A plane ride with Minnick’s coaching influence
As I was boarding Friday’s flight to Gulfport, Miss., AWC coach Tom Minnick told me I’d been seated next to somebody with whom I might enjoy conversing.
His name was Joe Roman. He’s 75, a member of NJCAA Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame and a current longtime German Football League coach who spends eight months a year overseas and the other four in Phoenix.
Of more relevance is his connection to Minnick.
Roman and Minnick, or “Tommy” as Roman calls him, go way back. Roman spent 22 years (1975-96) at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Ill., where Minnick both played (1985-86) and got his coaching start (1990-96). In addition to their time together at DuPage, Roman and Minnick also spent the 2000-03 seasons together at Joliet Junior College.
This was all before Minnick got his first head-coaching opportunity, as both he and Roman spent their DuPage and early Joliet years as assistants under Bob MacDougall, whose 218 career wins rank second alltime in the NJCAA.
Without question, Minnick says, Roman and MacDougall are the two who have had the greatest influence on his head-coaching career, which began when he succeeded MacDougall at Joliet in 2006 and has been awful impressive in its own right.
They’re also probably the best source of insight into how Minnick — a six-time Western States Football League Coach of the Year who’s guided AWC to more wins in his 10 seasons (83) than the program totaled the previous 19 combined — became what he is.
So again seated next to Roman on Sunday’s return flight to Yuma following AWC’s third national championship game appearance (and loss) in seven years, I decided the opportunity to pick his brain on all things Minnick was too good to pass up.
Seated three rows in front of us was Minnick, surely grappling with the 31-28 loss to East Mississippi suffered hours earlier.
Though Minnick has yet to reach the pinnacle as a head coach — he’s lost title games by eight, three and