Al Vermeil likes to say that it was almost impossible for him not to make something of himself, with the support system he’s had his entire life.
“I’m no smarter than anybody else, and I’m not that talented,” said the Chicago Bulls’ strength and conditioning coach, who lives in Lincolnshire. “I would have had to almost try hard to fail at life, because there was always somebody there to give me guidance at the right time. All the right ingredients were there for me.”
For Vermeil, whose “office” is the weight room at the Bulls’ Sheri L. Berto Center in Deerfield, his support system starts with his dad, Louie, who died in 1987, and his mom, Alice.
“I never had to search for heroes growing up,” Vermeil said. “I just had to look around the dinner table. I learned the right way and the wrong way to do things. People without family are like a ship without a rudder. That’s the simplest way to put it.”
Vermeil was the baby of the family. There was his big sister, Laura Giammona, 11 years his senior, who let her brother put all of his weights in her garage. Laura and her husband, Frank, didn’t mind, even when Al regularly brought his buddies into the kitchen for a post-workout stack of
pancakes.
Then there was brother Dick, who coached the Philadelphia Eagles to Super Bowl XV in 1981 against the Oakland Raiders. Dick also coached Al one year at Napa (Calif.) Junior College in 1964, and Al still says his big brother was the best coach he ever played for.
And don’t forget brother Stan, who now lives in Santa Rosa, Calif., where he rebuilds classic car and racing car engines and who Al honored by wearing his high school football number, good ol’ No. 60.
Vermeil’s formula for success goes beyond the family tree. There’s Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh, who plucked Vermeil from the high school coaching ranks in 1979 to become the San Francisco 49ers’ strength coach. Three years later the ‘Niners won Super Bowl XVI.
And Bulls general manager Jerry Krause made Vermeil the second person he hired when he came to the Bulls in 1985. Six years later the Bulls won the first of three NBA titles. (If you’re counting, that’s four world championships that Vermeil has been involved with. His championship rings are squirreled away in a safe-deposit box at a Lincolnshire bank.)
And don’t forget the great athletes that Vermeil has worked with, such as former 49ers Ronnie Lott, Joe Montana, Randy Cross and Dwight Clark, former White Sox first baseman Greg Walker and current Bulls such as Horace Grant, Bill Cartwright, B.J. Armstrong, John Paxson, Scottie Pippen and Will Perdue. (For the record, retiree Michael Jordan had his own trainer.)
But as self-effacing as Vermeil is, those in the know are fully aware of his contributions to the Bulls.
In a special Sports Illustrated Bulls commemorative edition, writer Rick Telander of Lake Forest offered a top-10 list on how the Bulls made it to the top of the heap three years in a row. And what was reason No. 3? That’s right, Al Vermeil.
“Vermeil has helped transform the Bulls from a weak bunch into a fit bunch,” Telander wrote. “Although the Bulls don’t have the bulk of, say, the Knicks, they have the fibrous strength of a pack of Dobermans. And it shows in their defense and their fourth-quarter fire, much of which can be attributed to Vermeil’s program.”
Bulls veteran Paxson agrees. “I think Al is a hugely underrated asset to this organization,” he said. “The best proof of that is that so many players like what he does so much that when they leave the Bulls they stick with the program Al developed for them. There’s no doubt in my mind that Al has lengthened my career, giving me the opportunity to be on the floor in some big games. He’s got a great manner and he’s easy to work with.”
Vermeil is also strongly endorsed by Krause. “Al has been a tremendous asset to the franchise,” he said. “He does a great job of keeping our players strong, which helps prevent injuries. We’ve been very fortunate with avoiding injuries the past several seasons, and Al’s one of the big reasons. He’s great at developing lower-body strength and explosiveness in players, and that’s an art. Plus he’s an outstanding individual. He’s been with us in the bad times and the good. There’s nobody better in Al’s business.”
Nonetheless, Vermeil remains low key. “I don’t forget my roots,” he said. “I’m the son of a mechanic and proud of it. I like what Bob Devaney, the old Nebraska Cornhuskers football coach, used to say: `Never become too impressed with yourself, because the size of your funeral depends on the weather.’ “
Growing up in Calastoga, Calif., in the Napa Valley north of San Francisco, Vermeil, 48, never dreamed he’d one day be collecting championship rings in Chicago Stadium. Actually, Vermeil says it’s ironic that at 5 feet 8, he’s so closely involved in a sport dominated by extremely tall men.
His dad, Louie, owned an auto repair shop, the Owl Garage, and the whole family worked there-when they weren’t involved in sports.
Vermeil grew up in the house that his great-grandfather bought shortly after the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.
“My dad was what you would call a local legend,” Vermeil said. “He was an all-conference high school football player in the 1920s, and he played on the town football team in the 1930s. And his two loves, sports and automobiles, filtered down to his three sons. His philosophy was simple: Work until the job is done. Sometimes his garage was open 24 hours a day.” It could be said that Vermeil’s weight room is open 24 hours a day, too.
An inspirational quote from Hall of Famer Bill Russell, which hangs in the Berto Center, is one that Vermeil likes to live by: “Paying the price, in anything you do, is spelled `work.’ Days and nights and years of work. And it’s too bad that many men-men who are born with the basic talent-think of `work’ as a dirty word.”
Following in his dad’s and brothers’ large footsteps, Vermeil starred for the Calastoga Wildcats in football, baseball, and track and field, plus he played one year of basketball. He still holds the school record for the shot put, which he set in 1963 with a heave of 54 feet 9 inches. “That’s a record that will last forever, since the school no longer has a track team,” he said with a smile.
The competitive spirit that all the Vermeil kids possess comes from their parents. “We were eating dinner on the porch one night, when Mom and Dad started arguing about pushups,” Vermeil said.
“Dad said Mom couldn’t do a pushup, so she hit the floor and knocked out 10 of them. And she was 43 years old. My sister was a great athlete, too. She beat all the boys in the sprint at her 8th-grade picnic. The spirit of competition was always there in all of us.”
Vermeil went to Napa Junior College in Napa, Calif., in 1964 to play linebacker, offensive guard and handle the place-kicking for brother Dick. “He was a great motivator,” Al said. “My brother has a sense of charisma, a sense of leadership. By the time I was 8 years old, I recognized that he knew how to lead people.”
“Al was one of the best football players, pound for pound, that I’ve ever coached,” said Dick, who now spends his football seasons as an analyst for ABC-TV’s college football broadcasts. “My gosh, he was benching 400 pounds as a junior in college. If Al was 6 foot 2 and 220 pounds, he would have played in the NFL for 10 years.”
After one year of junior college ball, Vermeil played for three years for the Utah State Aggies. Teammates included former Cincinnati Bengal Bill Staley and former Green Bay Packer MacArthur Lane. A black-and-white photo on his office wall shows Staley, Lane and Vermeil, who is sporting a buzzsaw haircut.
After graduating from Utah State with a degree in physical education in 1968, Vermeil went into high school coaching.
“My goal at the time was to be a high school football coach and when I die have them name the stadium after me,” he said.
After working as an assistant football coach for Casa Roble (Calif.) High School and earning a master’s degree in physical education at Kansas State University, Vermeil became the head football coach at Moreau High School in Heyward, Calif. in 1973. He compiled a 38-20 record with three conference titles in six seasons. Then, in 1979, the 49ers came calling.
“I got to know Bill Walsh when he was the head coach at Stanford when he first talked to me about going to work for him,” said Vermeil. “Then he called again when he went to the 49ers. We were doing some unique things when it comes to strength and fitness at the high school level, and it was becoming a specialty for me.
“Going to the NFL was a difficult decision for me,” Vermeil remembers. “I wasn’t exactly sure if that’s what I wanted to do. I really loved high school coaching and working with the kids. But I had turned down other opportunities for advancement, and I had to think about supporting my family. I knew Bill Walsh through my brother Dick, and I thought it would be a good fit.”
Following four years with the 49ers, Vermeil opened his own fitness center in Fremont, Calif. “It was a combination of things,” he said of his decision to leave the 49ers. “But basically I wanted to be more responsible for my own success and failure.”
His specialty was designing fitness regimens for police and fire departments, along with working with athletes.
The first year of business, White Sox trainer Herm Schneider contacted Vermeil and asked him to work with Greg Walker, then the club’s young first baseman. Pleased with the results, the Sox sent Vermeil other players, including Ron Karkovice, Tim Hulett, Scott Fletcher and Daryl Boston. The team then took him to spring training in 1985, where Vermeil spent 42 days in Sarasota, Fla.
“Then they told me that Jerry Reinsdorf wanted me to move my business to Chicago,” Vermeil said of the Sox owner. “I had only been to Chicago once before. Well, I met with (former general manager) Roland Hemond, Jerry Krause (who was with the Bulls then), Mr. Reinsdorf and (part owner) Eddie Einhorn. I talked it over with my wife, we came back to Chicago, and we bought our house two days later.”
For two years, Vermeil worked with Bulls and White Sox players and in 1987 went with the Bulls players only, the connection being Reinsdorf, who also owns the Bulls, and Krause.
Vermeil’s secret to fitness training is planning and preparation. There are two TVs and two VCRs in his office, where he watches tapes of players’ workouts to dissect their techniques. He also watches Bulls’ game films to study the various jumps and movement patterns. His assistant, Erik Helland, provides plenty of insights, too.
“There’s lots of teaching involved with getting a player in top shape,” Vermeil said. “It’s more than sending a player out to run around and get him tired. How fast can you use your strength? That’s called `explosiveness,’ which is what we teach. And we tailor things to each player, which they appreciate. Horace Grant is different from John Paxson, who’s different from Bill Cartwright.”
And when something happens like Paxson hitting the 3-pointer that won the NBA Finals against the Phoenix Suns last season, followed by Grant’s Finals-saving shot block on Kevin Johnson, Vermeil knows that all the toil is worth it.
“Seeing these guys come through and achieve success and knowing how hard they work, well, that’s the biggest thrill for me,” he said.
Dick Vermeil said one of his brother’s attributes is that he “loves people, and people like him. He gives without asking anything in return. People know that he cares, and that enables him to get these great athletes to do a little bit more, to get that solid commitment. Plus, Al always seems to be a few steps ahead of everyone else in terms of training techniques. He has a very open mind, and he’s learned from some of the great ones, including many weightlifting experts from Eastern Europe.”
Chris Collins of Northbrook, a guard for the Duke University Blue Devils basketball team and the son of former Bulls coach Doug Collins, has worked with Vermeil for two years. (Vermeil isn’t an employee of the Bulls. They contract the services of his business, Vermeil Sports & Fitness Inc.)
“Al pushes you to the limit, and thanks to him I’ve made great gains in my strength and quickness,” Collins said. “We work hard, and there’s no fun and games, but at the same time Al makes the workouts enjoyable. He has lots of innovative ideas, and they all help me in different ways.”
Vermeil said his broad perspective as a coach and participant in several sports helps him in his current job with the Bulls. “You can’t be narrow-minded,” he said. “When it comes to jump training, Olympic weightlifting and running skills, you can learn things every day. The secret is putting your education into action. We’re always adding bits and pieces to keep players interested.”
Vermeil’s latest “project” is a new Bull, Toni Kukoc, who comes from Croatia with the label as Europe’s greatest basketball player. Some Bulls’ fans think Kukoc might be a tad skinny for the rough NBA style of play, but Vermeil isn’t concerned.
“Toni is 6 foot 10, and he weighs 230 pounds,” he said. “There’s plenty there to work with. He’s never worked out regularly with weights, so he’ll inevitably put on muscle mass with a solid lifting program. Plus he’s a great athlete and a great basketball player.”
Kukoc said that Vermeil’s assistance has been very useful so far. “He works me very hard sometimes, and that is good,” he said. “I had a problem in Europe with staying healthy, and Al will help me with that. For sure, he’s helped me get a good start into the NBA.”
Dr. Gregory Lutz, a sports rehabilitation physician with a private practice in Princeton, N.J., is one of the team physicians for the New York Mets and has known Vermeil several years. “Anything he can do to improve the care of athletes, he does it,” Lutz said of Vermeil. “Al brings as many people together as he can to solve a problem, which means there is a lot of cumulative knowledge working together. The name of the game in this business is how quickly and how safely you can get an injured athlete playing again. He has a huge heart and he wants only what’s best for the players. Al’s a father figure to the players in a lot of ways.”
When Vermeil isn’t working with Bulls’ players to get them to jump higher, move quicker or rebound stronger, you can sometimes find him and wife Diane, who he married in 1967, chasing a golf ball at the Marriott Lincolnshire course. They can also be found at their kids’ sporting events.
Lance, 18, a senior at Loyola Academy in Wilmette, is a competitive weightlifter and won the 64.5-kilogram class at last summer’s Prairie State Games.
Elizabeth, 15, a sophomore at Stevenson High School, plays basketball and tennis.
And the Vermeil clan can often be found at Chicago Stadium, rooting on the Bulls.
Diane said their move to the Chicago area has gone better than they ever hoped it would. “I knew it would be a good move professionally for Al, and it would be another challenge for the family, but who could ever predict three world titles?” she said.
“Sure the winters are a little long, but we love it here. The people are so friendly, and the schools are very good.”
Al agrees with his wife. “We’ve found Lake County to be filled with very friendly people,” he said. “When our moving truck pulled in, our neighbors Fred and Joan Thompson were over within 10 minutes offering their help, and we’ve been friends ever since. Do I miss California? Sure. But I’m happy to say that we’ve found a wonderful home in the area.”
