tk13
09-11-2005, 01:28 AM
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/football/nfl/kansas_city_chiefs/12613755.htm
It’s a year to toast Vermeil
By ELIZABETH MERRILL
The Kansas City Star
In the solitude of the rolling Pennsylvania hills, a man can plant himself on his tractor, thrash about his log-cabin house, leave without ever stopping.
They’ve tried family vacations before. There’s a time-share condo in Key West, and sometimes, Dick Vermeil actually plops down with a book, sticks his toes in the sand and snoozes. Most of the time, he skips it.
With the midsummer sun beating on what could be his final season, Vermeil arrived at his 110-acre ranch in Pennsylvania in late June with 11 months of neglect. His 68-year-old body was tired; the house needed work. He hopped on his tractor and kept going.
“Dick is very task-oriented,” says his wife, Carol, “and he likes to accomplish things. He’s not good with idle time at all.”
Vermeil can’t stop. Not near the elevator last week after a long practice with his hair mussed and a radio show at 5 o’clock and meetings in between and the Jets coming to town. Not to talk about something that is four months away.
He’s entering the last year of his contract with the Chiefs, and he won’t say whether this is his final ride. He says he doesn’t know. If the Chiefs are successful in 2005, chances are, Vermeil says, he’ll stay. And if they’re not …
This is where it gets confusing. This is where Vermeil says he’ll go. But can a man who’s left pro football twice and come back really finally say goodbye? Can the coach who’s taken two different teams to Super Bowls leave a project that never got finished?
“Listen, I can leave in any way I want to leave,” Vermeil says. “I just … I would not want to put Carl (Peterson) and Lamar (Hunt) in a position that they have to tell me to leave. I’ve never been in a football program that wasn’t successful. And to this point now, I think we should’ve been a playoff team three out of the last four years and we haven’t been.
“It bugs the hell out of me. Bugs the hell out of me.”
Carol Vermeil will know. She’s been with him the longest.
They were high school sweethearts in Calistoga, Calif., wandering souls in a school of about 100 where everybody knew everybody. Carol was drawn to the football player not because he was a Super Bowl coach in the making, but because she thought he was cute.
“What else draws you to anybody?” she says.
Money was tight after they were married, and Vermeil worked at a warehouse stacking boxes in between class and football at San Jose State. One summer, he dug a pool as an odd job. He did it with a shovel.
When Vermeil was a younger coach in Philadelphia, his hours were Jon Gruden-esque. He’d leave when Carol was sleeping and come home when she was in bed. Burnout won out in January 1983, when he gave an emotional farewell speech and retired from coaching. He’d done just about everything. He’d been to the Super Bowl.
For decades, the Vermeils have referred to the players as “our boys.” Little Lional Dalton, the 315-pound tackle? He’s one of our boys. Ron Jaworski, who’s 54 now? He’s our boy too. But when Vermeil retired the first time, Carol thought he could spend more time with his own kids.
Then came a 14-year broadcast career, and Vermeil treated it as if he was preparing for the playoffs. He researched every player, every statistic. He ended up using about 2 percent of his material.
The thing he missed most in those years away was the people. He’d bring players over for dinner and learn about their lives. They’d drink wine and listen to music. Vermeil’s into jazz. He’d spin disco.
Vermeil says he can leave the game, that he’ll be OK, but Carol wonders. She knows how much 2004 ate at him. She wonders how much they’ll miss their boys.
“There’s nothing better he likes than when a rookie that isn’t drafted is successful and gains confidence in himself,” Carol says. “He just loves the whole process of being with his players. That’s the best part, and that’s going to be the hardest part of not doing it. He loves these guys. It’s going to leave a huge void.”
Every season since Vermeil has been in Kansas City, Carol invites the immediate family and a handful of friends to sit in their suite for the opening game. This year’s contingent will be the same, roughly 20 people. They’ll be pressed in like sardines. They won’t know whether this is their final gathering.
“He really, desperately, wants this team to win,” Carol says. “Not necessarily for his record but for the kids themselves. Because you know, there’s nothing like success. Why do you work so darn hard? It’s to be successful. That’s the uppermost thing in his mind, to have a good season. I think it’ll be very disappointing if we don’t. Because he’ll realize that he couldn’t get it done here, that we couldn’t get it done.”
Carl Peterson will know. He’s the one who got Vermeil into this fix.
Fuming over a losing season in the early days of 2001, the Chiefs president and general manager made a call to Vermeil’s ranch. Vermeil was retired, again, and was by all accounts happy. He’d gone out on top in St. Louis the year before, hoisting a Super Bowl trophy. This, and he meant it, was it.
Peterson just asked for a visit. They’d been together for years, in Philadelphia and at UCLA, and had won a lot of games. No was an unacceptable answer.
“The night before he flew, I told him, ‘Don’t even come and see me,’ ” Vermeil says. “And he came anyway. He did a good job because he knows me well enough to hit the buttons.
“And I appreciated it very much. To have the opportunity to work for Lamar and Norma Hunt and work with Carl and these people I love very much has been a real, real bonus for me.”
Vermeil broke into tears last week at a luncheon when he talked about Hunt and wanting to give the Chiefs’ owner a memorable season. In four years in Kansas City, Vermeil has gone 34-30 but has made just one trip to the playoffs. The 2004 season was the most painful. The Chiefs went into the year with Super Bowl expectations and left dragging a 7-9 record.
In his final news conference of the season, Vermeil said that 2005 would probably be his last season. That comment was made, he later says, when he was dead-tired. In the months since, he’s hedged.
But Peterson and Hunt made offseason moves that lent to the notion that this could be Vermeil’s last hurrah. They picked up four new starters through trades, free-agency and the draft to fix the leaky defense. They crossed their fingers and didn’t touch the offense, which ranked No. 1 in the NFL but is running out of time with a collection of aging stars.
“We do not talk about (retirement),” Peterson says. “We’ll talk about that at the conclusion of the season. But I have to prepare that he will not be here. This is the end of his contract. He was at one point very definitive about it. But now is not the time to talk about it. We’re kicking off the regular season. He’s focused and I’m focused on this football team right now.”
Jaws will know. He played quarterback for Vermeil in Philly in the days when his hair was darker and his step was swifter. Ron Jaworski is one of Vermeil’s best friends.
Jaws’ wife turned 50 a few years back, and they had a celebration on the Jersey shore. The Vermeils popped in unexpectedly. He’s always there, Jaworski says. It’s been that way for almost 30 years.
But now Jaws worried about his old coach’s health. He knows the hours he keeps. He watches him in headset battles with whippersnappers 20 years younger.
He also knows how much it will hurt when Vermeil finally leaves.
“When you’re involved in the National Football League, the competitiveness never leaves you,” Jaworski says. “I haven’t thrown a pass in 16 years, but when I walk on the field before a game I get goose bumps.
“I know how much the coach puts into it. Everybody in Kansas City understands the work ethic of the man. You just don’t walk away from that and not take a piece of it with you.”
But if Vermeil is aging, the Chiefs haven’t seen it. He lifts weights with the team and carries a heavy load. When 21-year-olds see Vermeil work out, receiver Eddie Kennison says, they decide they have to work harder.
“I think he’s probably more motivated than anything,” Kennison says. “He portrays like he’s a 39- or 40-year-old man. He goes out on the football field and in the meeting room and there’s a lot of enthusiasm. I think he has shown more this year than he probably did in the first year.”
Vermeil, the Chiefs say, has never told them that 2005 will be it. But they’re operating with an urgency, maybe to win for him, maybe to keep him going.
Kennison says Vermeil would never bring up the future because he doesn’t want the focus to be on him. It’s always on the season, the week and his boys, whom he still treats to dinner.
Kennison has shared drinks with Vermeil on the Plaza. Long-snapper Kendall Gammon has rocked to KC and the Sunshine Band with his coach.
“We want to win for him,” Gammon says, “but he hasn’t said anything. It’s pretty much business as usual.”
And business for Vermeil, at 68, is all about moving. He spent more time in the offseason studying X’s and O’s. The Chiefs noticed a higher energy level from the coach in camp.
Just as he couldn’t let the weeds grow around his ranch, he can’t let the Chiefs suffer through another losing year. He hustles for the elevator and gets back to his office. The season is here. There’s no time to stop.
“I don’t coach as if this is going to be my last season,” Vermeil says. “I coach this as the first game. That’s my only mind-set. This is the first game of this year. And hopefully we’re a better football team than we’ve ever been.”
It’s a year to toast Vermeil
By ELIZABETH MERRILL
The Kansas City Star
In the solitude of the rolling Pennsylvania hills, a man can plant himself on his tractor, thrash about his log-cabin house, leave without ever stopping.
They’ve tried family vacations before. There’s a time-share condo in Key West, and sometimes, Dick Vermeil actually plops down with a book, sticks his toes in the sand and snoozes. Most of the time, he skips it.
With the midsummer sun beating on what could be his final season, Vermeil arrived at his 110-acre ranch in Pennsylvania in late June with 11 months of neglect. His 68-year-old body was tired; the house needed work. He hopped on his tractor and kept going.
“Dick is very task-oriented,” says his wife, Carol, “and he likes to accomplish things. He’s not good with idle time at all.”
Vermeil can’t stop. Not near the elevator last week after a long practice with his hair mussed and a radio show at 5 o’clock and meetings in between and the Jets coming to town. Not to talk about something that is four months away.
He’s entering the last year of his contract with the Chiefs, and he won’t say whether this is his final ride. He says he doesn’t know. If the Chiefs are successful in 2005, chances are, Vermeil says, he’ll stay. And if they’re not …
This is where it gets confusing. This is where Vermeil says he’ll go. But can a man who’s left pro football twice and come back really finally say goodbye? Can the coach who’s taken two different teams to Super Bowls leave a project that never got finished?
“Listen, I can leave in any way I want to leave,” Vermeil says. “I just … I would not want to put Carl (Peterson) and Lamar (Hunt) in a position that they have to tell me to leave. I’ve never been in a football program that wasn’t successful. And to this point now, I think we should’ve been a playoff team three out of the last four years and we haven’t been.
“It bugs the hell out of me. Bugs the hell out of me.”
Carol Vermeil will know. She’s been with him the longest.
They were high school sweethearts in Calistoga, Calif., wandering souls in a school of about 100 where everybody knew everybody. Carol was drawn to the football player not because he was a Super Bowl coach in the making, but because she thought he was cute.
“What else draws you to anybody?” she says.
Money was tight after they were married, and Vermeil worked at a warehouse stacking boxes in between class and football at San Jose State. One summer, he dug a pool as an odd job. He did it with a shovel.
When Vermeil was a younger coach in Philadelphia, his hours were Jon Gruden-esque. He’d leave when Carol was sleeping and come home when she was in bed. Burnout won out in January 1983, when he gave an emotional farewell speech and retired from coaching. He’d done just about everything. He’d been to the Super Bowl.
For decades, the Vermeils have referred to the players as “our boys.” Little Lional Dalton, the 315-pound tackle? He’s one of our boys. Ron Jaworski, who’s 54 now? He’s our boy too. But when Vermeil retired the first time, Carol thought he could spend more time with his own kids.
Then came a 14-year broadcast career, and Vermeil treated it as if he was preparing for the playoffs. He researched every player, every statistic. He ended up using about 2 percent of his material.
The thing he missed most in those years away was the people. He’d bring players over for dinner and learn about their lives. They’d drink wine and listen to music. Vermeil’s into jazz. He’d spin disco.
Vermeil says he can leave the game, that he’ll be OK, but Carol wonders. She knows how much 2004 ate at him. She wonders how much they’ll miss their boys.
“There’s nothing better he likes than when a rookie that isn’t drafted is successful and gains confidence in himself,” Carol says. “He just loves the whole process of being with his players. That’s the best part, and that’s going to be the hardest part of not doing it. He loves these guys. It’s going to leave a huge void.”
Every season since Vermeil has been in Kansas City, Carol invites the immediate family and a handful of friends to sit in their suite for the opening game. This year’s contingent will be the same, roughly 20 people. They’ll be pressed in like sardines. They won’t know whether this is their final gathering.
“He really, desperately, wants this team to win,” Carol says. “Not necessarily for his record but for the kids themselves. Because you know, there’s nothing like success. Why do you work so darn hard? It’s to be successful. That’s the uppermost thing in his mind, to have a good season. I think it’ll be very disappointing if we don’t. Because he’ll realize that he couldn’t get it done here, that we couldn’t get it done.”
Carl Peterson will know. He’s the one who got Vermeil into this fix.
Fuming over a losing season in the early days of 2001, the Chiefs president and general manager made a call to Vermeil’s ranch. Vermeil was retired, again, and was by all accounts happy. He’d gone out on top in St. Louis the year before, hoisting a Super Bowl trophy. This, and he meant it, was it.
Peterson just asked for a visit. They’d been together for years, in Philadelphia and at UCLA, and had won a lot of games. No was an unacceptable answer.
“The night before he flew, I told him, ‘Don’t even come and see me,’ ” Vermeil says. “And he came anyway. He did a good job because he knows me well enough to hit the buttons.
“And I appreciated it very much. To have the opportunity to work for Lamar and Norma Hunt and work with Carl and these people I love very much has been a real, real bonus for me.”
Vermeil broke into tears last week at a luncheon when he talked about Hunt and wanting to give the Chiefs’ owner a memorable season. In four years in Kansas City, Vermeil has gone 34-30 but has made just one trip to the playoffs. The 2004 season was the most painful. The Chiefs went into the year with Super Bowl expectations and left dragging a 7-9 record.
In his final news conference of the season, Vermeil said that 2005 would probably be his last season. That comment was made, he later says, when he was dead-tired. In the months since, he’s hedged.
But Peterson and Hunt made offseason moves that lent to the notion that this could be Vermeil’s last hurrah. They picked up four new starters through trades, free-agency and the draft to fix the leaky defense. They crossed their fingers and didn’t touch the offense, which ranked No. 1 in the NFL but is running out of time with a collection of aging stars.
“We do not talk about (retirement),” Peterson says. “We’ll talk about that at the conclusion of the season. But I have to prepare that he will not be here. This is the end of his contract. He was at one point very definitive about it. But now is not the time to talk about it. We’re kicking off the regular season. He’s focused and I’m focused on this football team right now.”
Jaws will know. He played quarterback for Vermeil in Philly in the days when his hair was darker and his step was swifter. Ron Jaworski is one of Vermeil’s best friends.
Jaws’ wife turned 50 a few years back, and they had a celebration on the Jersey shore. The Vermeils popped in unexpectedly. He’s always there, Jaworski says. It’s been that way for almost 30 years.
But now Jaws worried about his old coach’s health. He knows the hours he keeps. He watches him in headset battles with whippersnappers 20 years younger.
He also knows how much it will hurt when Vermeil finally leaves.
“When you’re involved in the National Football League, the competitiveness never leaves you,” Jaworski says. “I haven’t thrown a pass in 16 years, but when I walk on the field before a game I get goose bumps.
“I know how much the coach puts into it. Everybody in Kansas City understands the work ethic of the man. You just don’t walk away from that and not take a piece of it with you.”
But if Vermeil is aging, the Chiefs haven’t seen it. He lifts weights with the team and carries a heavy load. When 21-year-olds see Vermeil work out, receiver Eddie Kennison says, they decide they have to work harder.
“I think he’s probably more motivated than anything,” Kennison says. “He portrays like he’s a 39- or 40-year-old man. He goes out on the football field and in the meeting room and there’s a lot of enthusiasm. I think he has shown more this year than he probably did in the first year.”
Vermeil, the Chiefs say, has never told them that 2005 will be it. But they’re operating with an urgency, maybe to win for him, maybe to keep him going.
Kennison says Vermeil would never bring up the future because he doesn’t want the focus to be on him. It’s always on the season, the week and his boys, whom he still treats to dinner.
Kennison has shared drinks with Vermeil on the Plaza. Long-snapper Kendall Gammon has rocked to KC and the Sunshine Band with his coach.
“We want to win for him,” Gammon says, “but he hasn’t said anything. It’s pretty much business as usual.”
And business for Vermeil, at 68, is all about moving. He spent more time in the offseason studying X’s and O’s. The Chiefs noticed a higher energy level from the coach in camp.
Just as he couldn’t let the weeds grow around his ranch, he can’t let the Chiefs suffer through another losing year. He hustles for the elevator and gets back to his office. The season is here. There’s no time to stop.
“I don’t coach as if this is going to be my last season,” Vermeil says. “I coach this as the first game. That’s my only mind-set. This is the first game of this year. And hopefully we’re a better football team than we’ve ever been.”