tanagriz
January 19th, 2006, 02:16 PM
Found this on the Trib this afternoon as I was taking a "work" break. Thought it was an interesting article. Posted below in full for those of you who don't have an account at chicagotribune.com
:hurray:
'X's and O's' U
Payton 3rd EIU alum to join NFL head coaching fraternity
By David Haugh
Tribune staff reporter
January 18, 2006, 11:06 PM CST
When the PED 3480 class that teaches football coaching meets Thursday on the Eastern Illinois University campus, instructor and head football coach Bob Spoo could open with a history lesson.
The state school, a proven teacher-training ground known more for producing future principals than coaches for the NFL, achieved a level of distinction Wednesday when the New Orleans Saints introduced former Eastern Illinois quarterback Sean Payton as their head coach.
Payton joined fellow Eastern alumni Mike Shanahan of the Denver Broncos and Brad Childress of the Minnesota Vikings in an elite NFL fraternity that has only 32 members.
Division I-A universities USC and San Diego State also have three graduates apiece coaching teams in the NFL, but Eastern Illinois is the only Division I-AA school with as many.
Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., (enrollment 2,700) celebrated the New York Jets' hiring of 34-year-old Eric Mangini on its Web site because it gave the school two NFL head coaches, including 1975 alum Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots. But in Downstate Charleston, they will tell you the cradle of coaches has a new manufacturer.
"Tell Miami of Ohio to move aside," kidded longtime sports information director Dave Kidwell, whose EIU career dates to 1972 and has spanned all three men.
Shanahan, class of 1974, played quarterback for EIU's Panthers until a lacerated kidney ended his playing days and forced him into a coaching career bound for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Childress, class of 1978, never competed as an athlete for the Panthers after transferring from Illinois but did pick up a diploma from Eastern.
Payton, class of 1987, starred at quarterback before a short stint on the Bears' roster. He still holds 11 passing records at the Ohio Valley Conference school.
"It's something you can certainly get chesty about if you're an alum," said John Jurkovic, a talk-show host at WMVP-AM whose Eastern career from 1986-89 earned him a spot in the school's hall of fame.
By the time future Green Bay Packer Jurkovic arrived on campus, the football program's arrow had started turning up again thanks largely to a 1978 turnaround season. Shanahan, then 26, served as offensive coordinator for head coach Darrell Mudra, whose Panthers went 12-2 that year and won the Division II national title."I don't know if you could have predicted Mike would win two Super Bowls back then, but you could tell he was exceptional," Kidwell recalled.
Childress, an Aurora native who prepped at Marmion Academy, escapes the memory of many longtime Eastern observers because he was not a varsity athlete.
But almost everybody in Charleston (pop. 20,000) has heard of Payton, the All-American kid whose charisma made an impression on former Panthers coach Al Molde the first time they shook hands in Payton's hometown of Naperville. Molde, Eastern's head coach from 1983-86, recruited Payton.
"I knew from the get-go that he had an effervescent personality and was a special guy," Molde said.
Now the athletic director at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., Molde keeps in touch with his former pupil and has enjoyed watching traces of his old offense at EIU show up in Payton's game plans on Sunday afternoons.
"Things are much more complex but I've seen similarities in [Giants and Cowboys] games to what we did in the three-step drops and blitz checks in the passing game," Molde said. "There's still a little bit of Eastern in him, and now in New Orleans."
There are little pieces of Panthers pride on staffs all over the league, besides the three head coaches.
Indianapolis Colts defensive line coach John Teerlinck was Mudra's defensive coordinator at Eastern from 1978-79. Cleveland Browns assistant Randy Melvin was an All-America defensive lineman from 1978-80, and New York Jets offensive coordinator Mike Heimerdinger played center field for the baseball team and was Shanahan's roommate.
"I didn't have a lot to do with Sean Payton, but I feel I had some influence on some of those guys being able to go off and have good careers in coaching," said Mudra, 77, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame now living outside Tallahassee.
"They hadn't had a winning season [since 1961] when we won the national championship in '78 and turned things around," Mudra said. "I think that started the tradition."
It has carried on under Spoo, a former Loyola Academy coach who has become the winningest coach in school history by going 119-98-1 since taking over in 1987.
Players do not necessarily come to Eastern Illinois planning on continuing their careers in the NFL. But, more and more, students do.
"I sat there in class [Wednesday] and thought that there were a couple of guys who sat in this same classroom and went on to be a head coach in the NFL, so why can't I?" said Nick Kray, a junior defensive end and physical-education major from Glendale Heights who wants to coach.
You might say it's in his blood. Kray is a second cousin to Shanahan, whom Kray and his family will see this weekend in Denver when they fly out to Sunday's AFC Championship game.
Above everything else, Kray looks at it as a field trip.
"I see how Mike was a just a guy from Franklin Park, an ordinary town, and wound up winning two Super Bowls," Kray said. "He went to Eastern. Payton and [Childress] went to Eastern. That's inspiring to us. If they can do it, why can't I?"
[email protected]
:hurray:
'X's and O's' U
Payton 3rd EIU alum to join NFL head coaching fraternity
By David Haugh
Tribune staff reporter
January 18, 2006, 11:06 PM CST
When the PED 3480 class that teaches football coaching meets Thursday on the Eastern Illinois University campus, instructor and head football coach Bob Spoo could open with a history lesson.
The state school, a proven teacher-training ground known more for producing future principals than coaches for the NFL, achieved a level of distinction Wednesday when the New Orleans Saints introduced former Eastern Illinois quarterback Sean Payton as their head coach.
Payton joined fellow Eastern alumni Mike Shanahan of the Denver Broncos and Brad Childress of the Minnesota Vikings in an elite NFL fraternity that has only 32 members.
Division I-A universities USC and San Diego State also have three graduates apiece coaching teams in the NFL, but Eastern Illinois is the only Division I-AA school with as many.
Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., (enrollment 2,700) celebrated the New York Jets' hiring of 34-year-old Eric Mangini on its Web site because it gave the school two NFL head coaches, including 1975 alum Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots. But in Downstate Charleston, they will tell you the cradle of coaches has a new manufacturer.
"Tell Miami of Ohio to move aside," kidded longtime sports information director Dave Kidwell, whose EIU career dates to 1972 and has spanned all three men.
Shanahan, class of 1974, played quarterback for EIU's Panthers until a lacerated kidney ended his playing days and forced him into a coaching career bound for the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Childress, class of 1978, never competed as an athlete for the Panthers after transferring from Illinois but did pick up a diploma from Eastern.
Payton, class of 1987, starred at quarterback before a short stint on the Bears' roster. He still holds 11 passing records at the Ohio Valley Conference school.
"It's something you can certainly get chesty about if you're an alum," said John Jurkovic, a talk-show host at WMVP-AM whose Eastern career from 1986-89 earned him a spot in the school's hall of fame.
By the time future Green Bay Packer Jurkovic arrived on campus, the football program's arrow had started turning up again thanks largely to a 1978 turnaround season. Shanahan, then 26, served as offensive coordinator for head coach Darrell Mudra, whose Panthers went 12-2 that year and won the Division II national title."I don't know if you could have predicted Mike would win two Super Bowls back then, but you could tell he was exceptional," Kidwell recalled.
Childress, an Aurora native who prepped at Marmion Academy, escapes the memory of many longtime Eastern observers because he was not a varsity athlete.
But almost everybody in Charleston (pop. 20,000) has heard of Payton, the All-American kid whose charisma made an impression on former Panthers coach Al Molde the first time they shook hands in Payton's hometown of Naperville. Molde, Eastern's head coach from 1983-86, recruited Payton.
"I knew from the get-go that he had an effervescent personality and was a special guy," Molde said.
Now the athletic director at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., Molde keeps in touch with his former pupil and has enjoyed watching traces of his old offense at EIU show up in Payton's game plans on Sunday afternoons.
"Things are much more complex but I've seen similarities in [Giants and Cowboys] games to what we did in the three-step drops and blitz checks in the passing game," Molde said. "There's still a little bit of Eastern in him, and now in New Orleans."
There are little pieces of Panthers pride on staffs all over the league, besides the three head coaches.
Indianapolis Colts defensive line coach John Teerlinck was Mudra's defensive coordinator at Eastern from 1978-79. Cleveland Browns assistant Randy Melvin was an All-America defensive lineman from 1978-80, and New York Jets offensive coordinator Mike Heimerdinger played center field for the baseball team and was Shanahan's roommate.
"I didn't have a lot to do with Sean Payton, but I feel I had some influence on some of those guys being able to go off and have good careers in coaching," said Mudra, 77, a member of the College Football Hall of Fame now living outside Tallahassee.
"They hadn't had a winning season [since 1961] when we won the national championship in '78 and turned things around," Mudra said. "I think that started the tradition."
It has carried on under Spoo, a former Loyola Academy coach who has become the winningest coach in school history by going 119-98-1 since taking over in 1987.
Players do not necessarily come to Eastern Illinois planning on continuing their careers in the NFL. But, more and more, students do.
"I sat there in class [Wednesday] and thought that there were a couple of guys who sat in this same classroom and went on to be a head coach in the NFL, so why can't I?" said Nick Kray, a junior defensive end and physical-education major from Glendale Heights who wants to coach.
You might say it's in his blood. Kray is a second cousin to Shanahan, whom Kray and his family will see this weekend in Denver when they fly out to Sunday's AFC Championship game.
Above everything else, Kray looks at it as a field trip.
"I see how Mike was a just a guy from Franklin Park, an ordinary town, and wound up winning two Super Bowls," Kray said. "He went to Eastern. Payton and [Childress] went to Eastern. That's inspiring to us. If they can do it, why can't I?"
[email protected]