of retirement.

DON NEHLEN

The day we called Nehlen, he was busy with an estate planner. That should tell you something. So we called the next day and found a man who keeps busy as a spokesman for the West Virginia Coal Association and for Charles Point, a model community project in West Virginia. He also hosts a TV spot called “The Mountaineer Minute” and works with American Football Coaches Association on books and other teaching resources. He spends about four months of the year wintering in Florida.

“I have a couple of jobs – I don’t think a guy retires and just gets up and doesn’t have anything to do,” Nehlen says. “And I try to learn how to play golf. When I retired I was real bad. Now I’ve gone from real bad to just bad.”

One of the best things about playing golf now is that Nehlen can play with his friends whenever he wants to and talk about whatever he wants. One of the worst things about playing golf when he was a coach is that he often had to play golf when he had to, with people he had to play with, at booster, alumni, sponsor and media events.

It’s a little thing, but it’s one of those many things that takes a toll on a coach after awhile – like long hours on a Sunday.

“I was driving home on a Sunday night, about 10:30, 11 o’clock, and I had been at the office since 8 that morning, and as I was driving home I thought, ‘you know, I’ve been doing this for 43 years on Sundays. I think it’s about time for me to let somebody else do this,’” Nehlen says. “The job is 24 hours a day about 11 months of the year, and I just felt like it was time for somebody else with new enthusiasm to do the job.”

Just like that, Nehlen knew it was time to go. Once he made the decision, he didn’t spend much time looking back, but that doesn’t mean it was easy to walk away.

“It was tough – really tough; very, very difficult,” Nehlen says. “The toughest thing I ever did. When I came here to West Virginia the program was pretty much zilch and it was a nothing job, but when I left we had a gorgeous stadium, gorgeous facilities, an indoor facility, and I was turning one of the top jobs in the country over to someone else.

“When I came here this was a bottom-10 job. Now this place is a top-30 job every year. It was a labor of love for a long, long time.”

Of all the things he misses about his old job, he misses the people the most: the players, the coaches, and the people who work in the football building and make a football program more than just an organization.

“You live and die with those kids,” Nehlen says. “You build a great bond with a football player over a 5-year period. He’s almost a son to you. You have good times and you have tough times.

“You develop a football family. I had four secretaries, and of my nine coaches, almost half of them worked for me for more than 16 years, so I had a real strong relationship with all my coaches. You miss the coaches and the players and the family that’s there in the building every day. You see those people almost every single day and then all of a sudden you don’t see them at all – unless you go over there.”

Nehlen does drop by every once in a while, mostly to play racquetball. He’ll stop by and visit some of the people in the football building, and talks to coach Rich Rodriguez on occasion. He doesn’t want to bother Rodriguez, though, because he knows the demands of a head coach’s schedule.

“I might stick my head in a meeting every once in a while,” Nehlen says, “but I don’t have much advice for them.”

Some of his best advice would be to do what you can to set your own parameters for retirement.

“I coached 43 years, and I coached here for 21,” Nehlen says. “Had I left West Virginia at some point, I probably would have coached a few more years. But I think anytime you coach at the same program for a long period of time, you become really old hat. Just like some of the problems coach (Joe) Paterno (at Penn State) is facing. It’s always ‘what have you done for me lately?’

“But I was able to go out under my own conditions. I was turning 65 and I felt like I was in pretty good health and I’d never done anything else but football, so I just said, ‘there’s got to be something else other than football.’”

One of those things is investing more time in your children and grandchildren. Retirement is a chance to make up for some of that lost time spent coaching, and Nehlen is a regular at local football games, where one grandson is an eighth-grade quarterback who plays his games on Thursday night and another grandson is a high school quarterback who plays on Friday nights.

“It’s great just sitting in the stands and hearing the couple of thousand coaches who are sitting in the stands,” Nehlen says. “I never realized there were so many coaches.”

Nehlen is thankful he is no longer one of them, although he’ll always be Coach Nehlen to the people in West Virginia.

“I’ve really enjoyed it,” Nehlen says of his retirement. “When I retired, most everybody told me ‘Don, you’re making a major error,’ but I don’t think I did. I think it’s because I’ve been able to keep busy. One thing for sure, I couldn’t just play golf. My back would kill me. But it is nice to have a little free time, though, and do what you want to do.”

LAVELL EDWARDS

A little free time is hard to come by, but Edwards made a habit during his coaching career of taking time off each year to travel and spend with family. He also made a regular trip each year to speak at legendary Michigan State coach Duffy Daugherty’s national coaching clinic, and Daugherty would pay his speakers back with trips to exotic locales such as Hawaii, Thailand and Ireland.

In fact, after taking the BYU job in 1972, Edwards also knew he’d be ready to retire and move on to the next phase of his life some day. What he didn’t know was that that time wouldn’t come until age 70.

“Early on in my career, when I was in my 50s, I thought I’d go to until I was 60 and that would be it,” Edwards says. “Then I got to 60 and I didn’t even think about it until I was 62 or 63. Then I says well I’ll go until I’m 65. Then I got to 65 and I didn’t think about it until I was 67 or so and everything was going well and I still enjoyed it. At that point I figured I’d just do it a year at a time from now. But I kept all this to myself. My wife and I would talk about it.”

In the months leading up to the 2000 season, Edwards found his thoughts leading more and more toward retirement. He had already dealt with years of speculation regarding his age and eventual retirement, but the decision didn’t come down until he was ready.

“I had been thinking about it and I just made up my mind that I wasn’t going to do it until I really felt good about it,” Edwards says. “I almost did it the year before but I really didn’t feel real good about it, so I decided to go another year. Then I made up my mind that was really it, I just decided to announce it. Rather than have all the conjecture and speculation about it, I just made the announcement that this would be my last season and that took all the guessing out of it. And I never looked back.”

Edwards and his wife Patti knew they wanted to travel and stay busy with children, grandchildren, BYU activities and the Mormon church, and most of all, they wanted to go on a mission. Mormons usually serve a one- or two-year mission during their late teens or early 20s, but Edwards never got the chance – until he retired.

After spending the first few months of 2000 working with the athletic department to help finish fund raising efforts for new football facilities, Edwards and his wife took off for New York City and the chance to work in public affairs for the church. His public relations work put him in contact with local political, business and religious leaders and took him around the northeastern United States on speaking engagements.

Even in New York, football continued to be an important part of Edwards’ life. He soon found himself helping a local man start a high school football program in Harlem for kids whose schools didn’t offer football. He spent most of his time raising funds and gathering resources, but he did offer some football assistance on occasional trips to practice.

With their mission ending on Nov. 10, the Edwards will return to Utah, where they’ll split their time between Provo and St. George.

“We’ll just lay low for awhile,” Edwards says. “It’ll be the first time I’ve ever been totally retired. After a few months we’ll figure out what we may want to do.”

One thing Edwards won’t do is spend a lot of time missing the responsibilities of a head coach. He rarely talks to BYU coach Gary Crowton, but only out of respect for Crowton’s position and schedule. He also dislikes talking about BYU football on the radio, only because he’s concerned people will take his statements the wrong way and he might accidentally hurt some feelings.

“When you’ve been at a place for such a long time, like I was, and have the kind of success we’ve had, I just didn’t want to make it look like I’m still trying to impose or take anything away from what they’re doing,” Edwards says. “When he wants to talk, I’ve been happy to do it and help him in any way I can, but I just didn’t want to impose anything on him.”

What Edwards does miss about football is the players, the coaches and the people who make up the BYU football family.

“I’ve missed the associations and certain parts of it, but then when I ask myself, ‘would you really want to be doing it again,’ the answer is still a resounding no,” Edwards says. “It really had run its course, and I feel good about my decision.

“I’ve had a lot of friends who have coached who have had it (retirement) imposed on them. Or maybe they got out quicker than they thought they really wanted to, and that’s why I was so deliberate about it. Once you make that decision, you just don’t go back.”

DON JAMES

Unlike Edwards and Nehlen, James’ tenure at Washington didn’t end the way he wanted to. From 1975-1992, James became Washington’s most successful head coach, winning 153 games overall and 99 Pac-10 games, the most in conference history. He also led his team to six Rose Bowls and won four, and at the height of his Washington career, he led the Huskies to the 1991 national championship with a 12-0 record.

Just one year later, though, the Pac-10 sanctioned the Washington program for disputed rules violations and James decided he had enough.

“I was ready,” James says. “There was never a time when I thought about trying to find another coaching job. I could have held on to that one, too, but I was just so frustrated with the way things happened.

“The thing in coaching is ‘never lose.’ But you can’t do that all the time. The years after our Orange Bowl team in ‘85, which was a great team that finished second in the nation, we had some tough years in ‘87, ‘88, and then we worked hard to bring it back and we were very good for about three years and won the championship and then we had the problems up here.

“Living through that stuff was no fun. I just figured it was best to let someone else do it.”

James may have been frustrated with the way things ended, but he didn’t spend much time wallowing in his retirement. Instead, he did some public relations work with a Seattle bank, did several commercials and some public speaking and even had a Monday night radio show during the football season for four years.

“It got to be where I didn’t even want to be in town on Monday,” James said. “If I had a chance to go somewhere and do something, I’d do it. I did it four years and that was enough. I was primarily interviewing coaches from around the country. Coaches basically all hate talk radio but they helped me and they all came on, so I got a great response, but after four years it was time to move on. How many times do you want to keep calling Joe Paterno or Bobby Bowden and ask them the same questions.”

James and his wife Carol currently spend about half of the year in Southern California near family, and the other half in the Seattle area. He never had a problem with former Washington coach Rick Neuheisel, who would invite James to practice and have him speak to the team on occasion, but he’s closer to current Husky coach Keith Gilbertson because Gilbertson coached on James’ staff from 1989-91.

He also tries to keep track of his former coaches, an impressive family that includes LSU’s Nick Saban, Missouri’s Gary Pinkel, Nevada’s Chris Tomey and Dom Capers of the NFL’s Houston Texans. But his favorite football team remains the Huskies.

“I will always remain a Washington fan,” James says. “Even though I went to Miami and coached at Michigan, Florida State, Colorado, Kansas State, Kansas, my school is still Washington.”

He attends most Washington games, including some on the road, but he carries no fantasies about coaching.

“Zero,” James says, laughing. “We’ll sit here on Saturday with three TV sets going and I go to all the Huskie home games and last year I went to three away games and this year I’ve been to a couple, so I still enjoy football, but I can sleep Friday and Saturday nights now.”

Getting a good night’s sleep is just part of James’ busy schedule.

“The key thing with retirement is health,” James says. “If you’ve got that you can enjoy it. If you don’t have that, it doesn’t matter if you’re working or not. We’ve been on about 15 cruises, African safaris, a cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest, about 10 days in France. One of the advantages to having been a coach up here is that one of the travel agents uses Carol and I to host great trips, so that’s been a lot of fun. I thought I’d be bored to death on a cruise, but we actually enjoyed them.”

And then there’s golf.

“I retired as a seven handicap and I thought, ‘man, I’ve got it made now. I’ve got energy, I’ve got desire, I’ve got time,’” James says. “But then you keep having birthdays. I went from a seven to a 16. Now I’m about a 12, but I don’t hit it as far as I used to. And you can’t go out and hit balls all day because you’re back won’t hold up. There’s always something.”

SPIKE DYKES

Dykes was more than just a football coach at Texas Tech. He was a regular winner through 16 seasons in Lubbock, but he was a good fit, a folksy Texan with a wit as sharp as a Cowboy’s spur. He’s still popular as a story teller, and always good for a laugh. After all, how could you not like a man who one said, “One of the keys to success is to make sure you hire guys who are smarter than you. And that wasn’t hard.”

As popular as he was, Dykes was smart enough to know he didn’t want to wear out his welcome in West Texas. He originally wanted to leave in 1999, but with the program on NCAA probation, Texas Tech chancellor John T. Montford asked Dykes to stay for at least another year. Midway through the 2000 year, however, Dykes realized his time had come.

“I think you wake up one day and say, ‘I need to get me a plan,’” Dykes says. “When you get around 60 or so, I guess you start thinking about what you’re gonna do. The last thing you wanna do is stay too long. That’s two-fold: stay too long for the people who are tired of you, and stay too long for yourself, when the job ceases to be exciting and fun.

“That’s a hard nut to crack. It’s hard to determine just exactly when that is.”

If the past three years have been any indication, Dykes did the right thing at the right time. As much as he loved coaching, especially the players and the coaches, he doesn’t miss the rest of the stuff that can weigh on a head coach.

“I loved coaching – probably enjoyed the last game as much as I did the first game,” Dykes says. “But there are still chapters left to write after football and I was ready to do something else. For 45 years, I’d gotten up at 6 every morning and come home after dark and I felt like there were some things my wife and I wanted to do together, and a chance to spend more time with our grandchildren and see them grow up, so we just knew it was time.”

The first thing Dykes and his wife Sharon did after his final football game was head to Horseshoe Bay, where they had already built a house at a resort between Austin and San Antonio.

“We played Oklahoma on a Saturday, won the game, it was a big win, and we were in Horseshoe Bay the next day,” Dykes says. “We didn’t go back until Valentine’s Day.”

Dykes didn’t stay away out of any sense of bitterness. Instead, he wanted to distance himself so the new coach, Mike Leach, could come in and do things his way without having to hear or read about Dykes.

Every new coach wants to improve the program and mold in his own particular manner. Every new coach has that right, but sometimes the new coach can accidentally, or even purposefully, step on the toes of the former coach if the old coach doesn’t know how to handle the transition.

Dykes was acutely aware of that possibility, so he got gone real quick and stayed gone.

“I think when you’re through you need to be through,” Dykes says. “You can’t hang on and hang around. You’ve got to give the next guy a chance to do his deal.

“If you’re not careful, you can get real sensitive,” Dykes says. “Whoever the new coach is, whenever there’s a change, that coach will say something like ‘we’re going to really get in better condition’ or ‘we’re going to win the fourth quarter.’

“And the old coach might say ‘you don’t think we tried to do that? We’ve been trying to do that for years.’ So you can get your feelings hurt if you’re not careful. The best way to deal with that is to not mess with it at all. Don’t read about it or hear about it. It was tough. We left our family for awhile and just moved on and left our players and a lot of great friends, but that’s just a stage in your life that you have to put closure on and go on to the next stage.”

For Dykes, the next stage hasn’t been so bad. He recently took a fishing trip to the Gulf of Mexico, where the fishing is hot in the fall, for a trip he never got to take during football season. He never thought of himself as the kind of guy who’d visit Europe, but he and Sharon did it and he liked it, seeing the sights with LaVell and Patti Edwards.

He also plays golf with coaching buddies such as Darrel Royal, Emory Ballard, Rex Norris, Galen Hall and former Tech athletic director T. Jones. He even tried working weekends in the fall as a college football analyst for Fox Sports Net, but he didn’t last long. It was too much like a job.

“I know some guys who say ‘I’m miserable. I wish I hadn’t quit.’ I know other guys who say, ‘I’m miserable. I wish I could go ahead and retire,’” Dykes says. “That’s all in the eyes of the beholder. People ask me if I miss coaching, and of course, if you’ve done anything for 45 years there are going to do a few things you really miss. You miss the big games, and all the excitement.

“But if you’re not careful you’re also going to get real selfish. There are so many darn egos in this business that people act like they invented football and it can’t live without them. For me, it was a great 45 years. It was tremendous, we had a lot of fun, had great kids, great assistants, great associations, great principals and great superintendents in high school, great deans and chancellors in college, a great university, but sooner or later, it’s time to turn the reigns over to someone else and not look back.

“I didn’t really miss it that much because I didn’t want to miss it. I couldn’t be much prouder of our timing. Sharon and I are really lucky because we decided that’s what we wanted to do, we decided when we wanted to do it and we did it and neither one of us has looked back since. That’s a pretty good deal.”

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