We’re not condoning the abuse of younger brothers–the punches to the arms, the ambush noogies, the serial headlocks–but it appears to have worked in the formation of at least one football coach.
Ron Zook is four years younger than his brother Bob and thus, by virtue of rules set down thousands of years ago by a group of older brothers wearing animal fur and carrying clubs, Ron had it coming.
The brothers would play pickup football games in Loudonville, Ohio, and as much as anything, the goal of Bob and his friends was to see how much Ron could take.
“We used to really beat on him as much as we could,” Bob Zook said. “It was an older-brother type thing, just being mean. He was just young and should be beat up. That’s part of the gig.
“He kind of took it as a challenge then. The game was, we played until he either was crying or he was bleeding. Most of the time it was both.”
Bob was in attendance Tuesday as Ron was introduced as Illinois’ new football coach. The brothers hugged, and Ron did not seem to require medical attention.
“I kind of pushed him,” Bob Zook said. “That never left him. He’s always been a tough kid.”
The question remains whether the tough kid is a good game-day coach, but you would have a hard time finding someone who says Zook can’t recruit. And wasn’t that the idea when Illinois fired Ron Turner? That the Illini needed someone who could lure talent to Champaign?
What Illinois got Tuesday was a 50-year-old man with enough energy to power a few windmills, and perhaps tilt a few in the process. This is a man who needs to be busy. When Zook said at his introductory news conference that “one of my biggest fears is retirement,” his wife, Denise, must have had the same thought. She should be terrified of his retirement too. Within a day or two, he will be remodeling the house, using an AstroTurf-green color scheme.
“He is the person he is,” Denise Zook said. “I married that person. He made sure I knew what he was like. He has been like this since the day I met him. I just happened to fall in love with him. I wouldn’t change him one bit.”
Zook got run out of Florida in part because his record was 23-14 in three seasons. But he got run out of Florida just as much because he wasn’t Steve Spurrier. He will have a nice, long stay at Illinois if he’s not Turner. That means making bigger inroads in Chicago-area recruiting and using his national reputation to get players from out of state.
It can be done. No, it’s more than that. It should be done. If Illinois can have the No. 1 team in college basketball, there’s no reason why it can’t have a football team that is a factor in the Big Ten. This isn’t mission impossible. Northwestern was mission impossible, remember? And the Wildcats win regularly now.
“There is no reason whatsoever why Illinois in time can’t compete on a regular basis with the highest of goals–that means Big Ten championships and beyond,” Zook said.
The best part of a job often is the job offer. On that day, there is nothing but affirmation and possibilities. You can double that for Zook, who had more abuse heaped on him in three years at Florida than most coaches have to endure in a lifetime.
That’s why Tuesday was so sweet. The future opened up before him, and there wasn’t a FireRonZook.com site in sight. He started recruiting for Illinois on Monday night. There was work to be done. And there will be work to do in the coming days as Zook makes contact with Turner’s recruits and with high school coaches throughout the state. There are roots to be laid down.
That has to please athletic director Ron Guenther, international man of mystery, who loves hard work almost as much as he loves stealthy coaching searches.
Zook needs to work on a few things. He referred to Illinois several times Tuesday as “Illi-noise.” But that can be fixed, just as the Illini football program can be fixed.
This is his 12th stop in 26 years as a college or pro coach (“We don’t paint, we move,” he said of his family.) He tends to wander, either on his own or as part of a forced march.
Illinois wasn’t going to get a perfect candidate. So it gladly will take a flawed coach, one who leans toward the recruiting end of things. Better to err on the side of player talent.
