Trestman steps onto the NFL stage
‘Without Anthony Calvillo … I would have not been here’
He captivated the room, as you knew he would. Marc Trestman is a great orator, if nothing else, erudite and eloquent. And always well prepared. He called journalists he recognized by their first names. Every inquiry, it seemed, was a great question. Trestman had waited 30 years for this moment, and he wasn’t going to squander the opportunity. The stage was his. He was now, finally, an NFL head coach.
“I’m filled with an incredible amount of humility today. This is an incredible opportunity,” the 14th head coach in the history of the Chicago Bears, one of the NFL’s most storied franchises, said Thursday morning, during his introductory news conference, in front of a packed room inside Halas Hall, located at the team’s practice facility in suburban Lake Forest, Ill.
An hour later, during an 18-minute conference call for the benefit of Canadian journalists, mostly from Montreal, Trestman made it abundantly clear none of this would have been possible without the Alouettes, the CFL team he coached for five seasons — without owner Robert Wetenhall, general manager Jim Popp and, most of all, quarterback Anthony Calvillo.
If Montreal now is in Trestman’s rear-view mirror, he wanted it understood that portion of his life never would be forgotten.
“Wetenhall saw something in me nobody in the NFL saw,” said Trestman, an assistant for eight NFL teams over two decades who was unable to take the next step until he convinced the owner and GM to take a chance on a rookie head coach who had limited knowledge of the CFL. And Trestman, at the same time, was required to take a “leap of faith.”
Three Grey Cup appearances and two championships, 59 regular season victories later, here he is, armed with a four-year contract.
“Without Anthony Calvillo, I know absolutely ... I would certainly have not been here,” said Trestman, who turned 57 this week. “No doubt about it, I owe him everything. By the grace of God he was able to play and I was able to coach him.”
You know the family’s history. Calvillo’s wife, Alexia, was diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma in 2007, forcing the QB to take a leave of absence from the team. He returned to the field only after being assured by doctors his wife was recovering.
“I thank the Lord Alexia’s healthy and that allowed me the opportunity to coach Anthony,” said Trestman, admitting the QB was the first of his former players he called Wednesday morning upon learning he was the choice of Bears’ GM Phil Emery. “We all know (otherwise) he wouldn’t have done it. The stars were aligned perfectly.
“I’m pretty emotional right now ... because I know he’s the reason why I’m here.”
Between June and November, on an annual basis, Trestman’s focus was on his job coaching Montreal, he said, not worrying where the journey would end. Privately, of course, he desperately wanted the epilogue taking him to the NFL. As a U.S.-born football coach, this ambition and dream was only normal. And so, every winter, influential U.S. writers covering the NFL would keep his name circulating, lest he be forgotten. And every winter, it seemed, Trestman was linked to potential coaching vacancies. Even if Wetenhall wouldn’t allow him out of his contract — that is, until Trestman agreed to a four-year extension that would have begun this season — the publicity was flattering, his ego being stroked.
“This decision was certainly one that I had to make. This was not an easy separation,” Trestman said. “Each day was a learning experience. Each day got me to this point. I never thought about getting to this point when I was there. I was completely focused on our team. I wasn’t worried about anything but servicing the players and asking nothing in return.
“Sometimes you get rewarded in different ways and a dream comes true,” he added. “That’s what has happened today. Right now, I’m a little bit numb. Coaching the Bears is an equation that only happens in dreams. Today, that dream has come true.”
With it, of course, the pressure and expectations change, as will Trestman’s life. He often said coaching the Als was the best job of his career — and he meant it. He had a deal with Wetenhall that never will be duplicated, Trestman allowed to return home, to Raleigh, N.C., each December, not returning north until late-May, right before training camp.
That all ends now, the NFL being a 24-hour, seven-day, 12-month, all-encompassing grind. But Trestman and his wife, Cindy, are at a different point in their lives as well, their two girls having completed junior high and high school in one place, as their father promised years ago.
And so, Trestman moves on to the next chapter of his life. He inherits a competitive team with an established quarterback, Jay Cutler, as he did five years ago. And now we sit back and watch, eagerly anticipating seeing what Trestman can do on the biggest stage, faced with the largest challenge of his career.
“I have to find out if I can handle this challenge,” he said. “I believe that I can.” Note: Trestman almost certainly will take two assistants with him from Montreal. Special-teams co-ordinator Andy Bischoff was in attendance at Halas Hall, while the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting new offensive co-ordinator Pat Meyer will be offered a position on the Bears’ staff. Meyer also coached the Als’ offensive line.