Tommy Tuberville

CEO SIDELINES OF THE

A high-profile college football coach has brought a business mentality to the Bearcats BY MIKE BOYER

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E W U N I V ER SIT Y OF CINCIN NAT I HE A D FOOT BA LL COACH Tommy Tuberville oversees a $15 million budget for the school’s most visible program.

He manages a staff of 21 coaches and assistants. He’ll recruit up to 85 scholarship football players, mold them and another 30 or so walk-ons into what UC fans expect will be another winning football team.

He’s also one of the university’s top salesmen and fundraisers.

It’s no exaggeration to view Tuberville as a CEO on the sidelines.

“That’s just the way he came across the very first day he was introduced to the university community,” says C. Francis Barrett, president of the UC Board of Trustees.

“He came across as someone who had great organizational skills, great understanding of the hierarchy and the structure of a football program.”

A successful college football coach for 17 years at powerhouse programs, which included Auburn University, University of Mississippi and Texas Tech, Tuberville’s surprise hiring in December 2012 brought new visibility to UC’s football program.

“Let me put it this way,” says Barrett. “Of all the programs we have, and I mean all the programs, football is the one program that gets 30,000 to 35,000 people to watch every week, which is so important to have everybody engaged at the university. We look upon him as just a tremendous asset. He gave the program instant credibility at the highest level when he came in at a most important time for us.”

Tuberville, who grew up idolizing legendary coaches Barry Switzer, Paul “Bear” Bryant and Frank Broyles, says the role of the football coach has changed dramatically since he became the head coach at Ole Miss in 1995.

“About 25 percent of my job is the Xs and Os TOMMY TUBERVILLE part of football,” says Tuberville, who makes $2.2 million at UC. “The other 75 percent is hiring, recruiting, media, fundraising – all those areas. Heck, 20 to 25 years ago it was probably the other way around. That’s why it’s so hard.”

Still, he embraces the role.

“I think the job of a head football coach is to do as much for everybody you possibly can at the university, not just your sport,” he says.

“Any head coach at any major university is kind of the face of the campus,” he says.

“I’m not saying that as a boastful thing. It’s a fact. Look at all the schools across the country, most people can name either the football coach or the basketball coach, but they can’t name the deans or the athletic director or presidents.”

His boss at UC, President Santa Ono, is the exception.

“He’s a breath of fresh air,” says Tuberville, who will lead the Bearcats in the season opener against the Purdue Boilermakers Aug. 31 at Nippert Stadium. “He’s out there. He’s fun to listen to and keep up with on Twitter. He’s probably as visible as any president I’ve been around.”

There are 500 CEOs on the Fortune list, but only 120 Division I football coaches.

After he was named national coach of the year in 2004 leading Auburn to a 13-0 season and a No. 2 national ranking, people said Tuberville had been very lucky.

“I said luck had nothing at all to do with it. I worked a long time getting where I’m at,” he says.

“About 25 percent of my job is the Xs and Os part of football. The other 75 percent is hiring, recruiting, media, fundraising – all those areas.”

ARKANSAS ROOTS Thomas Hawley Tuberville, 58, grew up in southern Arkansas in the small, blue-collar town of Camden. His father, Charles, a decorated World War II vet who died in 1977 at 53, was manager of the Grapette bottling plant.

“My dad loved sports,” says Tuberville. “He officiated high school basketball and football games and got me involved in officiating.”

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Tuberville in his office at UC was something of a cradle of coaches.

Legendary Alabama Coach Bear Bryant was from nearby Fordyce and Oklahoma’s Barry Switzer was born about an hour away in Crossett.

“They were icons,” he says.

So it’s probably no surprise, Tuberville decided early on he wanted to be a major college football coach.

Although he played quarterback in high school, graduating from Harmony Grove High School in 1972, he wasn’t offered any football scholarships.

“I was a decent athlete, but I was one of those wannabe type of guys,” he says.

But what he lacked in athletic ability, he made up for in grit.

“You’ve got to have a plan,” he says.

“For some reason growing up, I had the ability, when I decided to do something, I was going to get it done. I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.”

He wanted to be a major college football coach like his idols.

“I figured, ‘Hey if you’re going to coach and have any aspirations of being a Bear Bryant or a Barry Switzer, you’re going to need to play college football.’ ” Tuberville enrolled in nearby Southern Arkansas University, a Division II school in Magnolia and walked on as a free safety.

“I worked my tail off,” he says. “I wasn’t 50

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as big or as fast as some of them. There were a lot of days I wondered, ‘What the heck am I doing out here, you know?’ ” Despite a broken jaw, he ended up playing his junior and senior year. He also was a member of the golf team.

“My dad played a little bit, and we had a golf course not too far from our house where I’d go and hit golf balls,” he says.

At Southern Arkansas, one of the football assistants was also the golf coach and recruited Tuberville for the team.

“I mainly did it to get out of spring (football) practice,” he says.

Tuberville, who plays to an 8-10 handicap, says he doesn’t touch the clubs from August to April because of his football duties but appreciates the value of the game.

“Golf is a great sport for building relationships, finding out about people, raising money and hiring people,” he says. “You find out a lot about a person on the golf course.”

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in physical education in 1976, he coached at Hermitage High School in Arkansas for four years before landing an assistant’s job at Arkansas State University under Larry Lacewell.

He worked his way up to linebacker’s coach, when Tuberville, who later earned the nickname “The Riverboat Gambler” at Ole Miss for his willingness to take chances, rolled the dice.

He quit coaching to start a catfish restaurant.

“I wanted to get to the big time,” he says, but didn’t think he’d break through at Arkansas State.

“I was single and had a little money in my pocket after years of not making a lot of money,” he said. So he moved to Tullahoma, Tenn., where his sister lived and started Tubby’s Catfish Restaurant.

It wasn’t a total punt.

“I had some friends back in Arkansas who started catfish restaurants. It was pretty unique and they did well.”

Tuberville says he liked the restaurant business. “It’s kinda like winning the game.

You have either success or failure.”

The most popular item was the Pond Platter, for about $8. “That’s two catfish filets or one catfish steak, two frogs legs, hush puppies and pond water, a fruit drink we mixed ourselves that was kind of unique,” he says.

Although the restaurant did well, Tuberville itched to get back into coaching. After about a year, Tuberville went to New Orleans

to the national college coaches’ convention looking for a job. He bumped into his old boss Lacewell who was having a drink with Jimmy Johnson, who just finished his second season at the University of Miami.

“He asked me what I was doing? ‘I said.

‘I’m in the catfish business.’ He asked if I was looking to get back into coaching? I said, ‘Yessir!’ It was exactly what I was looking for.”

Tuberville was in Miami on Johnson’s defensive staff the next week. That Hurricanes team went undefeated before losing the national championship to Penn State in the 1987 Fiesta Bowl, but Tuberville was on his way to his first head-coaching job at Ole Miss in 1995.

Tuberville says he’s patterned his organizational approach after what he learned from Johnson.

“Jimmy hired people to do their job, and if they didn’t, he’d get somebody else.

He did a wonderful job of recruiting and working with the media. He was just a CEO type. He was involved in football, but he let his guys coach.”

People may wonder what drew Tuberville to UC after high-profile stints at Auburn, Ole Miss and Texas Tech, but it’s no mystery to him.

“I’m a football coach,” he says. “I didn’t look at Cincinnati any different than Auburn, or Ole Miss or Texas Tech. I was looking at a football school that had success the last six –seven years and has a lot in common with my family (his wife the former Suzanne Fette is from Guilford, Ind.). The athletic director (Whit Babcock) and I worked together. He knew me and knew my work ethic and philosophy. It was kind of a fit.”

Since moving here, Tuberville and his wife have settled downtown. Their son Tucker is a QB at UC and other son Troy is a high school sophomore.

“We got a place downtown on the river purposely so we can walk to Reds games, walk up to Mount Adams. I like the diversity of a town like this. There are a lot of different cultures and food here. If you want a change, you don’t have to go far.”

Tuberville admits the different dimensions of his job from coach to recruiter to media personality can be taxing.

“Sometimes it gets to you a little bit because you get spread out a lot,” he says.

“Sometimes you get away from the football part more than you’d like. But if you don’t take care of those other parts, then football won’t be there any way.” ■