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Samford

Pat Sullivan returns to Auburn

I wrote this over the summer, but since the magazine didn’t feel it necessary to pay me … I’m just reprinting the thing. Pat Sullivan’s had a full career in football. Now he’s returning to his alma mater to stand on the visitor’s sideline for the first time when his Samford Bulldogs (6-4, 4-4) are the guest at Auburn’s homecoming, where he will be honored.

Forty years is a long time to be a sports hero. Pat Sullivan has been doing this for a long time, and does it with the grace and ease of a Southern gentleman.

If you haven’t been following his career: after his most recent stop at Auburn as a quarterbacks coach (1986-1991) he spent five years at TCU as the head coach, seven seasons as the offensive coordinator at UAB and has been the head coach at Samford University in Birmingham for the last five seasons. Now, at 61-years-young, his passion for the game is as strong is ever. His grip is still like stone.

If you have been following Sullivan from a distance, the answer to the first, most important, question is good news after his medical scare seven years ago.

“My health is great. The good Lord has taken care of me. I had throat cancer, base of the tongue cancer. It was a tough battle, but I am cancer-free. I’m doing well,” Sullivan said.

Such a health scare does something to a man. In 2004 Sullivan said the awards don’t matter. When someone puts odds on your survivability, he said, what matters are faith, family and health. His inner-strength served him well. He beat cancer and only missed one game during his treatment.

The whistle is tucked away for the summer, it was the day after the Bulldogs wrapped up their spring practice, but a coach’s job is never done. He was conducting exit interviews with his players around our conversation.

“We’re on a fine line. We need everybody to have a good summer. We need our freshmen to come in. If everything could fall into place I think we could have a good football team,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan was relaxed in his office, which still feels new. There are framed portraits waiting to be hanged. He works out of the handsome new field house at Seibert Stadium on the Samford campus, not too far from where he attended high school. This is home. He looks upon the stops in his career with gratitude, but he’s happy to be here.

“My father came to school here. He played on the first (then named Howard College) football team. He was struggling with cancer about the time I got the job so it was special to be able to come here,” Sullivan remembers.

Bringing in the Auburn-great was the start of a significant chapter in Samford’s sporting history. Samford soon joined the Southern Conference and now lines up against schools like Chattanooga, The Citadel and Appalachian State.

“It’s where I wanted to come and try to do something that you could be proud of. We changed conferences, built up our facilities, really raised our level. We’re not there yet, but we’ve made tremendous strides,” Sullivan said.

“(Samford University president Dr. Andrew) Westmoreland is committed to making Samford not only the great academic institution that it is, but also feels that there’s a place for athletics and he wanted to help the student-athletes with the visibility of the university and to help grow the university.”

And here Sullivan is content.

“Being from Birmingham, and having an opportunity to do what I love to do and hopefully help mentor guys and build a bridge and take them to manhood and build those relationships in my hometown was special to me. Having the opportunity to come to Samford … a place that I think is a special place, it doesn’t get any better than that.”

There was a game film running on his television screen. Family photographs rest in neat frames on furniture behind his desk. There are six shelves across from his desk, stocked with books and pictures. Two helmets are displayed, one a Samford helmet and the other from the Denver Broncos. If he’s not studying film, or sitting at the small round table for close conversation, he can glance at five footballs dotting the room, each with their own memories.

When he left Auburn at the beginning of 1992 he headed west, to TCU. The Horned Frogs at that time were nothing like Rose Bowl team you see now. That first spring he counted 53 players in his first practice. They ran their drills on the intramural fields, because they had no other alternative. During recruiting season they locked up the weight room. They didn’t want to show it to recruits. And yet he still claimed a co-championship in the Southwestern Conference, a coach of the year award and managed to land some guy named LaDainian Tomlinson.

He was at UAB when he found out about the cancer. Even this, he said was God putting him where he needed to be. Without the treatment he received at UAB he believes he might not be here today. This isn’t a misty eyed sentiment for Sullivan, simply a statement of fact. And so in the many twists and turns that can come to a college coach and his family, these seem like good ones.

For more than a few reasons Sullivan says he believes he’s right where he’s supposed to be. His wife, Jean, is also from Birmingham. Half of their grandchildren are there. The rest are not too far away, in Mississippi.

“I’d like to keep coaching for a while. I feel good. I’m excited about our staff. There’s some things I’d like to see get done here,” he said. And then he pauses ever so briefly. “Being around the players and watching them grow and develop, that’s what you get out of it.”

Sullivan looks at his career through those relationships he’s cultivated along the way. His Heisman Trophy experience was no different.

Back in those days the announcement came as a halftime feature during the Georgia-Georgia Tech game. Instead of being on the front row in New York, Sullivan was in Auburn.

“We were actually at practice that day because we had Alabama on Saturday. My parents had come down to hear the announcement … Our TV went on the blink so we had to go rent a room at the Heart of Auburn. We watched it on TV just like everybody else,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan, perhaps the last Heisman Trophy winner to stay at the Heart of Auburn, says his room number has been lost to history. There are plenty of clear memories from the night, though.

“After the announcement we went back over to (Beard-Eaves-Memorial) Coliseum and all my teammates, coaches and their families, (Auburn President Dr. Harry) Philpot and Coach Jeff Beard (then the Auburn athletic director) were all there and I was able to share that with them. That was something that I’ll never forget because I know I didn’t win it by myself, they were a part of it.”

There’s often that theme of humility, the notion of shared success when you ask Pat Sullivan to talk about his career. He is eager to spread the credit. Even that upcoming statue of his likeness outside the stadium, he says, is just as much for his contemporaries as anyone. To him, seeing the famous seven jersey as a sculpture is flattering, but more for family and teammates. “They’ll all take pride in it, and that will be nice.”

For fans from the good old days it was nice to see Pat Sullivan get so much airtime at the Heisman presentation last December. He says he and his wife go for the presentation as often as possible to catch up with his friends in that rarified football fraternity. Being the charter member of the Auburn chapter is nice, too.

“Over the years Bo and I have gotten fairly close. I would hope to do the same thing with Cam. It creates a responsibility. I don’t know that you understand that at the time. As time goes on you understand what a platform you can have, if you want to use it,” Sullivan said.

It comes up. Sullivan downplays how it might be mentioned when he’s recruiting young players to join him at Samford, conceding that “occasionally” something may be said, but notes high school students are more “in the moment people.”

More important to Sullivan is something else he sees in the young players. “They want to respect you for who you are.”

Still, that big Heisman ring does draw attention.

Samford players have a handful of new faces coaching them this year. Some are familiar to Auburn fans. Antonio Carter ran routes at Alabama from 2000-2004 and he’s now coaching receivers for the Bulldogs. Travis Trickett, the son of former Auburn position coach Rick Trickett, is coaching tight ends and slot receivers. Rory Segrest returned to Samford to coach on the defensive side of the ball. He played at Alabama and has worked in the Philadelphia Eagles organization.

Auburn fans might have noticed this offseason when Sullivan announced his new offensive coordinator, Rhett Lashlee, who learned the game under the professor of high-speed football, Gus Malzahn.

“I’m very excited with our staff. There’s a newness and some enthusiasm. I feel very good about our staff and our players. I’m excited about next fall,” Sullivan said.

When homecoming rolls around and Auburn hosts Samford, even the stadium announcer might be winded. Lashlee has promised the Bulldogs will have an approach similar to what Auburn has been practicing the last few years.

“We started last year with that kind of philosophy. Rhett, with his knowledge as well as some of the other coaches, all of them have bought in. It’s been very good so far,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan coached at Auburn during the Dye-era and called games on the Auburn Network prior to that, but this fall will be his first time to see Jordan-Hare from the visitor’s sideline.

“I haven’t given it a lot of thought yet. On one hand it will be special to go back. It will be great exposure for Samford. I’m sure as it gets closer I’ll see a lot of friends, but I think it will be a fun time for my family and my grandkids to be able to go back. But it will be a business trip too.”

Time doesn’t stand still, even for the immortals of sport. Even for heroes, there’s a common question.

“Where did the time go?”

Then that contentment shines through again.

“I say it all the time: what you get out of athletics, when it is all said and done, it’s not how many touchdowns you threw, how many tackles you made or bowls you win, but it is the relationships that last a lifetime. That’s what special. To see those guys, to keep up with them, that’s important.

“I’m sure, going out to the stadium, I’ll have a lot of special memories.”

That’s what homecomings are for.

In a way, maybe he never really left. There’s the Heisman, the retired jersey and the famous picture of Sullivan and Terry Beasley by the scoreboard. A few years back Auburn honored Sullivan with the Walter Gilbert Award, given to former athletes based on their achievements after their time on campus. Auburn athletics director Jay Jacobs called Sullivan “an iconic figure” that “has been a tremendous ambassador.” You’ll hear that sort of thing about Pat Sullivan if you ask around, but the College Football Hall of Famer simplifies this beyond humility.

“Wherever you go basically somebody will stop and associate you with playing ball or what you’re doing now,” Sullivan said.

There’s clearly more to that story of what such a man has meant to his alma mater over 40 years, but Sullivan is more interested in the upcoming football season than bragging on himself. In fact, there is a line of players waiting outside his office. They’re laughing, at ease with the end of spring ball, comfortable with their coach. They, too, see a man who enjoys his sense of place.

iPhone / journalism / memories / photo / Samford / Tuesday — Comments Off
15
Nov 11

Deadlines, dead store

A series of meetings punctuated the beginning of my work day. Check in with a colleague about the big upcoming journalism awards submissions that must go out tomorrow. Check in with my department chair for the regular this and that. Check in with another professor to make sure we’re on the same page about a class session later this week. There’s another professor with whom we must organize the awards submissions.

Then I ran into someone else I needed to speak with, and so we had a brief meeting at the top of a stairwell.

Make sure everything is graded for this afternoon’s class, nurse the printer through another round of printing things. I’ve been pointing out the eventual demise of this machine for a few years now. One day it’ll day, or they’ll replace it. Until now, CMND-P, which stands for Pray.

Staple all of those things which just got printed. Go to class where students are writing things that need writing.

And then to the Crimson, where the student-journalists are busy putting out another paper.

After a while, I went out for dinner. Stopped by the bookstore to look for a particular magazine for research. There was a book signing, featuring some science fiction writer I don’t know and his new book of which I am not aware. Not really my reading genre. The place was jammed, with little hope of walking or browsing.

So dinner, then. Stopped at Jason’s Deli in the mall where I met a couple who’d been at the book signing. Said he was a nice guy, who stopped and talked to his readers and signed all of his books, not just the new one. The restaurant employees, experts on book signing dynamics since the chain often has them, said a crowd that size would be there until midnight, easy.

Thought, then, I would go up the street to the other bookstore to look for the magazine we need. This was the scene:

Shame, really. This Books-A-Million always had great sale racks. Though, like every Books-A-Million, the tome you wanted was inevitably the 1,000,001st book. Never seemed to have the thing you’d want. Still, there were a lot of things in there. The entire back wall was magazines. I read an important newspaper in there one day. Another day I found myself making an important decision in the local section. I liked that bookstore.

They closed in September, the sign on the door said. Now, there’s only this:

As I mentioned this summer while in Portland, there’s really no need to buy anything in bookstores anymore. But still, this is a sad turn. And, yes, I appreciate all the many contradictions in this paragraph, but there is something useful about browsing a bookstore. There is a great deal of charm in spending part of a lazy afternoon aimlessly looking through the books. Now you’ll just have to do it somewhere else.

And now back in the office. The student-journalists are working on their paper in the newsroom. I’m working on the journalism awards submissions. This will require more work tomorrow. I’d bet we spend about three full days on this when all is said and done.

And that will be tomorrow, when the things have to be postmarked and shipped to the judges.

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12
Nov 11

Football. Meh.

CBS fills their studio time discussing Penn State. They wrap it up with

Aaron Taylor — of Notre Dame and the Packers and Chargers — compares Joe Paterno’s legacy to a goal line fumble. It was a properly tortured analogy concluded with a somber note by his studio colleague Adam Zucker, “And he’d never fumbled before.”

Except the LAST TWO DECADES.

So there was the Georgia game. And that was bad. Just in case no one paid attention to that game, which started with a bad call and was punctuated throughout with poor play with only one exception. Selected tweets, from a :

That first down was brought to you by Georgia math.

Hey a legitimate UGa first down. Congratulations to the referee who did not have to compromise his ethics or vision plan to make it happen.

Referees 7, UGa 0, Auburn, 0. Thanks for that first down spot, fellas.

TOUCHDOWN AUBURN! C.J. Uzomah to @LUTZenkirchen! 7-7, still in the first.

Bulldog to helmet. I suspect whining to begin any moment now.

I’d like to point out we have an All-American caliber running back on the roster … and he has one total yard thus far.

Pass pass pass pass pass pass pass pass pass pass pass. Third and long? Let’s run a draw!

So about that bye week …

Remember when Malzahn described the offense as a play action down field rushing attack? Good times.

Alright, the first time they ran the backdoor pass it was nice. That’s just … not good.

This game is where even the generally fair-minded are questioning Ted Roof. There’s enough of that for most everyone just now.

So let’s see: Youth, Murray, play calling, defensive schemes … anybody else want to contribute?

Was that four go routes and O-Mac underneath? Is that as good as it gets now?

Defensively that’s an unforced fumble, a punt and a drive stopped by a clock. (Let’s not acknowledge the five TDs.) War Adjustments.

89 net yards for AU in the first half. Four yds for Dyer. 10:53 TOP. 2/7 on third down conversions. UGA? 318 yards, 7/8 3rd downs.

Not interested in demanding firings, but 89 yards against the SEC’s #4 defense should earn a partial $1.3 million refund.

Between @WBE_Jerry, 14-year vet @HABOTN and the boards, everyone has decided that was the worst half of Auburn football maybe ever.

Of course that’s a modern conceit. Some folks do recall the Barfield years. But most recent comparisons are … comparable.

I would say the 2008 and 2001 Iron Bowls are as close a 21st century similarity as you could get people to consider.

Mark Richt, most impressed by a spear. Yeah, that’s about right.

Auburn has played five top-15 teams on the road this year. That never ceases to impress.

What in this game has impressed upon the coaching staff that the screen pass is there? What?

Tough setback for T’Sharvan Bell. Depth in the secondary now beyond being an issue.

On air with @IngramSmith, and considering the enigma that is/was UGa, I thought it would be a close game, pending ball bounces. Oops.

Youth was on display, and that was one part of why this game was so bad. They’ll get better in due time, but the Tigers will get even younger with T’Sharvan Bell’s knee injury. It didn’t look like the news was good on the sideline, and so the shaky secondary becomes a bit less stable. Two games to go, homecoming next weekend against Samford and then Alabama brings the nation’s best defense into Jordan-Hare to finish the season. No biggie.

Otherwise Alabama won. UAB won, improving to 2-8 on the year with the biggest comeback in school history. Samford also won with a late comeback.

Samford lost in the first round of the soccer playoffs, ending a terrific season. But Auburn won, and advances to second round playoff action.

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9
Nov 11

Big day

Spent the day covered in newsprint:

Now comes the time of year when stories must be submitted for contests and other notable honors. This is a multiple-day process that will stretch into next week, includes solving Byzantine riddles and parsing out the meaning of a rough online translation of a fortune cookie’s first draft.

There are very precise rules for news contests. It requires a great deal of precise effort, because imprecision means disqualification. It is a mess, really. But then you think of the person who must deal with the many submissions.

He is a kind man, and he welcomes dealing with these submissions and finding judges and sending out the clips and getting them returned and sorting out winners and he does it in a contest that can have about 30 categories for dozens of schools. He’s also a patient, hardworking man. And he needs these rules in place, just to make sense of it all.

So you can’t complain, really. Almost every one of the rules makes sense when you see it from his point of view. And if you heard the reasoning behind the other two or three rules you’d probably think, “Yeah, well, that figures too.”

Which doesn’t exactly make the entire process fun, but it is an important one. And, as I said, will stretch into next week.

Busy day otherwise. Jefferson County voted to file for bankruptcy, the largest municipal failure in the history of the United States. Here’s a fine timeline on the issue from August. It saddens me to read that. This story has been going on my entire adult life.

Indeed, it was one of the first stories I ever reported on the radio. And even back then it seemed like this would go on forever. More than a decade later, they’ve avoided the bankruptcy for as long as possible.

And so here’s the next story, the numb and numbly titled Now What?

Speaking of the radio, I returned to the old format for about five minutes this evening. Ingram Smith, sitting in for Chuck Oliver, asked all the right questions about a football game coming up this weekend. I surely gave all the wrong answers. The final conclusion: if the ball bounces the right way the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry will have a close finish.

Speaking of football and old and tradition and finishing … Here’s the historic Penn State press conference from this evening. I especially like when the students in the room started asking questions.

That will be around water coolers for a good long while.

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8
Nov 11

When the journalist talks of press releases

Beautiful day:

Beautiful autumn, even:

That’s from my phone, as I cruise down the interstate. With a real camera, and a sincere processor, the entire back of Oak Mountain there would just explode. You can never capture the fall in a photograph, but this year is trying to help us out.

Class this afternoon was on public relations. I joked with the students they had the wrong professor, that the esteemed Dr. Smith was the one they really needed. After class there was the paper.

The student-journalists put together a pretty good paper, but they have a good time, too. They showed me this video tonight, demonstrating their grasp of one of the seven news values. Can you guess which one?

Bizarre.