San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
Unplugged: Hoke on Seger, Sipe and suds
Mere days into spring practice during Lap 2 as football coach at San Diego State — before coronavirus upended our lives — Brady Hoke sat in an office that remained spartan at best and empty at worst.
Directly behind his nononsense desk, a yawning white wall awaited inspiration. No plants. No portraits. No swollen display of trophies or keepsakes from a football road nearing four decades.
That, however, could be the most Hoke-ish decorating statement of all. Simplicity, masking sophistication. Knowing nods, signaling something more lingering just beneath the surface.
He shifted the conversation to a small, understated throw pillow positioned dead-center on a couch with the $19.99 tag still attached. He talked about the piece — a purchase by his wife, Laura, whom he met during a childhood vacation to Disney World — with tongue-in-cheek reverence, as if it might have the power to transform the room.
“Does that give a little pop here?” he said.
Hoke was enjoying the work and comfortable rhythms of the daily college football grind again, until unparalleled health crisis placed spring football and sports as a whole on uneasy pause.
The Aztecs open a condensed season Saturday against UNLV at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, where his team will play the next two years as San Diego State prepares to raze SDCCU Stadium to make way for a new home to Aztecs football.
“It’s a little unique, as we all know,” Hoke said. “... I finally know how to use a computer, which is good.”
Speaking before health concerns overran our daily lives, he considered a road well traveled.
He’s made the big money and soaked in the big spot
light at Michigan. He’s dipped a toe into the NFL. At 61, he’s reinvented programs in ruins — including his first lap with the one he leads anew after replacing Rocky Long.
The Rust Belt guy from Ohio possesses the experience and maturity to differentiate between not taking yourself too seriously, while understanding the allencompassing commitment winning in Division I football requires.
Hoke sat down to explore the person behind the whistle, from eating a potentially deadly delicacy in Japan to the unusual circumstances of the proposal to his wife.
Q:
How do you celebrate a big win?
A:
Probably have a beer or two, then get ready for the next one. It’s kind of a 24-hour deal, win or lose. Obviously, those important victories, you’ve got to be consistent. So it doesn’t change much. Great teams are defined by the present, not the past.
Q:
What kind of beer? The choice might say something about a person.
A:
It would probably be a Stella draft or a Heineken Light bottle. Labatt is always good.
Q:
What’s your craziest recruiting story?
A:
Going to a home in south Georgia and it had a dirt floor (at Ball State). I was fortunate to have a nice home growing up.
The good thing is, we got the kid, he came and he was the first member of his family to graduate and get a college degree.
Q:
(Hoke once helped coach a Japanese team during a week-long clinic in Asaka, Japan.) Did you go full Sake and blowfish?
A:
I did it all.
Q:
Even blowfish (also known as Fugu or pufferfish, a potentially deadly item if prepared improperly)?
A:
Oh, yeah. It was cool. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Q:
How did you propose to Laura?
A:
The big move was, Laura’s family is originally from Sandusky, Ohio.
We used to go walleye fishing about every weekend. Going into my senior year, our senior year in college, we were in the station wagon and we had some of that butterscotch candy. I wrapped up a ring in there and gave it to Laura.
So her parents were there and my parents were there. That’s how it happened.
Q:
In the car, while you’re going down the road?
A:
Yep. We were on I-75 going north to Sandusky, probably just past Lima.
Q:
What were the best and worst calls you’ve made in a game?
A:
The best call was going to for two against Ohio State (a 42-41 loss to the No. 3 Buckeyes in 2013).
We didn’t make it, but it was the right call. Our defense, we didn’t stop them. The quarterback twisted his ankle.
We didn’t really have a backup at that time that we felt comfortable with.
The worst non-call? Before that play, they’d taken a timeout once we got set. We should have taken a timeout after that timeout to change formation.
Q:
So the best and worst calls of your career might have come back to back in the same game?
A:
I’m not sure. But yeah, maybe.
Q:
Any coaching regrets?
A:
I wish we would have maybe had another quarterback in the pipeline (at Michigan).
We needed a second quarterback. When Denard (Robinson) got hurt our second year (2012) … he got hurt right before halftime at Nebraska.
We had moved Devin (Gardner, also a QB option) out to wideout, because he was too good of an athlete not to be on the field. The backup quarterback probably wasn’t ready to be the backup.
In the second half, they just blitzed the crap out of the other kid, Russell Bellomy. Poor guy got thrown into the fire (misfiring on first 10 passes with three interceptions). Yeah, not having another quarterback.
Q:
Favorite musical artist?
A:
Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. I saw him in Dayton, Ohio, with KISS in 1976. “Beautiful Loser,” that’s a great song.
Q:
What’s your favorite food and the thing you avoid at all costs?
A:
My wife’s homemade pizza. It’s the best. I don’t eat mushrooms. My dad used to say, “You can’t taste them.” So I would say, “Then why would I eat them?”
Q:
What’s the first thing you did when you were fired at Michigan (in December 2014)?
A:
Made sure our daughter knew, so she didn’t hear it anywhere else. Family. My in-laws. Letting the people who really care know. We had about five days of feeling sorry, then we went to Key West for a week.
The weather’s a little better there than Ann Arbor, Mich.
Q:
What was your first car?
A:
I had a green AMC Gremlin hatchback. Then I bought a Chevelle for $600 and put in a $159.99 paint job from (national chain) Earl Scheib, chocolate brown.
Q:
I know the pillow is nice, but there’s also a guitar leaning on the wall there (painted with “Aztec football rocks”). What’s that all about?
A:
They were cleaning out a storage room and one of the interns said, “Coach, do you want any of these?” (He points out another guitar across the room, with names written on the front and back.) That one’s pretty cool. Don’t know what year it was given, but up until whatever year it was, it was every Aztec who played in the NFL.
(He flips it to the back side of the guitar to point out the name on the far bottom-right.) “B Sipe,” for Brian Sipe (the 10-year quarterback of the Cleveland Browns). I found Sipe’s name here on the bottom, so I’m going to let him know.
Q:
What do you want to be doing in five or 10 years?
A:
I would hope to be coaching football, because that means I’m healthy. And more importantly, I have a desire to work with the young men. Nice pillow. “Thanks,” Hoke said.