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Riley's Coaching Influences


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Begin at home — wherever home was at the time. Lewiston, Idaho. Moscow, Idaho. Corvallis, Oregon.

Mike Riley grew up in all those places watching his dad coach.
“My dad loved football,” Riley says. “If you ever asked anybody that worked with him, they’d say he was always watching film. He loved the game. And the other thing, he loved the game and the job. It wasn’t really a job to him. He really enjoyed being a coach.”
What Riley remembers as much as anything was how much his father loved his players. That doesn’t mean he was easy on them. Far from it.
But he sure loved them.
“My dad was old-school, now. He was tough. Scared us and scared his players, I think,” Riley says with a laugh. “But he was also really diligent in his job and he loved the players. I mean, he would talk about those guys around the dinner table like we’re talking about family. I think I just grew up in that and I think that’s really led me to the point (where) I never really thought about anything else. That’s what I was going to do. I didn’t even know there was anything else to do.”
Riley remembers being 6 or 7, riding the bus to games, being in the locker room after practices, being on the sideline during games.
When Bud became an assistant coach at Idaho, and then Oregon State, his son’s questions about the details of the game became more frequent.
“We had Saturday evenings, after the Saturday afternoon game, I know I bugged him to death about the game,” Riley says.

 

LJS

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