RedCountry
Well-known member
This is a great art and finally some pos pub about Cally and NU!!
Im posting the entire thing here insted of the link b/c it requires you to sign up for a membership and thought id save everyone some time.
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Answering Heartland's Call
Bill Callahan left the NFL behind to take one of the nation's top jobs at Nebraska
By Melissa Isaacson
Tribune staff reporter
January 25, 2004
LINCOLN, Neb. -- It wasn't so long ago that Bill Callahan and South Side buddy Kevin Cosgrove were talking about their dreams.
It was the early 1990s, when both were assistant coaches at Wisconsin, and the pinnacle seemed clear.
"We talked about getting to the show, to the league," Cosgrove said, referring to the NFL. "We wanted to see what it was like if you made it to the top, made it to the Super Bowl. Well, Billy has been there, he took his team to the Super Bowl, and now, well, he's excited to be back in college football."
Back at one of the most coveted jobs in the nation as the head coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Back, as well, with a firsthand lesson in being careful what you wish for.
A year ago this week, Callahan was in San Diego as head coach of the AFC champion Oakland Raiders, the fourth first-year coach to take a team to the Super Bowl.
Today, three weeks after Raiders owner Al Davis fired him following a 4-12 second season riddled by injuries and infighting, Callahan, 47, has a new dream.
"My goal," he said, "is to be the first coach to go from having an NFL team in the Super Bowl to winning a national championship."
If that sounds like his ambition has diminished, a growing number of marquee college coaches would beg to differ. Call it a trend, if you will, but more control, sometimes more money and the prospect of a type of adulation that elevates a football coach to state emperor status has made Nick Saban, Bob Stoops and others reaffirm their commitment to college football.
Throw in the fact that this year's rash of NFL firings included the coaches of teams in two of the last three Super Bowls--Callahan and Jim Fassel, late of the New York Giants--and maybe the show isn't quite so enticing anymore.
"Through the years the NFL was always sort of intriguing to all of us coming up through the ranks, but it also offered tremendous financial stability," said Mike White, the Kansas City Chiefs' director of football administration, who gave Callahan his first college coaching job when White was head coach at Illinois. "But now that the colleges are making such a strong effort to keep the quality coaches they have, it has leveled the playing field."
Not 1st choice
Callahan arrived in Lincoln after a 39-day search that included mass panic among Huskers fans, talk of a boycott among players, as many as six legitimate candidates and at least two rejections. Having signed a six-year contract worth $1.5 million annually--more than he was making in Oakland--he would like to finish his career at Nebraska.
"All I know is that the timing worked out extremely well and I count my blessings," he said. "This is one of the top jobs in college football, the opportunity of a lifetime to grab hold and take this to a whole new level."
There are those who would argue that the old level did not merit a wholesale change. Former Huskers coach Frank Solich was fired a day after Nebraska defeated Colorado to finish the season 9-3 and leave Solich with a mark of 58-19 over six seasons since he replaced Tom Osborne one year after the Huskers' last national championship.
Solich's interim replacement, defensive coordinator Bo Pelini, led the Huskers to a 17-3 victory over Michigan State in the Alamo Bowl. Pelini, a fiery 36-year-old, was the popular choice of Nebraska fans and players, some of whom talked of sitting out practice or the bowl game as a show of support for Pelini.
Longtime boosters railed against athletic director Steve Pederson, who forsook a search committee and took control of the hiring, fending off accusations that his was a classic case of lost perspective in the ever-demanding world of college sports.
"It was never about the record," Pederson said. "You don't fire someone who just went 9-3 because they didn't win enough games. The direction was not where we wanted to head."
Translation: Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas State have created a gap in the Big 12 that doesn't sit well in Husker Nation.
"Sure, 9-3 looks good, but you have to remember we weren't ever less than 9-3," said Charlie McBride, Nebraska's defensive coordinator for 23 years before retiring after the '99 season. "And who did they beat? They beat the teams they were supposed to beat like Utah State and Southern Miss, but they lost to teams like Missouri and Texas and Kansas State, and they were really beat. Those are games you have to win in the future."
As for the 5 1/2-week search period, during which the team at least temporarily lost three recruits who had committed, Pederson was unfazed.
"You're talking about the highest-paid person in the state of Nebraska," he said, "and you want me to hire someone I don't know about? And it's not a short-term hire. For the sake of another four or five days, I was going to get the right person."
Still, fans were frantic over the possibility of losing ground in recruiting and not overly thrilled when Callahan's name came to the fore.
"He just came out of the blue," said Dean Kratz, an Omaha lawyer, past president of the Nebraska Touchdown Club and a member of the executive committee of the Husker Athletic Fund.
"I think it was a good hire and he'll do a good job, but there are a lot of people who don't.
"One problem is he dismissed all of Nebraska's assistant coaches, and these are guys who played here and love Nebraska football. And he fired all but two."
One exception: Turner Gill, a former Huskers quarterback and Solich's assistant head coach who interviewed for the head coach's position. Callahan replaced the other assistants "with guys who don't have any Nebraska background," Kratz said. But, he added, "All of this will get fixed if he wins some football games."
Callahan's reputation as a disciplinarian and a traditionalist would seem a good fit for college football. But it contributed to his undoing in Oakland.
A matter of trust
By the time the Raiders fired him, Callahan had cleaned out his office, so sure that a season that ended amid mass player dissension would be his last.
Cornerback Charles Woodson, who was sent home from the season finale in San Diego for missing curfew the night before the game, criticized Callahan at midseason, calling him an egotist who had lost control of the team. Soon after came a tirade in which Callahan described the Raiders as "the dumbest team in America" following one mistake-filled loss.
The Raiders ended their 2003 season with the worst record following a Super Bowl season in a non-strike year since the NFL adopted the 16-game schedule in 1978.
In the end, Callahan's decision to deactivate Woodson and starting running back Charlie Garner 90 minutes before the San Diego game turned some of his strongest supporters, including veteran wideout Tim Brown, against him.
"He made things personal with this team, and you can't do that," Brown said. "Nobody trusts a word he says."
But two former Cornhuskers on the Raiders, Adam Treu and John Parrella, supported Callahan in conversations with Nebraska reporters.
"On any team there are going to be a couple of individuals who don't particularly view things the way the coach does," Treu said. "It happens, in our case, to be a couple of high-profile guys."
Callahan insisted that his NFL experience hasn't scarred him--"No, not at all," he said--and laughed at the suggestion his style is better suited for the college level.
"My style was fine a year ago," he said. "As coaches I think we learn to improve ourselves on a yearly basis--what worked, what didn't work. You evaluate and reassess what you've done. I'm open to change. I did it after the Super Bowl. I'll do it after next season. It's an ongoing process."
In a rare sit-down with reporters, Davis justified Callahan's firing by saying his emphasis on discipline was misguided.
"Whoever we hire, I'm not looking for a disciplinarian," he said. "I don't believe that's the way to go with this culture, with these groups of young athletes."
White, a coaching veteran of more than 40 years who was a Raiders head coach for Davis in the mid-'90s, blasted that logic.
"Billy is a good disciplinarian, and that's necessary at all levels," he said. "[The Raiders] needed an excuse, and that became the excuse. Billy's strength is his ability to hire people and delegate and to bring out the best in players, and he probably wasn't given that opportunity in Oakland. It's a crazy place. They almost pride themselves on not having stability and continuity."
Mt. Carmel football coach Frank Lenti, a second cousin to Callahan, remembers his call to Callahan right after the firing.
"I called to offer my condolences and his first comment was, `Cous, it's a relief.' Al Davis didn't care about discipline."
Callahan does not quibble with the label of disciplinarian.
"I believe discipline is an ingredient you must have to attain any type of success or direction in anything," he said. "It's necessary in big business, in college football or the pros."
New beginnings
Callahan, the son of a Chicago policeman, played quarterback at now-closed Mendel Catholic on the South Side and at Illinois Benedictine in Lisle. A father of four, including son Brian, a freshman walk-on quarterback at UCLA this season, he clearly likes the idea of starting over.
"In college football, I feel very strongly about the ability to impact a young man's career and also his life," Callahan said. "The impact I made when I was at Wisconsin and other universities meant a great deal to me.
"Not that in professional football you can't. It's just different. And I feel very strongly that with the atmosphere and culture that exists here, what I really want to create is a family atmosphere."
The chance to oversee a program free from Davis' meddling also appealed to him.
"I'm not a control freak, but in the NFL, management makes the moves," he said.
Callahan immediately hired Cosgrove, who spent 14 seasons at Wisconsin, as his defensive coordinator.
"I wouldn't have taken the job if I didn't have total faith in Billy's ability to communicate and delegate," Cosgrove said.
On offense, Callahan will call his own plays and shake up Huskers traditionalists by installing a version of the pass-happy West Coast offense, a move that Nebraska fans hope will attract skill-position recruits who may have seen their NFL opportunities as limited playing in the old smash-mouth system.
"Bill is a perfect fit for us, and he will get to do what he really wants to do, and that's coach, run his program," Pederson said. "He has been to the Super Bowl. He has proved that. Now he wants to retire here. I wouldn't be surprised if you see more coaches coming back to college and more and more stay."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Callahan at a glance
Hometown: Chicago.
High School: Mendel Catholic (1970-74).
Education: Illinois Benedictine College (May 21, 1978), graduated with bachelor of arts degree, physical education major
NFL YEAR TEAM TITLE 2002-03 Oakland Head coach 1999-01 Oakland Off. coord./off. line 1998 Oakland Off. coord./tight ends 1995-97 Phila. Offensive line College YEAR SCHOOL TITLE 1990-94 Wisconsin Offensive line 1989 S. Illinois Off. coordinator 1987-88 N. Arizona Offensive line 1986 Illinois Quarterbacks 1984-85 Illinois Offensive line 1982-83 Illinois Special/tight ends 1980-81 Illinois Assistant
Copyright © 2004, The Chicago Tribune
Im posting the entire thing here insted of the link b/c it requires you to sign up for a membership and thought id save everyone some time.
=====================================================
Answering Heartland's Call
Bill Callahan left the NFL behind to take one of the nation's top jobs at Nebraska
By Melissa Isaacson
Tribune staff reporter
January 25, 2004
LINCOLN, Neb. -- It wasn't so long ago that Bill Callahan and South Side buddy Kevin Cosgrove were talking about their dreams.
It was the early 1990s, when both were assistant coaches at Wisconsin, and the pinnacle seemed clear.
"We talked about getting to the show, to the league," Cosgrove said, referring to the NFL. "We wanted to see what it was like if you made it to the top, made it to the Super Bowl. Well, Billy has been there, he took his team to the Super Bowl, and now, well, he's excited to be back in college football."
Back at one of the most coveted jobs in the nation as the head coach of the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Back, as well, with a firsthand lesson in being careful what you wish for.
A year ago this week, Callahan was in San Diego as head coach of the AFC champion Oakland Raiders, the fourth first-year coach to take a team to the Super Bowl.
Today, three weeks after Raiders owner Al Davis fired him following a 4-12 second season riddled by injuries and infighting, Callahan, 47, has a new dream.
"My goal," he said, "is to be the first coach to go from having an NFL team in the Super Bowl to winning a national championship."
If that sounds like his ambition has diminished, a growing number of marquee college coaches would beg to differ. Call it a trend, if you will, but more control, sometimes more money and the prospect of a type of adulation that elevates a football coach to state emperor status has made Nick Saban, Bob Stoops and others reaffirm their commitment to college football.
Throw in the fact that this year's rash of NFL firings included the coaches of teams in two of the last three Super Bowls--Callahan and Jim Fassel, late of the New York Giants--and maybe the show isn't quite so enticing anymore.
"Through the years the NFL was always sort of intriguing to all of us coming up through the ranks, but it also offered tremendous financial stability," said Mike White, the Kansas City Chiefs' director of football administration, who gave Callahan his first college coaching job when White was head coach at Illinois. "But now that the colleges are making such a strong effort to keep the quality coaches they have, it has leveled the playing field."
Not 1st choice
Callahan arrived in Lincoln after a 39-day search that included mass panic among Huskers fans, talk of a boycott among players, as many as six legitimate candidates and at least two rejections. Having signed a six-year contract worth $1.5 million annually--more than he was making in Oakland--he would like to finish his career at Nebraska.
"All I know is that the timing worked out extremely well and I count my blessings," he said. "This is one of the top jobs in college football, the opportunity of a lifetime to grab hold and take this to a whole new level."
There are those who would argue that the old level did not merit a wholesale change. Former Huskers coach Frank Solich was fired a day after Nebraska defeated Colorado to finish the season 9-3 and leave Solich with a mark of 58-19 over six seasons since he replaced Tom Osborne one year after the Huskers' last national championship.
Solich's interim replacement, defensive coordinator Bo Pelini, led the Huskers to a 17-3 victory over Michigan State in the Alamo Bowl. Pelini, a fiery 36-year-old, was the popular choice of Nebraska fans and players, some of whom talked of sitting out practice or the bowl game as a show of support for Pelini.
Longtime boosters railed against athletic director Steve Pederson, who forsook a search committee and took control of the hiring, fending off accusations that his was a classic case of lost perspective in the ever-demanding world of college sports.
"It was never about the record," Pederson said. "You don't fire someone who just went 9-3 because they didn't win enough games. The direction was not where we wanted to head."
Translation: Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas State have created a gap in the Big 12 that doesn't sit well in Husker Nation.
"Sure, 9-3 looks good, but you have to remember we weren't ever less than 9-3," said Charlie McBride, Nebraska's defensive coordinator for 23 years before retiring after the '99 season. "And who did they beat? They beat the teams they were supposed to beat like Utah State and Southern Miss, but they lost to teams like Missouri and Texas and Kansas State, and they were really beat. Those are games you have to win in the future."
As for the 5 1/2-week search period, during which the team at least temporarily lost three recruits who had committed, Pederson was unfazed.
"You're talking about the highest-paid person in the state of Nebraska," he said, "and you want me to hire someone I don't know about? And it's not a short-term hire. For the sake of another four or five days, I was going to get the right person."
Still, fans were frantic over the possibility of losing ground in recruiting and not overly thrilled when Callahan's name came to the fore.
"He just came out of the blue," said Dean Kratz, an Omaha lawyer, past president of the Nebraska Touchdown Club and a member of the executive committee of the Husker Athletic Fund.
"I think it was a good hire and he'll do a good job, but there are a lot of people who don't.
"One problem is he dismissed all of Nebraska's assistant coaches, and these are guys who played here and love Nebraska football. And he fired all but two."
One exception: Turner Gill, a former Huskers quarterback and Solich's assistant head coach who interviewed for the head coach's position. Callahan replaced the other assistants "with guys who don't have any Nebraska background," Kratz said. But, he added, "All of this will get fixed if he wins some football games."
Callahan's reputation as a disciplinarian and a traditionalist would seem a good fit for college football. But it contributed to his undoing in Oakland.
A matter of trust
By the time the Raiders fired him, Callahan had cleaned out his office, so sure that a season that ended amid mass player dissension would be his last.
Cornerback Charles Woodson, who was sent home from the season finale in San Diego for missing curfew the night before the game, criticized Callahan at midseason, calling him an egotist who had lost control of the team. Soon after came a tirade in which Callahan described the Raiders as "the dumbest team in America" following one mistake-filled loss.
The Raiders ended their 2003 season with the worst record following a Super Bowl season in a non-strike year since the NFL adopted the 16-game schedule in 1978.
In the end, Callahan's decision to deactivate Woodson and starting running back Charlie Garner 90 minutes before the San Diego game turned some of his strongest supporters, including veteran wideout Tim Brown, against him.
"He made things personal with this team, and you can't do that," Brown said. "Nobody trusts a word he says."
But two former Cornhuskers on the Raiders, Adam Treu and John Parrella, supported Callahan in conversations with Nebraska reporters.
"On any team there are going to be a couple of individuals who don't particularly view things the way the coach does," Treu said. "It happens, in our case, to be a couple of high-profile guys."
Callahan insisted that his NFL experience hasn't scarred him--"No, not at all," he said--and laughed at the suggestion his style is better suited for the college level.
"My style was fine a year ago," he said. "As coaches I think we learn to improve ourselves on a yearly basis--what worked, what didn't work. You evaluate and reassess what you've done. I'm open to change. I did it after the Super Bowl. I'll do it after next season. It's an ongoing process."
In a rare sit-down with reporters, Davis justified Callahan's firing by saying his emphasis on discipline was misguided.
"Whoever we hire, I'm not looking for a disciplinarian," he said. "I don't believe that's the way to go with this culture, with these groups of young athletes."
White, a coaching veteran of more than 40 years who was a Raiders head coach for Davis in the mid-'90s, blasted that logic.
"Billy is a good disciplinarian, and that's necessary at all levels," he said. "[The Raiders] needed an excuse, and that became the excuse. Billy's strength is his ability to hire people and delegate and to bring out the best in players, and he probably wasn't given that opportunity in Oakland. It's a crazy place. They almost pride themselves on not having stability and continuity."
Mt. Carmel football coach Frank Lenti, a second cousin to Callahan, remembers his call to Callahan right after the firing.
"I called to offer my condolences and his first comment was, `Cous, it's a relief.' Al Davis didn't care about discipline."
Callahan does not quibble with the label of disciplinarian.
"I believe discipline is an ingredient you must have to attain any type of success or direction in anything," he said. "It's necessary in big business, in college football or the pros."
New beginnings
Callahan, the son of a Chicago policeman, played quarterback at now-closed Mendel Catholic on the South Side and at Illinois Benedictine in Lisle. A father of four, including son Brian, a freshman walk-on quarterback at UCLA this season, he clearly likes the idea of starting over.
"In college football, I feel very strongly about the ability to impact a young man's career and also his life," Callahan said. "The impact I made when I was at Wisconsin and other universities meant a great deal to me.
"Not that in professional football you can't. It's just different. And I feel very strongly that with the atmosphere and culture that exists here, what I really want to create is a family atmosphere."
The chance to oversee a program free from Davis' meddling also appealed to him.
"I'm not a control freak, but in the NFL, management makes the moves," he said.
Callahan immediately hired Cosgrove, who spent 14 seasons at Wisconsin, as his defensive coordinator.
"I wouldn't have taken the job if I didn't have total faith in Billy's ability to communicate and delegate," Cosgrove said.
On offense, Callahan will call his own plays and shake up Huskers traditionalists by installing a version of the pass-happy West Coast offense, a move that Nebraska fans hope will attract skill-position recruits who may have seen their NFL opportunities as limited playing in the old smash-mouth system.
"Bill is a perfect fit for us, and he will get to do what he really wants to do, and that's coach, run his program," Pederson said. "He has been to the Super Bowl. He has proved that. Now he wants to retire here. I wouldn't be surprised if you see more coaches coming back to college and more and more stay."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Callahan at a glance
Hometown: Chicago.
High School: Mendel Catholic (1970-74).
Education: Illinois Benedictine College (May 21, 1978), graduated with bachelor of arts degree, physical education major
NFL YEAR TEAM TITLE 2002-03 Oakland Head coach 1999-01 Oakland Off. coord./off. line 1998 Oakland Off. coord./tight ends 1995-97 Phila. Offensive line College YEAR SCHOOL TITLE 1990-94 Wisconsin Offensive line 1989 S. Illinois Off. coordinator 1987-88 N. Arizona Offensive line 1986 Illinois Quarterbacks 1984-85 Illinois Offensive line 1982-83 Illinois Special/tight ends 1980-81 Illinois Assistant
Copyright © 2004, The Chicago Tribune