Gibbs’ life takes a new turn

[harryskin]

Gibbs’ life takes a new turn

http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=content&id=12843&repository=0001_article#

By Scott Allen

Sports Editor

Tuesday, January 27, 2004

Former Stanford linebacker Coy Gibbs always dreamed of making the NFL. As the youngest son of Hall of Fame head coach Joe Gibbs, who won three Super Bowls with the Redskins in 12 seasons from 1981-1992, football was just about all the Fayetteville, Ark. native ever knew.

Today, Gibbs is finally realizing that dream, not as a player, but as a coach. His 10-year path to the NFL since leaving the Farm has been redundantly elliptical.

After leading the Cardinal in tackles as a senior in 1994, and with no chance of playing at the next level, Gibbs left school early to pursue a career in auto racing, initially working as a lower assembly specialist for his father’s race team.

After nine grueling years of long hours, road trips and racing everything from trucks to late model stock cars, Gibbs spent the past year as a rookie driver in the NASCAR Busch Series, the circuit just below the sport’s highest level, the Nextel (formerly Winston) Cup.

Despite a couple of promising top-10 finishes, Gibbs finished the season toward the bottom of the points standings, which prompted the 31-year-old to decide it was time for another life change.

“I sat back and said, ‘Hey, I want to go coach,’ ” Gibbs recalled in an interview with The Daily earlier this month.

Coy consulted friends and his father after that initial inkling two months ago, but it was a conversation he had with his dad two weeks later that shocked him and, soon after, the entire NFL community.

“We sat down in the living room and I figured he was going to try to talk me out of coaching again,” Gibbs said. “He said, ‘You know what, I’ve been a little restless myself. I think I want to get back in.’ I told him I didn’t expect him to do that and he said, ‘Listen, I’m not doing it for you.’ ”

“My first concern was he was going to tick mom off,” Gibbs said with a laugh. “But I said, ‘If you go coaching, I’m going with you. If you don’t, help me get a job!’ ”

On Jan. 8, with his wife Pat’s go-ahead, Joe Gibbs announced he was returning as head coach of the Redskins, just more than one week after Steve Spurrier resigned. Coy was named one of two quality control assistants on his staff.

According to Gibbs, the responsibilities of the entry-level coaching position include everything from breaking down film and prepping game plans to getting drinks, but most of all it provides great learning experience at the highest level.

“I’m thinking in five years I’ll learn what it would take 10 years to learn somewhere else,” Gibbs said. “I’m ecstatic to be coaching, I feel at home, this is where I grew up. I’m ecstatic to be a Redskin again.”

Happily married and the father of 15-month-old Ty, Gibbs is thrilled to be beginning a new chapter in his life. Playing football, however, not cars or coaching, was his first passion.

Before his junior year of high school, he transferred to DeMatha in Hyattsville, Md., a Catholic school that was quickly establishing a reputation as one of the premiere high school football programs in the nation under head coach Bill McGregor.

McGregor, who guided the Stags to their 13th league title in 22 seasons last year, remembered Coy’s two years at DeMatha.

“He was either in the weight room or in the cafeteria studying with a Big Gulp,” McGregor said.

Coy had every intention of pursuing a career in football, following in the footsteps of his revered father and older brother J.D., who was a starting defensive back at William & Mary at the time.

By the time Coy was a senior at DeMatha, however, the odds of him playing football at the Division I level appeared — like his build for a linebacker — small. College scouts were regulars at DeMatha games, but they weren’t there to see Coy.

“Even our free safety was bigger than I was,” said Gibbs, who weighed about 220 pounds his senior year. “You know you’re not high on the priority list when you’re getting like 10 letters and the guy beside you has to get a box to carry his out.”

A self-proclaimed East Coast guy and pessimist, Gibbs began narrowing his future plans to less prominent football schools relatively close to home, such as William & Mary, Colgate and Penn. Then Stanford came knocking.

Defensive coordinator Willie Shaw and head coach Dennis Green made the trip to DeMatha and were impressed by what they saw on film and on the field in Gibbs.

“He was an undersized linebacker but what Willie and Dennis said they liked about him was that he played with bent knees,” McGregor said. “It’s something I tell my kids now because it gave him great leverage. Even though he was only about 200 pounds, he played like he was 230 or 240.”

Gibbs was as surprised as anyone when Stanford flew him out for a visit.

“They actually offered me a scholarship and said, ‘We want you to take trips to other places before you decide,’ ” Gibbs recalled. “I said, ‘I’ve got nowhere else to go!’ ”

Gibbs settled on Stanford, where, following a solid freshman season during which he received Pac-10 Player of the Week honors, Gibbs suffered a setback when he tore a ligament in his knee in practice the following spring. In retrospect, Gibbs said he probably returned to the field too soon and should’ve redshirted the next season, but guided by the notion that football was his life, he opted to play through the pain.

“When you’re young, you’ve got your priorities screwed up,” Gibbs lamented. “The only thing that got me down was football. When I tore my knee up, it was almost like it was my fault. You feel like you’ve let the team down, you feel like you’ve let the coaches down.”

Gibbs limped through his second year at Stanford, a season in which the Cardinal claimed a share of the Pac-10 title, finished 10-3 and defeated Penn State in the Blockbuster Bowl.

Between Coy’s sophomore and junior season, Joe Gibbs retired as head coach of the Redskins after a 9-7 season, citing a desire to spend more time with his family as one of the main factors in his decision. While Coy maintains he was never homesick, just upset about football, his father’s retirement from coaching paved the way for the growth of their father-son bond.

“What people don’t realize is those were 18-hour days,” Gibbs said. “I didn’t really get to know my dad until after he retired. I realize how blessed we were, and how blessed my family was and I wouldn’t trade that experience for the world, but it’s a hard business.”

Back on the Farm, coming off a difficult junior season plagued by pain and a tough time adjusting to a switch to the strong side, Coy poured all his energy into football his senior year.

“I didn’t even go to classes my last quarter there because I wanted to watch film,” Gibbs said. “I played games, watched film and ate lunch . . . played it like I was in pro ball.”

It was that type of dedication that McGregor remembers about Coy.

“Last week I was asked to speak at a banquet and in my speech I talked about being the best that you can be,” McGregor said. “I actually used Coy as an example of someone who got the maximum potential out of himself.”

Whereas bad knees and his diminutive size attributed to the end of his football-playing days, Gibbs cited his age as the reason he said goodbye to racing.

“I started way too late,” Gibbs concedes. “I’m probably not going to make it to the next level, I had to justify that to myself and I couldn’t. I’m done. I’ll never be in a car again. I promised my wife that.”

His playing and racing days behind him, Gibbs has no regrets.

“I’m blessed to have been able to do both,” Gibbs said. “My first dream was to play pro ball. My second one was to be a Winston Cup driver. I failed at both of them, but I still had a pretty exciting time doing it.”

Serving on the coaching staff of the team he followed as a kid and with his dad as his boss should prove pretty exciting, too.

[Leonard Washington]

Coy had every intention of pursuing a career in football, following in the footsteps of his revered father and older brother J.D., who was a starting defensive back at William & Mary at the time.

wtg big brother, TRIBE PRIDE!

A self-proclaimed East Coast guy and pessimist, Gibbs began narrowing his future plans to less prominent football schools relatively close to home, such as William & Mary, Colgate and Penn. Then Stanford came knocking.

its all downhill from there...

After leading the Cardinal in tackles as a senior in 1994, and with no chance of playing at the next level, Gibbs left school early to pursue a career in auto racing, initially working as a lower assembly specialist for his father’s race team.

After nine grueling years of long hours, road trips and racing everything from trucks to late model stock cars, Gibbs spent the past year as a rookie driver in the NASCAR Busch Series, the circuit just below the sport’s highest level, the Nextel (formerly Winston) Cup.

Despite a couple of promising top-10 finishes, Gibbs finished the season toward the bottom of the points standings, which prompted the 31-year-old to decide it was time for another life change.

“I sat back and said, ‘Hey, I want to go coach,’ ” Gibbs recalled in an interview

so is this guy good at anything? j/k