0212040281
DETROIT FREE PRESS
021204
Wednesday, December 04, 2002
METRO FINAL
1C
Photo JULIAN H. GONZALEZ/Detroit Free Press
Lions coach Marty Mornhinweg: "We'll never be satisfied until we win
a Super Bowl."
MITCH ALBOM FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Copyright (c) 2002, Detroit Free Press
MORNHINWEG TACKLES TOUGH QUESTIONS
Marty Mornhinweg may be smarter than you think. He may be tougher than you
think. He is definitely more confident than you think. Portrayed in recent
weeks as a man dangling by a thread over a pit of snapping alligators -- and
lucky to even have the thread -- the second-year Lions coach shows no signs of
panic. In fact, if he had his way, he'd show no signs of anything but
determination.
In a rambling, hour-long conversation in his office, Mornhinweg, whose doughy
face may not suggest Knute Rockne, nonetheless talked the rawhide coach talk,
pointing to charts, citing statistics and admitting that a personal goal is
"to never let them see me sweat."
Here are highlights from that interview:
ALBOM: Do you feel, given your record, that you deserve to keep this job?
MORNHINWEG: Well, that's irrelevant. If I were to put any thought into that,
it would take my focus off of what I'm hired to do, which is to win the next
game.
A: When do you take time to think about things like that?
M: I don't.
A: Not even at the end of the season?
M: Never have. Most of these coaches, including myself, shoot -- we've worked
on one- or two-year contracts our whole life. Hey, job security -- that's the
last thing on our mind.
A: If you ended up winning four games this year after winning two last year,
would you be satisfied that you were doing a good job here?
M: We'll never be satisfied until we win a Super Bowl -- not get to the Super
Bowl -- win the Super Bowl.
A: Do you think a coach who wins two games one year and four the next deserves
to come back for another year?
M: Mitch -- I don't do this much -- but you wanna do a study, then do a study
on some Hall of Fame coaches. Look at Chuck Noll and Tom Landry and Jimmy
Johnson and Bill Parcells.
A: They all had tough beginnings?
M: Some of the very best coaches did. Go back and look. (He opens a notebook
from behind desk.) How about Tom Landry? 0-11-1, 4-9-1, 5-8-1, 4-10, 5-8-1.
First five years. Bill Parcells -- 3-12-1 in his first year -- 5-11, 9-7.
A: Did you have that sheet made up?
M: For my own peace of mind.
A: At its worst, what has it been like trying to navigate this road?
M: You grind through it. You do. It's kind of like driving a train in a tunnel
and there is no light at the end. And you've got about 10 people behind you
giving you suggestions: "Go right! Go left! Go up! Go down!" (Laughs.)
A: What has this losing experience been like for you and your family --
particularly the harsh criticism part?
M: My wife is very tough. My four kids are pretty tough. We've lived in more
than 10 different places. More than 10 different houses. I tell the kids,
"Hey, you're gonna hear that your dad is the greatest or your dad is the
worst. You're not gonna hear much in between." And I do believe they
understand it as best as they can.
A: Do you feel that any of the criticism of you has been unfair?
M: There are a lot of things in life that aren't fair. You get caught up in
that, you're in trouble.
A: How much of the media do you follow? Do you read the newspapers?
M: I don't read 'em.
A: No radio?
M: Nope.
A: No TV?
M: Nope. Look around. There's no news clips here, right? I don't read any of
that stuff. Those things will affect your thought process. I can't have that.
A: Talk about your news conferences. Matt Millen has said that may not be your
strongest suit. Do you come across as well in those as you would like to?
M: Well, I've never seen myself in one. I enjoy doing them, to tell you the
truth. I do think it's important to have a voice. That's why I do a radio
show. In fact, I talked to Mike Holmgren once about the media, and I said,
"Hey, was there ever a time when you just did nothing?" And he said, "Yeah,"
one year he did nothing -- and he said, "I didn't like it, because I couldn't
get my voice out there."
A: You often hear that the team you inherited went 9-7 the year before. Why
didn't things just go up from there instead of down?
M: Well, here's the situation. Sometimes you come in and just blow things up
from the start. Matt decided to take that first year and find out about
certain players, Bryant Westbrook, Terry Fair -- those kind of guys. We didn't
know when we came in what certain players were about. In the end, we lost 16
players -- starters from 2001 that we lost -- and eight are no longer in the
NFL. I mean, we had guys have career-ending injuries.
And another thing, with most new regimes, that new quarterback thing typically
happens in the first year. When you don't know who your quarterback is gonna
be, it's very difficult.
A: Do you think you've handled the quarterback position well here?
M: If I had to do it over again, I would have been more patient last year.
A: With whom?
M: With Charlie Batch. Very early on, I knew I wanted to go a different way
with the quarterback. But if I had to do it over again, I would have been more
patient.
A: Allowed Charlie more games?
M: Allowed the whole (changeover) to happen more naturally. Yeah --
absolutely.
A: And how about at the start of this season with Joey Harrington replacing
Mike McMahon?
M: Well, quite honestly, Mitch, I think highly of Mike -- and I think in the
near future, I think he's gonna be a fine, fine quarterback. Mike earned that
spot. He earned that opportunity. And quite honestly I wanted to get to the
bye week and then evaluate. But we were 0-2. We were very sporadic. And at
that point, Joey had progressed to where he could function, I believe.
A: Do you think Joey is going backward?
M: Oh -- absolutely not. Every play is experience that you can't get back. I
went through it with Jeff Garcia. Heck -- he blew up. There was a game where,
I believe, he started a game 0-for-11 throwing the football. He couldn't
complete a ball to a wide-open guy. We put him on the bench for four weeks,
And then he came back and played very well. He lit it up. But he went through
a process. Joey didn't do that. Now, Joey has hit the wall a little bit. But
we're over the hump there with Joey.
A: How do you know?
M: I've been through it.
A: Let's talk about the overtime coin-flip call against Chicago. Has that been
-- of any single move you've ever made in football -- the most dissected?
M: (Laughing) On this one -- trust me -- I knew all the ramifications of
making that decision.
A: When you made it?
M: Before I made it! Oh, absolutely. I had time to think. I had time to talk
to our coaches about it. I had time to ask how many points have been scored
against the wind? How many points have been scored with the wind? And I'll
stand behind that decision -- with the information I had at that time -- in my
mind, in my opinion, that was the best thing to do for our football team.
A: What about people who say it showed you don't have any confidence in your
offense?
M: That makes no sense. At the end of regulation, they kicked off with the
wind and it went out of the end zone. Shoot -- they stopped us -- and we had a
29-yard punt into the wind. They scored. All of those indicators -- 24 points
at that end, none at that end -- that's not a coincidence, that's a trend!
M: So you figured the same thing would happen again in overtime?
M: The odds were very low that either offense would drive the length of the
field and score at the other end.
A: But that's what happened.
M: Yeah. And so it ended up being a mistake. Period. But I'm not gonna be
afraid to make those decisions. You can't be.
A: Have you been amazed at how long that has lingered?
M: Any decision like that is gonna be scrutinized -- in many cases, for a
long, long time.
A: Scrutinized by your owners?
M: No.
A: What did they say to you?
M: I explained it. They understood.
A: You'd do it again?
M: Yeah, yeah. The only reason not to do it was because our defense had been
on the field. But I went with the information I had.
A: Your players seem very loyal to you, despite the criticism. Why is that?
M: You'd have to ask them that. But there's a couple things I know. One is I
don't bull them. I don't do that.
A: How jolting was last year when you look back on it -- to win only two
games?
M: It was a great experience.
A: A great experience?
M: I choose to look at the glass half full. I say, "Well, we won our last two
home games."
A: What areas of this team do you need to improve the most?
M: The secondary -- and then get playmakers.
A: What do you look for in a playmaker?
M: Typically, I want those guys who are superstars in grade school, in junior
high, in high school, in college -- those are the players. They've done it,
they're experienced, they've been there, they want to be in those positions
and make plays.
A: How do losses affect you? Do you ever cry?
M: Oh, no! Oh, hell, no!
A: Do you lose sleep?
M: Rarely. Here's my thought process: I will coach this team like we're 9-3,
not 3-9. I will get this team to play at the highest level possible -- and
then I'll sleep well.
A: And you never entertain thoughts about, "Am I on shaky ground here?"
M: Can't do it.
A: Why? Do you think it's a weakness?
M: No, no. But, see, you're a journalism guy, you're a musician, you write
books and all that -- you can get into that emotional stuff -- there ain't
much of that in here. I told the quarterbacks this: "You will not allow your
teammates or your opponents to ever see you sweat."
A: Do you live by that philosophy?
M: Yeah. Don't let 'em see you sweat.
A: If you could convey one message to the fans who may not understand you,
what would it be?
M: Well, first of all, maybe I should be a little more concerned -- but I
don't care. Because to me, it doesn't matter. It's a process. I've been
through it before. It's a process. It's a learning process.
A: Do you take any time during the season to do anything other than football?
M: I'll watch a movie. Typically when we're on the road.
A: That's it?
M: Yeah, well, Thanksgiving weekend was the first day that, really, this staff
has had off since, what, the bye week. During the season, it's really hard.
Shoot, my wedding anniversary was the Sunday of the Chicago game.
A: That was your anniversary?
M: That was my anniversary.
A: You didn't have a party that night, I guess.
M: No. My wife goes, "Hey, in the middle of the fourth quarter, I thought we
were gonna have a nice little celebration there." But that's just the way our
life is, and we all understand that.
Contact MITCH ALBOM at 313-223-4581 or albom@freepress.com. Catch "The Mitch
Albom Show" 3-6 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760).
THIS ELECTRONIC VERSION MAY DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THE PRINTED ARTICLE.
COLUMN