There have been articles that are variations on this theme. This one piles it on.
Some tid-bits:
He's on a mission from God.
Some tid-bits:
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AUSTIN, Texas So let's talk pressure. Wrap your mind around that nebulous thought, that overused clich so carelessly dropped into any conversation, and reveal the true value, the true sense, of it all.
That was Charlie Strong, an innocent black child growing up in Batesville, Ark., trying to comprehend men with hoods parading down his street. The boy is standing on the curb, scant feet separating him from decades of institutional racism that only those with his skin color can ultimately understand.
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A boy who grew to become a young man, who walked on to play football at tiny Central Arkansas, who wanted to be a college professor but decided to give coaching football a shot. A young man who grew to become an elite assistant coach, who was passed over and over and over for head coaching jobs because those same decades of institutional racism that confidently strolled down the streets of Batesville years earlier were engrained in the hearts and minds of university academia, too.
A coach who nearly gave up on his dream of becoming a head coach, only to get a chance at Louisville and win big, and the next thing you know, he's standing in the posh office that overlooks the gigantic stadium at the University of Texas smack in the middle of the best damn job in all of college football.
"I went down in the stadium and walked across the field and looked around and thought, wow, this is it," Strong said. "I said to myself, you cannot fail, buddy. Too many people are counting on you."
So let's talk pressure. Not the nonsensical concept we so often use as a crutch, but real, honest-to-goodness, core-of-your-soul pressure.
A few months after Strong arrived at Texas, long after the laughable idea of Nick Saban coaching for $100 million over 10 years had whistled through here like the bats blossoming under Congress Avenue Bridge as the burnt orange sun sets in the West, they celebrated the 50-year anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act.
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Why take the Texas job the biggest, baddest, most powerful job in all of college sports with its own television network and enough meddling, deep-pocket boosters (true or not) with the bottom line ideal of winning from Day 1 if not to use it as the fight for the one cause you believe in?
For the first time since he took over at Texas, Strong is sitting in his perfectly placed office, this shining example of everything is bigger in Texas, and opening up about the game and what it means beyond Xs and Os and winning and losing.
How many other Charlie Strongs are out there toiling away in college football? How many other African American men were asked to interview for a job, fly to the university, get off the plane and head to the president's house only to have a friend call and tell him said university had already hired its coach, that he was a token interview.
It's not difficult to draw a line and connect the dots between civil rights and coaching football. The cause isn't as encompassing nor as critical, but every fight is a piece of the struggle.
"That's why I stand on tall shoulders, because of the road so many men and women before me paved," Strong said. "I wouldn't have this opportunity I have now if someone didn't fight the fight they fought. I never got bitter because it keeps you from moving forward. But if I have success here, it's only going to open doors for everyone else."
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This wasn't going to be your typical job interview. Tom Jurich had heard the stories, and knew of Strong's sudden apprehension wait, disdain of the interview process.
There had to be a better way of making this thing work, of making Charlie Strong feel like, for the first time, an interview with Louisville really was an interview.
"I just felt like I had to do something completely different," Jurich says now.
A few years earlier in 2007, after the disaster that was the fake interview at Minnesota (the Gophers hired Tim Brewster, who was fired four years later); after California told then-South Carolina coach Lou Holtz in the early 2000s they were going to hire Strong then didn't, the reality that it might not ever happen began to set in.
"The athletic director at California told me we're going to hire (Strong) tomorrow," Holtz said. "I was so excited for Charlie, and then it didn't happen. You start wondering what in the world is going on here?"
It was then that Strong, after another failed (or is that fake?) interview Vanderbilt, California, Pittsburgh; they all run together at some point told friend John Gutekunst he was done interviewing.
He was tired of the sham, and didn't want to deal with the absurdity of the process. At one point during all of those interviews, it had become clear that many universities weren't comfortable with the idea of Strong's family makeup. His wife Vicki, is white.
Strong downplays that idea now, but says without hesitation, "she doesn't make play calls."
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This is what Jurich was walking into that day in December 2009 when he met with Strong, who was carrying years of disappointment and distrust and still working through all of those emotions. It wasn't just a head-coaching job; for years Strong and many other African American assistant coaches couldn't even get coordinator jobs.
Even today, there are only seven African American head coaches among the 65 Power 5 conferences jobs (including Notre Dame), a pitiful breakdown of about 10 percent: Strong, James Franklin (Penn State), Darrell Hazell (Purdue), Mike London (Virginia), Derek Mason (Vanderbilt), David Shaw (Stanford) and Kevin Sumlin (Texas A&M).
So Jurich decided to do the unconventional.
"The first thing I did was offer him the job," Jurich said. "He said I accept and we shook hands, and then I said, great, now let's interview. He was tired of being used; you could see it in his face. After I offered the job, it was the best interview I've had."
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Then why leave? Why leave a program with so much sweat equity invested, a program that pays you well, for the meatgrinder that is Texas?
Because he had to. The job, the purpose, is bigger than anything that could have convinced him to stay at Louisville.
This isn't just about Charlie Strong, it's about every other young African American assistant coach looking for his big break. That's what made the end of last season so poignant.
When it finally hit rock bottom, when the Longhorns were dragging off the field after getting whipped by former Southwest Conference rival Arkansas in the Texas Bowl, Strong knew he had this team. It had finally turned.
"That was an embarrassment," Strong said. "After that, guys started to realize we have to listen. We have to buy in. That's the only way we're going to change."
He's on a mission from God.
