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AFM Magazine


The Turner Network

Two Brothers, Two Teams, and one direction. . . up.
by: Michael Richman
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Both head coaches had their backs to the wall entering the season, Norv with the Washington Redskins and Ron at the University of Illinois. Norv had gone five seasons without reaching the playoffs, the longest stretch of any active NFL coach, and Ron had crafted a 3-19 record in his first two years.

New Redskins owner Daniel Snyder applied volumes of extra pressure on Norv by telling him to make the playoffs or find a new job. Ron was in the critical third year of a five-year contract.

Talk about adversity. Then talk about responding to it.

Norv coached the Redskins to a 10-6 record, the NFC East title and the second round of the playoffs, where they lost to Tampa Bay by one point. Ron's Fighting Illini posted a 7-4 mark and crushed Virginia in the MicronPC.com Bowl, 63-21.

Both Turners dismiss the irony of the season. They call it a mere "coincidence" and insist it was only a matter of time before their teams began winning big.

"It was just something we knew was going to happen," Ron, 46, says. "We've been doing what we believe in, and we've been pushing forward. That's really where the focus was."

Norv, 48, adds: "The reason it happened is that both of us took over jobs that were very similar. When Ron took over the Illinois job, they'd hit rock bottom. They didn't have very many good players and had to start over. It was a very similar situation for me."

Now is the Turners' chance to build on their momentum. Their teams are armed with potential heading into the 2000 season.

The Redskins are positioned as a Super Bowl contender. This off-season, they lost no star players in trades or to free agency and, in turn, acquired high-profile free agents like quarterback Jeff George, defensive end Bruce Smith, safety Mark Carrier and running back Adrian Murrell. They also used the No. 2 and No. 3 overall picks in April's NFL draft to select two blue-chip players: Penn State linebacker LaVar Arrington and Alabama offensive tackle Chris Samuels.

Illinois returns 10 starters from a high-powered offense that averaged 30 points and nearly 400 yards a game. That group includes the offense's major impact players, quarterback Kurt Kittner and halfback Rocky Harvey. Overall, the Illini are projected to be in the upper echelon of the Big Ten.

Amid a swirl of anticipation, Norv and Ron are keeping their excitement at a minimum. They know that football, like other sports, can produce sharp fluctuations that elevate coaches one minute and drop them the next. Such a humble attitude stems from their turbulent childhood, when they learned how to react to the ups and downs of life.

The Turners grew up in a housing project in Martinez, Calif., 18 months apart and two of five children. Their alcoholic father, who was distant from the family, left the house permanently when Ron was 10 months old and Norv was 2. They barely knew him.

Their mother, Vicki Turner, raised the family despite having multiple sclerosis. But such a debilitating weakness didn't stop the single parent from keeping the family tightly knit and on course to success.

"She taught us to appreciate the things that we have and not to worry about what we don't have," Ron remembers. "She also taught us to believe in ourselves and keep going and, most importantly, make good decisions and do what's right. She said if you work hard and do what's right, things will work out for you."

Norv and Ron escaped their tough environment by becoming sports addicts. They combined to play basketball, baseball and football, or anything else that called for hard-core competition. They often took to the basketball courts to play one-on-one. Today, Norv jokes "we have the record for the number of basketball games played against each other."

The brothers parlayed their athletic skills on the college level. Norv played quarterback at Oregon, backing up future Hall of Famer Dan Fouts. Ron was a receiver at the University of the Pacific and led the Tigers in receiving two seasons.

That was it for the Turners' playing days. They soon entered the coaching world, where they'd face similar challenges mostly on the offensive side of the ball.

Norv began as a graduate assistant at Oregon before joining John Robinson's staff at Southern California. He coached receivers, defensive backs and quarterbacks, and served as offensive coordinator. He then followed Robinson to the Los Angeles Rams in 1984. As receivers coach, he helped transform the Rams' passing attack into one of the most potent in the NFL.

He then became the Dallas Cowboys offensive coordinator in 1991. With Jimmy Johnson as the head coach, Norv became known as the assistant who molded Troy Aikman into an elite quarterback. Norv was with the Cowboys during their Super Bowl wins in the 1992 and 1993 seasons.

Right after the second Super Bowl, he became the hottest head-coaching prospect in the NFL. The Redskins hired him in February 1994.

Ron's resume consists of many more stops. He coached at seven schools - all in offensive roles - before becoming head coach at San Jose State in 1992. After one season there, he served as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for four years with the Chicago Bears. He was hired at Illinois in December 1996.

The Turners' pursuit of offensive coaching roles stems from their interests when growing up and the positions they played on the college level, they say. Even now, they're reputed as offensive-minded head coaches with a brilliant sense for Xs and Os.

They try to learn from each other by trading game films, attending one another's practices and camps when time permits, and talking on the phone. They derive strategy from each other, mainly on offense, and incorporate plays into their game plans. Norv, for instance, has used Ron's misdirection passes and other plays that involve long passes.

"It's easier to communicate if you're sharing ideas, and neither of us feel we have something to hide," Norv says. "In fact, we're eager to help the other guy because we're not competing against each other now. It's a good relationship."

Norv insists, however, that their overall styles as game tacticians are distinct.

"People always ask, 'Do you guys use the same plays and the same offenses?'" he says. "Our football backgrounds are totally different. I came up with John Robinson and then spent time with Jimmy [Johnson], I didn't have as many stops along the way. But the one thing both of us have tried to do is learn from the people we've been around and then stay at the front of what we're doing."

The Turners aren't competing against each other now as coaches, but they've done so in the past. In 1980, Norv's USC team beat Ron's Arizona squad, 27-10. In 1996, Norv's Redskins beat Ron's Bears, 10-3.

Ron says he didn't feel a greater incentive to win those games just because his brother coached the opposing team. He always wants to beat opponents as badly as possible, he says.

Norv, however, sees a sibling rivalry. His competitive juices flow when coaching against his brother, he says, partly because the intensity from their frequent basketball battles lingers. In the back of his mind, though, he wants to shield his younger brother from defeat.

"It's hard enough when you're coaching against friends and people you've faced before," Norv says. "But when you're coaching against your brother, and you know the outcome of the game is going to determine in some way the other guy's future, that's no fun. I like the way it is now where he's in college and I'm in the pros, and we don't have to compete against each other regularly. I'm sure that time will come again because he's very talented and very good at what he does, and there will be people that can get him back into this crazy league somewhere down the road."

When Norv first became an NFL head coach, the Redskins' organization was in shambles. He inherited a team that was 3-13 in 1993. That season signified that the Redskins' glory years of the 1980s and early 1990s, when they won three Super Bowls and reached the playoffs eight times, were over. A rebuilding plan was in order.

But it was slow. Washington went 9-23 in his first two seasons. Norv began to turn the program around, but the Redskins barely missed post-season play the next two years. They won only six games in 1998.

With Norv yet to make the playoffs, fans and many in the media were calling for his firing. But nobody apparently had the time or authority to do it because the team was mired in an ownership controversy. It was resolved on May 25, 1999, when Snyder bought the Redskins for $800 million.

By then, it was too late to let Norv go and seek a new coach. But Snyder wanted immediate results, and he issued an ultimatum for Norv to make the playoffs or else. The coach wasn't phased by it.

"Dan probably did the right thing," Norv says. "When he came out and said 'if we don't make the playoffs, I'm not keeping him,' it took a little bit of the edge off for everyone, and I didn't have to deal with it all year. If he hadn't done that, every time we were preparing to play someone, every time a reporter would cover a game, we'd have spent half an hour talking about that subject. It just became a foregone conclusion and probably helped us in the long run."

Snyder agrees that his demanding style was a positive influence on Norv in 1999, when the Redskins reached the playoffs for the first time in seven seasons.

"It all starts at the ownership level," Snyder says. "With me there, I added the emphasis, 'Let's win now, let's go get the other team.' It goes a long way, and it played well for Norv. It created an opportunity for him that he didn't have before with a low-keyed type of owner."

Soon after coming on board, Snyder considered having both Turners on the Redskins' staff.

"When I first met Norv, I asked, 'Is your brother an offensive or defensive specialist?'" Snyder says. "It turns out he's offense. But that's the problem. If it was defense, he could've been our defensive coordinator before we hired Ray Rhodes (in February 2000). We would have had a neat scenario. Those damn Turners!"

Like Norv, Ron took over a damaged Illinois program. The Fighting Illini were 2-9 in 1996, their worst record in 18 years. After 0-11 and 3-9 seasons under Ron, they opened 1999 at 3-0 and seemed headed to a bowl game. But three straight losses, the latter a 37-7 drubbing to Minnesota on Oct. 16, left Illinois at .500.

The day after that game, Ron ordered an unusual, full-contact scrimmage that carried a "shape up or ship out" message. It proved to be the turning point of the season.

"At first, the guys weren't that happy about the scrimmage," Ron recalls. "But I told my players that, 'I've got too much respect for you guys, you've come too far, you've paid the price, you've given too much to this program to settle for 3-3 and play the way we did yesterday.' We had a great practice, excellent intensity, guys were flying around and having fun. It regained the intensity and relit the fire and got the commitment back."

The proof came the next week. Illinois upset No. 9 Michigan in Ann Arbor, 35-29, on the way to winning five of its final six games, including the MicronPC.com bowl over Virginia.

How did Ron do it? Partly by following his primary theory for coaching success: create and implement your own philosophy without mimicking anyone else.

"That's the biggest thing I've learned through the years from all of the good coaches I've worked with," he says. "There are a lot of things you can do in football, offensively, defensively, special teams, Xs and Os, a lot of different ways of motivating. But if you're going to be a coach, you have to develop your own way, your own style."

The Turners' style is one that has propelled them to success in the football coaching arena. It's a profession that has helped them maintain strong ties as brothers.

"No question, when you have the same interests in something, even though we don't get to spend much time together anymore, that's a common bond," Norv says. "With the interests we have, there's always something to talk about. Then the fact that we're in the same profession, it seems we have reason to get together both personally and professionally."






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