University of North Carolina Athletics
Extra Points: Withers In The Moment
September 13, 2011 | General, Featured Writers, Lee Pace
Sept. 13, 2011
By Lee Pace
Assistant football coaches live in a tightly defined universe: One group of players, one meeting room, one side the ball. They venture out for food, water, practice and phone calls to recruits. Everett Withers knew that drill from some 25 years in coaching at both the collegiate and NFL levels.
Graduates to the top of the coaching totem pole find a whole different kettle of fish. Everyone wants a minute of your time or an answer to a thorny problem. You're to know what your starting quarterback ate for breakfast and why a third-string receiver dropped a pass. There is no place to hide.
Withers is nearly four weeks into his job running the Carolina football program after having been anointed as interim head coach following Butch Davis's dismissal on July 27. He's done so with poise, confidence, good humor and authority.
"It's becoming more natural for him, and it's more natural for us to recognize him as our leader," says senior safety Matt Merletti. "He's gotten much more comfortable speaking in front of the team. He commands authority. He's very confident in what he's doing."
"Coach Withers wants to win ball games," adds senior defensive tackle Tydreke Powell. "He's come to fight every day. He's gotten everyone tuned in. You can't sit around and mope and pout. You have to go play. With Coach Withers, we're ready to do that."
Last Saturday's two-hour scrimmage in Kenan Stadium served as a petri dish into the new job description for Withers and how he's negotiating the waters--difficult ones from the perspective of the off-the-field drama surrounding the program, but much smoother ones if you consider the number of talented players on the team.
"We still have the pieces in place we had before," says guard Jonathan Cooper. "We miss Coach Davis, but everyone else is the same--the coaches, the players, the scheme. There's no reason we can't be pretty good."
Withers as the pace setter ...
Two hours of a typical practice is a tightly structured affair, x-number of minutes for this, x-number for that, a manager with an air horn delineating the stops and starts of each period. Much of Withers' voice and energy are devoted to keeping the tempo at a high pace: In and out of huddles quickly; no loafing from one drill to the next; fly to the ball until the whistle blows.
"The kids need to learn how to play at a fast tempo in practice so it becomes second nature to them in game situations," Withers says. "We like to get on and off the field and practice at a high rate and high quality. It's a juggling match sometimes. You don't want to wear them out too much, but getting them to move from drill to drill and getting them on a fast tempo, it's really important. In the NFL, you're not pushed as hard. In college, tempo matters. It really matters."
As the conductor ...
The Tar Heels run through a handful of special situations, some "sudden change" scenarios when one unit has to hustle off the field and another on the field. At one point the offense is driving toward the goal with under a minute to play on a mock game clock, and assistant coach Sam Pittman yells to the players on the sideline, "Lightning alert." A few seconds later, Pittman repeats the call, doubling down on the emphasis of the word alert. In other words, be ready, but don't actually move.
That has special meaning for the Tar Heels in the context of their Music City Bowl win over Tennessee. Lightning is the call for the kicking team to take the field under duress: The clock is running down, no time outs, sprint onto the field, get set and execute the kick. If you remember from that cold night in Nashville last December, someone on the sideline yelled lightning, sending the field goal unit onto the field before the offense was whisked away. T.J. Yates' presence of mind to spike the ball and get the Tar Heels a penalty for having too many players on the field--rather than wasting a play with the clock running to zero--saved the day.
Thus Withers, Pittman and the rest of the staff are rehearsing all the permutations of game events to hopefully prevent another situation like that.
"We've put a bunch of time into every different situation we can think of," Withers says. "I told the team, this is as much for me as it is for you. As a staff and me as a new head coach, we want to anticipate everything and have seen it in practice. `Lightning' is one of those situations. Hopefully we'll be prepared when we see it in a game."
As the parent ...
Withers gathers the players around him after the scrimmage and addresses the team's schedule over the next 48 hours. After two and a half weeks of grueling training camp, the players have Saturday night and all day Sunday off.
"Promise me," he begins, "promise me, you'll not do anything to embarrass yourself, your teammates and this football program."
Certainly off-the-field issues have been the bane of the program the last 14 months. Withers the head coach is no different from Withers the parent.
"I tell my daughter if she's going out with one of her friends or going to Southern Village to watch movies, `Just do what's right,'" Withers says. "If you keep preaching that to your kids, usually they'll do the right thing. We have enough good kids on this team. I do trust our team. But you have to keep reminding them how one guy can affect the whole team. If the guys understand that, we'll be fine."
As the salesman ...
Watching from the sidelines all morning is a high school prospect, accompanied by his father. Withers dismisses the team, and the Tar Heels break into position groups for a word with their respective coaches. Withers then makes his way to the visitors, greets them with a bright smile and warm handshake. Withers has learned under two of the best recruiter/head coaches in the business--Mack Brown for three years at Texas and Davis for three at Carolina. He knows it's a 24-7-365 enterprise. He knows it's about making connections.
"As an assistant coach, building relationships is what you do in recruiting," Withers says. "I don't think it changes much when you're in the head coach's chair. My base of relationships widens a little bit. But building relationships is the key. I'm very comfortable with that."
As the sergeant-at-arms ...
After the various assistant coaches dismiss their groups, Withers calls five players to the side of the field and supervises them in a series of "up-downs"--periods of jogging in place punctuated by quick dives to the grass on their chests and stomachs--their penance for having been late for pre-practice taping sessions.
"Accountability--it's a major issue, all day, every day," Withers says. "I think the kids appreciate it. I've had kids tell me, `Thank you, thank you for not letting things slide and letting guys get away with stuff.' Not that they had been in the past. But when I get a list of things that were not done like they were supposed to be done, I'm going to handle it. It's going to be swift and it's going to be immediate. I want our kids to understand they will be held accountable."
As the ambassador ...
After lunch, Withers and about a dozen Tar Heels wheel coolers of Gatorade through the parking lots and dorm entryways around South Campus, doling out the cold beverages to Carolina students and their parents who are wilting under the August heat and the stress of move-in. When introduced as the interim head coach on July 29, Withers said he wanted to "reach out" to more facets of the campus and academic communities. This is a small gesture toward that end.
"I do not want our kids to be isolated," Withers says. "I consider our kids regular students, to be honest with you. Just getting out and meeting people and talking to parents as they brought their kids to campus was good for our guys to see. I saw parents hugging and crying as they left their kids. That was huge for our kids to see. That was a life lesson for them. Not everything revolves around them. I want them to be part of this campus beyond football."
And as the philosopher ...
Withers can't expend energy on the word "interim" in his job title. He knows he's getting, in effect, a three-month, 12-game job interview. In the meantime, he'll coach to win every game and work to sell every recruit on the quality of the Carolina education, social experience and football tradition--regardless of who the head coach might be.
"You make situations what they are with your attitude," he says. "This situation is an opportunity for me, for the staff, for these players. Regardless what happen at the end of December, we're doing something right now. We're going to be successful and we're going to do what's right, right now. That's more important than worrying about December. We want to win as many as we can, and you have to win the first one. This is a journey. I want to enjoy the journey. This has to be fun. It can't be drudgery."
With that, Withers excused himself to go tape his weekly TV show, provide a sound bite for radio distribution, hand-write some notes to recruits and meet with campus administrators. If it's not one thing on the head coach's agenda, it's certainly another.
Lee Pace is in his 22nd year chronicling Tar Heel football through his "Extra Points" feature. Look it for it regularly on Mondays throughout the season.
