If Illinois hires Ron Zook, the school will get a football coach who works 24/7. Literally.
Zook calls sleep overrated. He also finds eating can be a nuisance to getting the job done.
He is so driven, he once said, “Can you imagine how much you could get done if you didn’t have to eat or sleep?”
Zook operates as if he is on a permanent adrenaline high. He talks fast and moves even faster. While Zook worked as an assistant coach for Ohio State from 1988-90, head coach John Cooper said of him, “He has more energy than any two guys you ever would want to meet.”
Zook doesn’t even slow down when he’s trying to relax. His favorite non-football activity is water skiing.
There won’t be any questions about whether Zook will throw himself completely into the job at Illinois. But some will question whether he would be up to the job.
These days, Zook’s coaching skills bring forth a mixture of high praise and harsh criticism. Zook is lauded throughout the coaching fraternity, receiving platitudes for his tireless work ethic from former players and bosses that include Pittsburgh Steelers coach Bill Cowher and New Orleans coach Jim Haslett.
“He’s an incredibly hard worker and a phenomenal recruiter,” said Bill Curry, the former college coach who called several of Zook’s games at Florida as an analyst for ESPN.
“He’s value-driven and cares about his players. If I were an athletic director, I’d hire him in a heartbeat.”
Zook, though, is available because he was unable to reach the levels of excellence Steve Spurrier attained in Gainesville. After two 8-5 seasons, mediocre by Florida’s standards, Zook was fired on Oct. 25 with the Gators at 4-3. A 38-31 loss to a 1-5 Mississippi State team two days earlier was the last straw. He was asked to finish the season and led Florida to a 7-4 mark, good for a berth in the Peach Bowl.
Many Gators fans viewed Zook, a career assistant, as being woefully overmatched in his first head-coaching job.
The atmosphere was ugly from the beginning as a Web site, FireRonZook.com, popped up shortly after he was hired in 2002. When Zook was released, the home page rejoiced: “It’s happening! It’s happening! Oh, my God, it’s happening!”
Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley was a bit more diplomatic in explaining why Zook was being fired with two years left on a five-year contract.
“When the situation starts going downhill, it’s hard sometimes to push it back up,” Foley said. “I think the situation got out of control, even for him.”
Devastated by firing
The dismissal was devastating for Zook. At a news conference, he had to compose himself several times in reading a prepared statement thanking his players.
Zook, 50, had taken a long road to get to the top of the coaching profession, only to have his first stay cut short. Then again, things haven’t come easily for him.
Zook grew up in Loudonville, Ohio, a town of 3,000. He ended up going from an unrecruited walk-on to being captain of Miami of Ohio’s 1975 team on which Northwestern coach Randy Walker was the most valuable player. A defensive back, he helped lead Miami to a 32-1-1 record in his three years as a player, including a win over the Gators in the ’73 Tangerine Bowl.
Zook got his first college coaching job in 1978 by pestering then-Murray State coach Mike Gottfried. When Gottfried went on a scouting trip to Orrville High School, where Zook was working, he told his future boss, “I want to be a college coach.”
Gottfried was so impressed by Zook’s zeal, he hired him. Even though Zook worked only three seasons at Murray State, Gottfried still gushes over him more than two decades later.
“Ron would rank among the top three coaches of all the assistants I had,” said Gottfried, who went on to coach Pittsburgh before becoming an analyst for ESPN.
“He is so well-rounded and brings so much to the table in terms of what it takes to be a successful coach. He has a strong desire and will to win, and to do things the right way.”
From Murray State, Zook went on the assistant-coaching carousel. During the 1980s, he worked assistant jobs at Cincinnati, Kansas, Tennessee, Virginia Tech and Ohio State.
Then in 1991, Zook joined Spurrier’s staff at Florida as the defensive coordinator. In 1994, Spurrier demoted him to special-teams coach, but that didn’t diminish the impression Zook had made on Foley.
Zook’s work ethic and skills as a recruiter stood out. He loves going to a prospective player’s home and selling him on the school.
When Zook took over at Florida, he had a 13-day stretch during which he visited 71 Florida high schools. He spent so much time on the road, he claimed not to know the address of his new home in Gainesville.
“I always thought he liked recruiting more than coaching,” said Tom Lemming, a college football recruiting analyst for ESPN. “He leaves no stone unturned. When it comes to recruiting, I’d put him in the same league as Lloyd Carr, Pete Carroll and Nick Saban.”
Zook did veer off the recruiting road, leaving the college scene in 1996 to begin a three-year run with the Pittsburgh Steelers as a special-teams coach. He moved on to the Kansas City Chiefs as a defensive backs coach in 1999 before becoming the defensive coordinator for the New Orleans Saints in 2000.
“[Zook] knows what it takes to get players to perform,” Haslett said.
When Spurrier left for the Washington Redskins in 2002, Foley tried the high-profile route at first. But when Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops and Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan rejected him, Foley turned to the former Florida assistant.
In hiring Zook, Foley said: “I’ve known him since 1991. I saw his passion then. I saw his ability to recruit then. I knew this day would come.”
Following a legend
But many Florida fans rued the day right from the start. They wanted a big name to take over at what they felt had become the nation’s premier football school. They didn’t warm up to the idea of a no-name assistant getting the job.
Furthermore, Zook wasn’t Spurrier, the Heisman Trophy winner at Florida who came in as a coach and resurrected the program from the ashes. Zook tried to distance himself from his predecessor, saying 11 times at his introductory news conference, “I’m not Steve Spurrier.”
Zook couldn’t escape Spurrier’s shadow. ESPN analyst Lee Corso, who lives nearby in Orlando, told Zook early on that the odds were against him.
“I told him that when he signed his contract, he also was signing for the day he would be fired,” Corso said. “He was following a legend.”
Zook did his best, trying to sell Spurrier’s former players on his approach. One of his best sales jobs was done on current Bears quarterback Rex Grossman. Zook convinced Grossman to forgo the pros and return for his junior year in 2002 and quickly developed a loyalty among his players.
“We joke that he’s like God,” Gators offensive lineman Max Starks said. “He’s omnipotent, omnipresent. He’s everywhere, and he knows everything. He’s always there for you, and you can always reach him if you need help.”
While Zook reached the players, there was a feeling he didn’t have enough good ones. Even Spurrier admitted the talent level had slipped before his departure.
Florida fans, though, didn’t want to hear it. They expected Zook to win, just like Spurrier did. It didn’t happen. Miami blasted Florida 41-16 in Zook’s second game, and the critics were off to the races.
Zook’s game plans were rapped. His offense was more conservative than Spurrier’s “Fun-N-Gun” attack. Grossman’s numbers dropped from 2001, as he threw 12 fewer touchdowns and had nearly 500 fewer yards in 108 more attempts.
There was a feeling Zook was being outcoached. When he got fired, Florida was a combined 12 points away from being undefeated in 2004. His critics contended a good coach finds a way to win those games.
“Yes, he made some mistakes,” Curry said. “Obviously, he would have done better if he had had more experience. He would have gotten better with more experience.”
The coup de grace
Two events hastened Zook’s departure. On Sept. 16, he went to a Florida fraternity to break up a potential fight involving his players. According to witnesses, Zook issued threats to some members of the fraternity. Zook said he didn’t make any threats, but Foley called the behavior “unacceptable.”
The final blow then came in the loss to Mississippi State. In 12 years at Florida, Spurrier never lost to a team with a losing record. The FireRonZook.com site was about to explode.
Florida pulled the plug two days later. “We didn’t fail,” Zook maintained. “I don’t want you to think we failed, because we didn’t.”
Zook’s supporters agree with him. They point to his last two recruiting classes, which Lemming ranked among the top three in the country.
“If he had five years, there’s no question he would have returned Florida to its dominant position,” Curry said.
Now it seems likely Zook will get his chance at Illinois. With few contacts in the state, his recruiting skills will be put to the test. But Lemming says, “He has the personality to make friends right away.”
Corso thinks Zook can thrive in Champaign. If he compiles a few 8-5 seasons, Illini fans will be building statues of him.
“He’d be the perfect football coach for Illinois,” said Corso, a former Louisville, Indiana and Northern Illinois coach. “He’s aggressive in recruiting, and that’s [what] you need to be in the Midwest. He won’t be following a legend at Illinois. I think he’ll be a real good addition to the Big Ten.”
