Pandemic gives football coaches a chance for time with their families
When Alex Grinch says goodnight to 10-year-old Tyler and 8-year-old Corbi, the OU defensive coordinator adds a followup. “I'll see you in the morning.”
Knowing he'll have breakfast with his kids the next morning is one of Grinch's favorite parts of the day.
Many are the advantages for a coach's family, especially highly-paid coaches at places like OU. But many are the disadvantages, too, with the gruesome time demands. But the pandemic that has shut down much of American life has extended to football, and time-strapped coaches suddenly are at home with their families.
They walk out of a staff meeting (via Zoom) and have lunch with their kids. They ride bikes and swim and take walks in the afternoon. They watch movies and play games at night.
“The time with them has been awesome and something I've tried to make the most out of,” said OU assistant head coach Shane Beamer, who has three children: Sutton, 11; Olivia, 10; and Hunter, 6.
Sooner assistants have taken advantage of the work-from-home orders to build priceless memories with their families.
“This has allowed people to hit a reset button and just slow down,” said Jamar Cain, OU's new outside linebackers coach. “For me, the last 10 years or five years, it's been go, go, go, go, go. Work, work, work, work. Next job. Work, work, work. It's allowed me to take a step back, actually put my phone down. Not check Twitter. Not check social media. Not check email.”
Cain, hired away from Arizona State in January, is back in suburban Phoenix with his family. The Cains had yet to move to Norman when the pandemic hit. So Cain is working not just from home, but from afar, while teaching Cosby, 12, how to barbecue and watching Cali, 11, do her gymnastics workouts via Zoom.
“It's been awesome for me — I don't know if it sounds right — to get to re-learn your kids, get to re-know them, try to build a relationship again,” Cain said. “Because you're never around. Actually know what they like and all their little quirkinesses.”
During the season, Cain says he saw his kids mostly in the evenings, when he would arrive home around 7 p.m. Grinch was off to work most days before his kids woke up — Starbucks opens at 5:30 a.m.
But in many ways, May was the worst of times. That's the heavy recruiting month. Rarely are assistant coaches home during May, which is when youth activities start bubbling.
“So much of what we do when we look at a year-long calendar is, when are we in town?” Grinch said. As much as he misses being around his players and the energy of the Sooner football complex, he also knows the value of this time with his kids. “Right now, any pitch I throw 'em in the backyard, that's one pitch I wouldn't have gotten. I'd have been on the road recruiting.”
Beamer knows the drill. He's the son of Frank Beamer, the iconic coach at Virginia Tech from 1987-2015.
“I've been on both ends of the perspective,” said Shane Beamer, who was 10 when his dad got the Virginia Tech job. “Early on, my dad was struggling … to keep things going at Murray State, to get things going at Virginia Tech. He tried to make the most of the time we had as a family.”
All these years later, Shane Beamer remembers his dad's attempts at staying engaged with the family. Shane has tried to do the same. And now the pandemic has made it easy.
The Beamers have golfed together — wife, Emily serves as a caddie — and played Uno and rode bikes and celebrated birthdays. Hunter, the 6-year-old, has even learned more football.
Beamer lauds Lincoln Riley for encouraging coaches to have their kids around the office and get to know the players. At the top of Hunter's Christmas wish list was a Peach Bowl victory over LSU.
“They've definitely been involved with my job, but here's an opportunity for me to jump back into their world,” Beamer said. “The opportunity to get those days back, it's been really enjoyable.”
So he's played backyard volleyball with Sutton and watched Olivia dance with Zoom and switched football roles with Hunter, who is trying to learn as many of OU's plays as he can.
“He knows the signals that we use,” Beamer said. “He's probably got 10 or 15 of `em down. He loves signaling a play to me; I'm the quarterback.”
Meanwhile, Grinch is having breakfast with Tyler and Corbi, who always were asleep when he went through the Starbucks line, and marveling at their technology aptitude, and watching “Karate Kid” and Michael Jordan's “Last Dance,” giving the kids a little taste of their parents' childhood interests.
And Cain, out in Arizona, has learned to put his phone down for 20 minutes or so and relish what will be a unique time for his family.
“My daughter asked me, `Dad, why do you have to go back to work?'” Cain said. “Little things like this, man, they'll look back and say, `this has been a fun time to hang out with dad.'”
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. You can also view his personality page at oklahoman.com/berrytramel.