The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

As if I didn't already like Jay Gruden, this article gives me another reason.  He's been both successful and very well liked every where he's been. I wish him the best in Washington but I don't know if the odds are in his favor.  I saw this from a fan in the Washington Post.

"I would like to apologize in advance to Jay Gruden. 
 
Coach, when it all falls apart after three years and you're left to wonder how you ever thought that coaching the Redskins was a good idea, I want you to know that it's not your fault. While I wish you all the best -- and I do hope you win a lot of games here -- we have an owner who cannot get out of his own way, according to press reports. I will give him credit for the fact that he wants to win. The problem is that he doesn't know how to win. 
 
You see, he apparently cannot help himself from developing personal relationships with high-profile players. Those relationships undermine the coach's authority. Under current ownership, the Redskins have been uncompetitive (with few exceptions). The owner-player relationship, it seems, has been a key reason for that. 
 
So, Coach Jay Gruden, I wish you all the success in the world. I just hope that your stint in Washington doesn't ruin your coaching career."

Anyway ... here's the article from the Orlando Sentinel

Mike Bianchi
SPORTS COMMENTARY
5:04 p.m. EST, January 16, 2014

We often roll our eyes and snicker when we hear Urban Meyer and so many other big-time college and NFL head coaches look us in the eye and tell us how they want to spend more time with their families and watch their kids grow up.

And then they go lock themselves in the film room, break down kickoff coverage tape until midnight and sleep on a cot in the corner of the office.

This is why I so much admire and respect new Washington Redskins coach Jay Gruden, the former head coach of the Orlando Predators. Jay actually did want to spend more time with his family, and put his NFL coaching career on hold to prove it.

Gruden, 46, probably could have been an NFL head coach long ago if he hadn't been so content coaching in the Arena Football League for a decade, making a comfortable six-figure living and actually taking an active role in the process of raising his three boys – JJ, Joey and Jack. In fact, if the arena league hadn't folded a few years back before restructuring, Jay says he would probably still be coaching the Predators even today.

"I liked my job," Jay told me Thursday. "I had a great time coaching in the arena league. "… My wife (Sherry) was happy, my kids were happy, I was coaching my kids' basketball and football teams and really enjoying life. I really had no desire to up and move."

So many football coaches talk about priorities but rarely have any. They become missing husbands and nonexistent fathers, skipping piano recitals and soccer games, missing wedding anniversaries and family funerals so they can tirelessly prepare and plan and try to figure out which way a silly ball's going to bounce next.

''You hear football coaches list their priorities, and they always say religion first, then family and then football,'' former Miami Dolphins and Miami Hurricanes head coach Jimmy Johnson once said. "And yet they work at football 15 hours a day, seven days a week. And they spend an hour a week at church and two hours a week with their family. To me, that tells me football is first and everything else is second."

Johnson came to a life-changing awakening late in his NFL career, but by then it was too late. He'd already ruined his marriage and missed his kids' entire childhood. Brent Johnson, one of Jimmy's two sons, was once asked about his father's obsession with coaching and answered: "I know if it came down to life or death, me or football, I think he'd choose me."

Replied the interviewer, "Are you sure?"

"Pretty sure," Brent answered. "It would depend on the game."

I remember seeing an interview after Johnson's mother Allene passed away several years ago when the coach became distraught when talking about what a pathetic figure he'd become. You see, he wasn't there on the day his mother died because he was too busy with his team. And he wasn't there at the wake either because he was preparing for an upcoming game. And when he finally arrived at the funeral and saw his two grown-up sons and his cancer-stricken father, that's when it hit him.

"My mother's funeral made me realize that I need to spend some time with the people I care about," an emotional Johnson said then. "Coaching is 15 hours a day, seven days a week. And I've done that for the last 34 years. It cost me spending time with my sons, and it cost me a marriage."

This is the beauty of Gruden's incredible coaching rise from the arena league five years ago to head coach of the Washington Redskins today. He has shown you can have a career — and a life. He has shown you can coach professional football team — and go to your kid's Little League baseball game.

"Those were great teams and great experiences, and I loved it," Jay says of watching his boys grow up.

Here's hoping Jay Gruden wins a Super Bowl someday with the Washington Redskins.

He has proven that being a good football coach doesn't mean you have to be a bad father and an absentee husband.

mbianchi@tribune.com. Follow him on Twitter @BianchiWrites. Listen to his radio show every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m. on 740 AM.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/os-jay-gruden-redskins-coach-mike-bianchi-0117-20140116,0,7385757.column

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