Know your enemy: Illinois edition

This week in our coach’s profile we come across the first coach in our series who is clearly on the hot seat with his program: Illinois head coach Ron Zook.  Currently in his sixth year with the Fighting Illini, Zook has thus far managed to post only one winning record, and has claimed victory in less than one-third of his Big Ten games.  Boasting two wins on the season, the Illini have already matched their 2005 and 2006 performances, but it remains to be seen how things will shake out as we progress through the fall of 2010, and if Illinois Athletic Director Ron Guenther’s vote of confidence in retaining Zook after 2009 was a wise move.

Zook actually has some historical connection to the Buckeyes, having been a defensive backs coach for the Scarlet & Gray from 1988-1990.  Zook left Columbus for the warmer climes of Florida, where he served as an assistant coach for the Gators throughout the first half of the 1990’s.  The latter part of the decade was spent in the professional ranks, where Zook made a looping road trip of sorts through Pittsburgh, Kansas City, and New Orleans before returning to Florida and the college game.  As a head coach, Zook posted winning records in all three of his seasons at UF, but the success of the program under Zook was relatively mediocre from a historical context, and in 2005 he moved on to begin his current stint in Champaign.

One gets the impression that part of Zook’s staying power at Illinois comes from the promise he brings.  Seeing the man and listening to him talk immediately makes you think “football guy,” and he certainly seems capable of bringing in the talent necessary to fuel a program, having been granted a designation as lofty as “recruiting god.”  It was Zook’s cast who led Florida to their championship in 2007, prompting Urban Meyer to give credit where credit was due.  But how long will promise be enough?  Sure, Zook has brought some excitement to the program, and was even recognized as the Big Ten Coach of the Year in 2007, but when do you decide a long-term answer lies elsewhere and finally pull the plug?

Perhaps Zook is able to stick around not just because he’s not an uptight white guy, but because he’s just a likable guy in general.  To ensure that you see some of the reasons for this theory, I’m copying them below rather than just linking to them.  These are direct from the Illinois Athletics website:

• When Ron Zook was hired at Illinois, Chicago Tribune columnist Rick Morrissey wrote “What Illinois got was a man with enough energy to power a few windmills and perhaps tilt a few in the process. This is a man who needs to stay busy.”
• Ron 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 sleep or eat? (excerpt from an article by Ed Sherman, Chicago Tribune)
• When Ron Zook was on John Cooper’s Ohio State coaching staff, they were on the road recruiting when Cooper wanted to stop for seafood. Zook zipped through a Shoney’s drive-thru for clam chowder.
• Ron Zook is a man who believes that no time should be wasted. Once when a fire alarm went off in the Florida coaches offices, everybody but Zook evacuated. “If there really had been a fire, I could have escaped,” Zook said. “It’s not that far of a jump.”
• While an assistant at Tennessee from 1984-86, Ron Zook once called a defensive backs meeting in the hotel room of one of his players, Charles Davis. When he realized he had forgotten to bring a pad of paper, Zook ripped off the bedsheet and scrawled plays on them. “I went to bed with two- and three-deep coverages underneath me,” Davis said.
• Ron Zook says one of his biggest fears in life is retirement. His wife, Denise, agrees, “He is the person he is. 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.”
• How does Ron Zook describe his style of coaching?  “Wide open, puff o’ smoke come out of your tail and go, man, go.  We’re gonna play all these games, play them hard and have a good time doing it.  When (fans) leave the stadium, I want them turning around saying “Those guys are having fun.”
• As children, Ron Zook’s brother, Bob, would stand at the top of a hill behind their home and roll an old tire down to Ron, who was standing at the bottom of the hill in shoulder pads and a helmet.  Zook was small growing up, but the drill taught him toughness.  He either made a great stop or got knocked to the ground.  Afterwards he woudl get up and push the tire back up the hill and prepare for another shot.  “it was a toughness drill, teaching me to run through things when I tackled,” Zook said.  “You had to hit it hard, because it was a moving object and it’d roll right over you.”

Are you starting to get the idea now?  I hope we destroy Zook’s team on Saturday, but I’d love to hang out with him after the game.

But seriously, this dilemma of keeping Zook around despite the team’s record obviously isn’t lost on AD Guenther, who has prompted Zook to engage in his own personal SWOT analysis in an effort to jump start the Illini.  In fact, Guenther seems to be trying multiple tactics to give his head football coach a new perspective, ranging from supporting the decision to overhaul the coaching staff to presenting Coach Zook with nuggets of wisdom from former rivals (The Best of Bobby Bowden: Volume II?).  Pulling out all the stops to find something that works, I would say.

Unlike some of our previously featured coaches, Zook’s story is otherwise unremarkable.  He was born in the small town of Loudonville, OH, where there will be over 100 beers available at the local grist mill during this Saturday’s game.  He played his collegiate football at Miami (OH), lettering three of those years at his defensive back position.  He’s a hard worker, a family man, and he doesn’t take no guff from no frat boys.

Ron Zook.  Football coach.