Wow 32 yrs ,he look like a player wtf .can someone give me a quick snipnet on Tomlin .Was he playing 4 yres ago or somethink ....unbelievable .
Posted on Sat, Jan. 31, 2009
Tomlin: In a hurry, in the Super Bowl and not done
ALAN ROBINSON
The Associated Press
TAMPA, Fla. - Mike Tomlin is always going somewhere in a hurry.
No matter the role , childhood sprint king in Newport News, Va., speed reader, honor student, pizza delivery man, star wide receiver at William & Mary, or football coach with planning notebooks that go back to the first day of his first job , Tomlin doesn't know the concept of slowing down.
Not with another paper to write. Pass to catch. "A" to earn. Job to interview for. Practice to run. Player to motivate. Child to raise. Hug to give. Game to win.
Tomlin briefly considered law school after college, mostly because his mother wanted him to, but coaching has consumed him since his playing days ended.
"Coaching is something I was meant to do," Tomlin said Friday.
Tomlin wasn't quite good enough to make the NFL as a player , he had tryouts with the Browns and 49ers , but no colleague who has worked with him the last 13 years is surprised he's made it as the Pittsburgh Steelers' coach.
Made it to the Super Bowl, too, where the 36-year-old Tomlin can become the youngest coach to win it if the Steelers beat the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday.
"This is a man who was born to coach. Born to coach," said West Virginia coach Bill Stewart, who gave Tomlin his first sideline job at VMI in 1995. "His players play for him, his players respect him. And he respects them. You knew Mike Tomlin was going places."
When Tomlin accepted that $12,000-a-year job, his new boss knew Tomlin wouldn't spend much time in football's lower echelons. The young man was too polished, detailed, smart, determined , and motivated. Broke, but motivated.
"I was single, I didn't have cable or long-distance calling, so there was nothing else to do other than immerse yourself in the game," said Tomlin, now the married father of three. "I was with a bunch of guys that were like-minded, and we had a great time."
That job lasted one season, and so did the next. Each subsequent job was the same, be it at Memphis or Cincinnati or Arkansas State, the Buccaneers or the Vikings , he was too good to stay very long.
Even if the Steelers win, Tomlin is likely to hear what he's been told throughout his career: This guy has a lot more left to do.
"He's been that guy that's always done it his way," wide receiver Hines Ward said. "He always stayed the course. He really never let anything deter him off that. It's no longer Bill Cowher's team and we're going to do it his way. As players, you respect that. A guy comes in and you want to test him a little bit, but he held his own and here we are, in his second year, in the Super Bowl."
And think about this: Cardinals quarterback Kurt Warner is 37, one year older than Tomlin.
Tomlin was offered West Point and Naval Academy appointments after graduating from Denbigh High in Newport News, but wanted to play football; his older brother Ed, was a Maryland captain with former Steelers quarterback Neil O'Donnell. Their father, Ed Sr., played at Hampton Institute and, after being a Colts 10th-round draft pick in 1969, in the CFL.
Mike Tomlin ended his William & Mary career with 101 catches for 2,046 yards and 20 touchdowns, and his name remains in the record books for highest career receptions average at 20.2 yards per catch. After that came the quick succession of college jobs that led from VMI to Tampa Bay's staff in only six years.
Tony Dungy, the former Bucs and Colts coach who became his NFL mentor and close friend, hired him in 2001 from dozens of candidates, saying he was told to grab this on-the-rise coach before someone else did.
Everywhere he went, Tomlin kept detailed notes and still relies upon them. It was this type of detailed organization that led Minnesota to hire him as defensive coordinator in 2006. The Vikings immediately improved from No. 21 to No. 8 in total defense.
Many coaches wouldn't have dared seek a head coaching job so quickly, but Tomlin's success and reputation led the Steelers to interview him following Cowher's resignation in January 2007. Three other NFL jobs were open, and Tomlin told his wife, Kiya, that if he could get an interview with any of the four, he felt he could get hired.
Steelers offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt and assistant head coach Russ Grimm were the favorites in Pittsburgh, but Tomlin blew away owner Dan Rooney and team president Art Rooney II in two lengthy interviews. Tomlin showed them detailed plans for the next 12 months, and every phone call with the Rooneys gave them something more to like.
At first, the talk around the league was the Steelers were talking to Tomlin because of the so-called Rooney Rule that requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for head coach openings.
While Tomlin has said he felt he benefited from the Rooney Rule, Dan Rooney has insisted that's not why he was interviewed; Ron Rivera was on the Steelers' interview list, and he would have satisfied those requirements.
"We had heard about Mike, called him in and talked to him. He was very impressive," Dan Rooney said. "We got him back and talked to him on the phone often and he just showed that he was going to be a terrific coach, which I think is coming to bear. But he was not part of the Rooney Rule."
With the Steelers still looking, Whisenhunt went to Arizona, where, in one of those curious twists of coaching fate, he will be on the opposing sidelines Sunday night. Grimm, the other finalist, went with Whisenhunt after the Steelers chose Tomlin.
Tomlin succeeded a coach who was one season removed from winning a Super Bowl, but the new guy made it clear early on that Cowher wasn't the boss any longer. It didn't matter that Tomlin was younger than some players, hadn't been a head coach on any level and hadn't played in the NFL like Cowher had.
Just as Cowher quickly changed the accepted routine under his predecessor, four-time Super Bowl champion Chuck Noll, Tomlin altered the Cowher way , even after quarterback Ben Roethlisberger urged him during dinner one night to slow down. All-Pro guard Alan Faneca was fined for missing mandatory workouts; when training camp started, there were more practices in pads and more two-a-days than under Cowher.
"Everything was his way," linebacker James Harrison said. "There was no negotiating or anything. We were in full pads hitting and banging until week 15 or 16."
Tomlin never had to win the players' respect, according to All-Pro safety Troy Polamalu , if the Rooneys hired him, he was good enough for them. As an African-American, Tomlin was able to relate to many players in ways a non-minority coach could not, Polamalu said.
"It's really unique in a sense that he's younger and more hip, more GQ than you would see any other coach," Polamalu said. "He's more compassionate, more sympathetic to what we experience as players, being young and being a similar cultural background as a lot of the players as well."
The Steelers got off to a fast start in Tomlin's first year, winning nine of 12, but began wearing down amid injuries and lost four of their final five, including two home-field losses to Jacksonville in as many months , the second of which knocked the Steelers out of the playoffs.
A few months later, he gave a much-praised commencement speech at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., without a note. His pregame speech to his team Saturday night will be the same.
"I make a conscious effort to wing it," he said Friday.
His players notice he's frequently gotten off script in running them this season, too.
"I think the main thing this year is he's doing a better job of listening to his vets," nose tackle Casey Hampton said. "I think last season he was just feeling guys out and doing his own thing and going with his gut. We feel like he's with us, instead of us just being out there and doing his thing."
Roethlisberger enjoys how Tomlin slaps hands and chest bumps players.
"Coach Cowher was cool, calm and collected around us because he's been around a long time," Roethlisberger said. "Coach Tomlin is giddy like we are. Coach Cowher was more like, 'I've been here before.' It's fun. Nothing against coach Cowher, he was a lot of fun, too, but coach Tomlin seems like he's one of us and is out there having fun like we are."
To Ward, changes that are "like night and day" since last season prove Tomlin is continuing to learn and adapt.
"I pull from all of it on a day-to-day basis , lessons learned from leadership," Tomlin said. "It's about people. It's about taking care of the troops (players). It's about putting them first. I've learned that if you are going to lead, you try to lead with a servant's heart. I try to do that, try to take care of my men and give them what they need to be great."
