The book is titled “Do You Love Football? Winning With Heart, Passion and Not Much Sleep.”
Jon Gruden’s autobiography, currently in the works, is scheduled to hit the shelves around the same time his Tampa Bay Buccaneers hit the field for the 2003 NFL regular season.
A room of 39-year-old football coaches qualified to write their life story is a small one, smaller even than Gruden’s 10-by-10 cracker box of an office at One Buc Place.
“I don’t really know how much I have to say,” Gruden said from the seat behind a cluttered desk. “It’ll be kind of a look back at my involvement with the game from an early age and the people who really impacted me, influenced me along the way.
“Good stuff, man. Why I love football.”
There is some ground to cover: From growing up as the son of a coach to his college days as a little-used quarterback and communications major at the University of Dayton to the six stops as a college and pro assistant before his 30th birthday to being named NFL offensive coordinator at 31 to a head coach at 34 to the youngest to win a Super Bowl by 39.
At this pace, Gruden’s first book might just be Volume I of a series.
“Knowing Jon, he’ll be more motivated than ever before,” said University of Pittsburgh coach Walt Harris, who mentored Gruden, then a graduate assistant at Tennessee, in 1986, during Gruden’s first foray into the profession.
“The guy is a competitor, and I just know he loves the position he’s in right now, as far as winning a Super Bowl and all the pressure that goes with defending it. He’s earned it, and he’ll thrive in it.”
Others who know Gruden best agree this first championship has done nothing but energize a coach renowned for his passion, energy and drive for the game.
And what a burden that must be for a guy whose alarm already blasts at 3:17 each morning.
“Alexander the Great was 39 when he conquered the world. After that, he really didn’t have a whole lot left to do,” said Bob LaMonte, the agent who represents Gruden and four other NFL head coaches.
“The difference with Jon Gruden is that he’s conquered the world and now has a chance to do it again and again and again.”
This is a guy who obliterated his former team, the Oakland Raiders, 48-21 in Super Bowl XXXVII in January and less than 12 hours later was talking about how much work had yet to be done.
As if to prove his point, as the bus was idling in the parking lot at the team hotel in San Diego–waiting to chauffeur the Bucs to their victory charter flight back to Tampa–Gruden was hunched in his seat and poring over the off-season workout schedule.
“Winning the Super Bowl is a great achievement. It’s something you work for your entire life. The difficulty of it all has not gone lost on me,” Gruden said. “But now that we’ve won one, I want to win another one.
“I want to win a bunch of ’em!”
Such was the edict delivered to his players as they filed into team headquarters last month for the Bucs’ first full-scale mini-camp of the off-season. The squad has been nothing if not businesslike and focused.
The Super Bowl rings are scheduled to arrive June 14, but no one’s talking about them.
“That’s that 5-8 guy in there. He just won’t let us,” defensive tackle Warren Sapp said. “From the time he walked in, what we did and everything [last year] was great, but now it’s time to do something else. We follow the direction of our leader.”
More than he loves the actual conquest, Gruden lives for the grind of the journey. He wants those he leads to live for it too.
“We’re facing distractions and temptations that we have never had to fight before. We’re going to find out . . . how we respond to them,” said linebacker Derrick Brooks, the NFL’s reigning defensive player of the year. “[Gruden] has an even bigger fight on his hands. He’s the head coach of a world championship football team.”
Newly signed free agents (such as linebacker Dwayne Rudd) and draft picks (such as defensive end Dewayne White and quarterback Chris Simms) have joined a squad that returns virtually intact.
The notable exceptions are free safety Dexter Jackson (who signed with Arizona) and linebacker Al Singleton (Dallas) off the league’s top-ranked defense and center Jeff Christy (salary-cap casualty) off an offensive line that played its best in the postseason.
As far as Gruden is concerned, the magical run of 2002 might as well have been 2,002 years ago.
“No matter how many games or championships we won last season, we’ve won none this season,” he said. “Hopefully, everybody’s got their scrapbooks all done and their ticket stubs pressed or laminated or whatever you do with them … because it’s over.
“We’re not here for Liberty Bowl watches and Peach Bowl rings. Every year there’s a game you’ve got to get to–and you’ve got to win it.”
It is this mind-set that has Gruden pointing toward Feb. 1, 2004–date of Super Bowl XXXVIII in Houston.
