Tucker refuses to let race deter his dream

It took Mel Tucker 21 years, 13 different jobs, three stints with legendary Nick Saban and crisscrossing the country from Michigan to Florida to Colorado. But here he finally is at age 46, with his first real chance to lead a football team, as head coach of the CU Buffaloes.

When Tucker was introduced Thursday as the man to awaken the often-sleepy, sometimes-stumbling Buffs program, I took a glance at his lengthy résumé, which shows success from here to the NFL and back. I wondered what took so long to land a prestigious job that will pay him nearly $3 million per year.

And so I asked Tucker: Did he think being black was a hindrance to the advancement of his coaching career?

The look of determination in Tucker’s eyes spoke volumes before he opened his mouth. It has been a long road. But there’s a belief, instilled long ago, that it’s impossible to deter a dream, if the dream is stubborn and strong.

“My parents never raised me to think I couldn’t achieve,” Tucker told me. “So I always knew I would get what I deserved at some point. And that’s what has happened.”

Not so long ago, in December 2010, the Buffaloes hired Jon Embree as coach. Less than two years later, after losing 21 of 25 games, he was fired and angry at not being given time to build the CU program. Asked what his exit meant to fellow black coaches, Embree said: “We don’t get second chances.”

How patient will Colorado be with Tucker? Well, his five-year, $14.75 million contract affords him security and signals real commitment from the university. So maybe things have changed.

But, in the football coaching world, the X-and-o geniuses are Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley and Mike Leach from Washington State. When hired by Colorado, Tucker was praised for his ability to recruit and instill toughness. Is our discussion of coaches still framed in black and white?

As Los Angeles Chargers coach Anthony Lynn told my former Post colleague Cameron Wolfe in an interview last year: “My grandfather sat me down when I was a kid and told me, ‘If you want to go where you want to go in life, you’re going to have to run faster.’ I said, ‘Grandpa, I’m the fastest kid on the team.’ He goes, ‘One day, you’re going to understand what I’m talking about.’ ”

Lynn learned, as his career path took him from Broncos running back to the Chargers sideline during the course of nearly 25 years.

“I get it now,” he said. “I have to be more patient than others.”

Is Tucker tough? No doubt. He has had little choice except to be resilient and determined, waiting for his chance to lead a football team for longer than the five games he served as interim head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2011.

Tucker likes to tell a story about how his relationship with Saban began way back when Public Enemy was fighting the power at the outset of the ’90s and he was a young prep star in Ohio. This was so long ago, it was before Saban was the coach every teenage football player in America knew, so he introduced himself on the telephone as a member of the Houston Oilers staff.

And Tucker thought: Say what? As a high school senior, Tucker believed he had skills but found it preposterous a coach would recruit him to make the jump straight to the pros from the preps. As it turned out, Saban had taken a job at the University of Toledo and was looking to sign local talent.

Tucker instead played for the Wisconsin Badgers. But a bond was formed. One phone call started Tucker on the path that led him to Boulder nearly 30 years later.

Saban is widely regarded as the least cuddly, not to mention the most outstanding football coach this side of Bill Belichick, who has won the Super Bowl five times with New England.

Tucker’s first coach in youth sports, however, was his father. And as a practitioner of tough love, Mel Tucker Sr. was no picnic. So I asked the new leader of the CU Buffaloes:

Who’s the tougher coach? Saban? Or his dad?

“Well, my dad’s my dad,” Tucker said. “I’ve got to go there.”

Tucker has carried a piece of tough love near his heart for 21 years, on the long road from being a graduate assistant for Saban at Michigan State to Boulder, where he’s now entrusted with the task of making the Buffs a national championship contender.

“My dad always told me growing up: ‘There are people that have all talent and no hustle. That’s not good enough. There are people that have all hustle and no talent. That’s not good enough, either. You need to have talent and hustle,’ ” Tucker said.

“That’s all I’ve focused on is working hard, honing my talents and learning as much as a football coach as I could. I feel like good things happen to good people.”