Tommy Tuberville

Waiting is the Hardest Part for Tuberville

[ By Ca rl Da nbury ]

nce the toast of the loveliest village on the plains, Tommy Tuberville is now just Suzanne’s husband, and Tucker’s and Troy’s father, rather than mentor of 120 young adult football players at Auburn University.

Tuberville was more than just the head coach at Auburn. He was the torchbearer of a program that often played (plays) second fiddle to a certain Crimson-clad bunch in terms of statewide and national media attention, SEC titles and esteem.

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Tommy Tuberville

the media, particularly in 2004 when the Tigers were left out of the BCS title game and finished No. 2 behind USC. SEC teams have played in, and won, the BCS championship game four times in the past six years. Auburn didn’t get the chance.

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s 120 Bowl Championship Subdivision teams and coaches prepare for the upcoming 2009 season, according to Suzanne, her husband is now more concerned with the longevity of light bulbs rather than devising an offensive scheme that could return Auburn to the top of the SEC standings.

“Football coaches are so oriented to a schedule,” Tuberville told SportsUnlimited during an exclusive interview at the Coaches for Cancer charity golf tournament in Raleigh in June. “You Somebody asked my have two-a-days, the season, recruiting, spring wife about my situapractice, more recruiting, a little off-season and then you go back at it. tion and she said, ‘Well, “Somebody asked my wife about my situation I haven’t seen this and she said, ‘Well, I haven’t seen this much of him much of him in a long in a long time and all he has done is change light bulbs. Once he gets them changed, all he does is time and all he has wait for them to burn out so he can change them done is change light again,’” Tuberville chuckled.

“I have been lost to be honest with you. There bulbs. Once he gets is just too much time.” them changed, all he To pass the time, Tuberville has made speaking engagements and took a seven-day trip to visit does is wait for them U.S. troops in Iraq with Wake Forest’s Jim Grobe, to burn out so he can Ohio State’s Jim Tressel and Mack Brown of Texas. change them again.

Like many ex-coaches, Tuberville will be behind the microphone this fall, but expects his tenure as a broadcaster to be brief.

“We all need to do something different every once in awhile. After 10 years at Auburn and basically 15 years in the SEC, it takes a toll on you mentally. We did a lot of good things there, but it was time to take a year off and do it again [somewhere else]. I’ll work with ESPN in the fall, do some radio, but hopefully in December, I’ll get back in it,” Tuberville said.

“I’ll look at games from a different perspective than most media guys. I’ll look at it from a coach’s perspective rather than a fan’s perspective,” Tuberville said about his fledgling career in broadcast journalism. “I guess that’s the reason they want me to do some work with them. I’m excited about it. It’s something new, but it’s not as competitive. You know coaches are competitive people and you want to stay competitive, so I am going to do the most I can to stay involved in it. I think that’s what going to help me.”

Unlike other successful coaches, Danny Ford or Dick Sheridan for example, who retired

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Sure, Auburn won the SEC and a national championship in 1957 with Shug Jordan at the helm, the year before Paul Bryant returned to Tuscaloosa to provide a hearing aid for Crimson Tide fans after enduring the interminable three-year reign of former coach “Ears” Whitworth, who went 4-24-2 at Alabama. Sure, Auburn won the SEC title again the year after Bryant retired, and three consecutive conference crowns (1987-89) with Pat Dye running the show. But, probation reared its ugly head in 1993 and 1994, and Dye’s successor, Terry Bowden, who was an impressive 47-18, couldn’t win an SEC title.

Tuberville left Ole Miss after the 1998 season to take the job at Auburn. In his 10 seasons there, Tuberville went 85-40, including 52-30 in SEC games, won the league championship during an undefeated season in 2004, won two SEC West titles (2000, 2004), finished second in the division five times, led the Tigers to eight straight bowl games, winning five of those, and oh by the way, beat Alabama an unprecedented six straight times from 200207.

War Damn Eagle!

In the stands, Auburn fans rallied behind their successful coach, who never missed an opportunity to explain to everyone within earshot that Auburn never gets its just due from

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Tommy Tuberville

from coaching at an even younger age, Tuberville has no plans to end his coaching career.

“I’ve got too many years left. I like what I’m doing. I like coaching and being around young kids and other coaches. You get to like the camaraderie of it. I’m far from shutting it down,” the Camden, Ark., native admitted.

“I worked every day when I was coaching. I was a father to 120 kids on campus. I told their parents when I recruited them that I was going to keep an eye on them and that was what I tried to do. You try to make your players be self-reliant and responsible, and send them off as better kids. Between all that you have to win football games,” Tuberville said.

“It’s a fun profession. It’s gratifying to work with kids and see them go from one point to another, but it’s hard.”

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uring the coaches’ trip to Iraq, Africa, Spain, Turkey and Germany, the troops wanted to know when the NCAA might implement a playoff system, Tuberville said.

“There are other teams that have big advantages in terms of state and national media coverage. You’re seeing a lot of parity in college football, a lot more than you ever have because of the number of scholarships. But deep down, there are only 10 teams in the country that can consistently win a national championship. One might be able to sneak up and win one every once in awhile, and I think we’re starting to add to that number,” Tuberville said.

“Everybody talks about the BCS, it’s not a perfect system, but it’s a lot better than what we had 25 years ago. Everybody forgets one thing and that’s the players. Football is hard.

It’s hard to practice and hard to play. It’s very physically demanding and you start having a playoff system you’re really going to shorten the pool of prospective winners because teams that have more [resources], also have more depth.

“When we went 13-0, at the end of the year we were beat up and staggering to the finish line,” Tuberville admitted. “We played Virginia Tech and Tennessee twice. It’s just hard.

When you get to 13 or 14 games, that’s plenty for these kids to be playing. Now, if they do away with the redshirt rule and let you start playing some of these freshmen for five years and let them play on special teams their first year…

“Out of 120 kids, you only have 50 or 60 kids that you play. And last year I had 19 major surgeries. Nobody wants to hear that, they want the bottom line,” Tuberville said.

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oaching has its rewards, but it also has its pitfalls, according to Tuberville, leading one to wonder why he’s so insistent upon returning.

“You’re a hired gun. That’s what you are,” Tuberville said.

“Basketball is a little easier because you don’t have as many players to deal with, but it’s becoming more difficult because of the APR (Academic Progress Report). It’s a hard job.

People think that these guys make millions of dollars, are in the limelight, but you don’t have a life,” he said.

In addition to Tuberville being replaced by Gene Chizik at Auburn, 19 other coaches lost their jobs after the 2008 season. The trend of changing coaches will most certainly continue and it’s hard to imagine Tuberville not being one of the first on the “hired gun” list.

“You go in, take a situation, try to become familiar with it, and you try to build that situation up. Football is not an overnight situation. It’s going to take two or three years,” Tuberville said.

All Tuberville has to do now is wait for another bulb to burn out. SU

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