Correction appended.
Rick Neuheisel’s UCLA football team had just lost 59-0 to BYU when he sat down to face reporters in a small, cramped media room in Provo, Utah.
It was UCLA’s worst loss in 79 years, and it came in Neuheisel’s second game as head coach.
He was upset, but he spoke calmly, with a quiet confidence.
“All I know is to stay the course,” he said.
Neuheisel can trust the course, and his instinct, because he has seen so much in the football world. He journeyed from an assistant coaching job at UCLA to the peak of his profession, fell from the top, and somehow rose again.
Now he is better for it. He is confident, but he knows he cannot accomplish everything in one day. He desperately wants to win, but knows better than to collapse after one awful afternoon.
Before he spoke to the reporters in Utah, Neuheisel addressed his team in the locker room. Part of his message was scribbled on a white-board for every player to see.
“Adversity reveals character.”
Neuheisel knows these lessons well. He took 20 years to learn them.
A busy spring
One night in the spring of 1988, Neuheisel sat alone in the UCLA football offices. Coaches had retreated from their last meeting after a long day of spring practice, but Neuheisel stayed. He had more work to do.
Late that night, he wiped off a chalkboard full of play-diagrams, put away his playbook, and opened a textbook.
Neuheisel was both a UCLA assistant coach and a USC law student that spring. He was 27 years old. Five years earlier, when he was UCLA’s quarterback, Neuheisel led the Bruins to a Rose Bowl win over Illinois. But his professional career fizzled after his United States Football League team folded and he couldn’t find a steady job in the NFL.
That winter, his old coach, Terry Donahue, offered him a full-time job on the UCLA staff. He accepted, partly because Donahue allowed him to finish law school while he coached.
Neuheisel lived in an apartment in Marina Del Ray that spring and bounced all around Los Angeles. A few of his law professors agreed to let him miss lectures, so he always had to catch up on the extra work on his own.
Neuheisel was on the cusp of two different careers and wasn’t sure which he wanted to follow. He just didn’t want to miss any opportunity.
So he studied. Late that spring night, he filled the UCLA football chalkboard with notes from his constitutional law textbook. He sat alone in the office, staring at the board until he could not stare any longer.
The other coaches found him there the next morning, asleep.
As hard as that spring was, Neuheisel always made it look easy. That’s how his former roommate and teammate David Norrie described it. Neuheisel kept juggling task after task and even when it was difficult, no one would ever know.
He passed the exam that day and later earned a law degree. He’s never used it.
A quick, steady rise
The Bruins started the 1988 season 7-0. Quarterback Troy Aikman, who was Neuheisel’s pupil from the very beginning, led the race for the Heisman Trophy. The Bruins were No. 1 in the country.
And Neuheisel was hooked.
“I just remember loving to go to work and not caring how late I was there,” he said. “I said to myself, “˜I can do this.’ I did not know where the career would take me, but I loved being in Los Angeles. I loved working at UCLA.”
The Bruins lost two of their final five games in 1988, and Barry Sanders, Oklahoma State’s star running back, beat out Aikman for the Heisman. But Neuheisel stayed on the UCLA staff for the next five seasons.
He stayed at UCLA because he loved to teach. He tried to make it exciting, the way then-UCLA offensive coordinator Homer Smith did. Smith made it an art form. There was always a sense of humor, whatever the lesson, and there was always an easy way to remember the play or formation or route.
Neuheisel worked as an offensive assistant with quarterbacks and wide receivers for UCLA. Donahue thought highly of him.
The Bruins needed an offensive coordinator after the 1992 season when Smith left UCLA. The team had finished just 6-5 that year, and all five of those losses came against Pac-10 opponents.
Neuheisel didn’t get the job.
“I wanted someone who was a little more experienced, someone who was a little older,” Donahue said. “I told Rick I’d hire him the next time that position opened.”
Instead of Neuheisel, who was 31 that offseason, Donahue chose Bob Toledo, an assistant coach at Texas A&M.
“I was really surprised when (Neuheisel) didn’t get it,” said Wayne Cook, who was UCLA’s quarterback that season. “I did like Toledo, but I really wanted Neuheisel to get the job and I thought that he would.”
“I don’t think people realize just how much Neuheisel had to pay his dues,” Norrie said.
The next season was Neuheisel’s last in Westwood.
Bill McCartney, the longtime coach at Colorado, approached Neuheisel after the 1993 season and asked him if he would be interested in the Buffaloes’ quarterbacks coach position. Neuheisel jumped at the opportunity.
Correction: The above paragraph originally gave the incorrect position for the one that Neuheisel was interested in at Colorado.
And that first year in Boulder was a magical season for Colorado.
On Sept. 24, 1994, No. 7 Colorado faced No. 4 Michigan in Ann Arbor. The Buffaloes trailed 26-21 in the final minute, and Michigan had the ball. Everyone on the Colorado sideline was deflated, except Neuheisel, who was screaming at McCartney to call their final timeout on first down, instead of waiting to use it on third down. McCartney listened.
Colorado got the ball back with just 14 seconds left, still trailing by five points. On the sideline, Neuheisel gathered the team’s two stars, wide receiver Michael Westbrook and quarterback Kordell Stewart. He dropped to one knee and drew a play in the dirt. He named it “Michael” because Westbrook was the only target. It was a simple route. The key was for Westbrook to fall down as soon as he caught the ball, in order to stop the clock. Neuheisel told Westbrook, “You have to slide. Don’t turn and run up field.”
“Michael” worked. Westbrook gained 21 yards, and Colorado moved close enough for a desperate final heave with just six seconds remaining.
Stewart launched the ball 73 yards; it sailed through the September air for almost eight seconds, nicked a Michigan defender, and fell into Westbrook’s arms. Colorado won 27-26, and Neuheisel was on his way to his first head coaching job.
Colorado finished that season 11-1 and cruised past Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl. It was enough to convince McCartney to retire on a positive note. Colorado chose Neuheisel as his replacement. Neuheisel said the win at Michigan was the biggest reason.
Trying to belong
Neuheisel was 34 years old when he got the Colorado job, which made him one of the youngest coaches in college football. All of the sudden, everything changed. No longer would he have a veteran coach like Donahue, McCartney or Smith at his side. He was on his own.
Because of his age, Neuheisel felt like he had to constantly act like he knew what he was doing, even though, as a first-year head coach, he didn’t.
He was aware of his competition: their savvy and skepticism. In his first years at Colorado, the Big Eight Conference included legendary Nebraska coach Tom Osbourne, Texas Tech’s Spike Dykes and Kansas State’s Bill Snyder. All three were more than 20 years older than Neuheisel.
Neuheisel wanted to feel like he belonged, and the only way he could was to work constantly ““ to win like McCartney’s teams had.
“When you get a head coaching job and you’ve never had one before, you always feel like you’re behind,” Neuheisel said. “There are so many things you’ve got to do. Even if you plan for it, you can’t know all the stuff that counts. You can’t imagine the volume of stuff that comes to your desk. And you just feel like you have to pore through it.
“You end up taking some shortcuts.”
For instance, Neuheisel hired friends to his coaching staff. It is a mistake that a lot of young coaches make, and he was no different. He wanted to feel like a leader despite his youth, and he figured those friends would be easiest to command.
His approach was intense and he wanted to win ““ badly. In 1995, his team did just that. Colorado won 10 games in Neuheisel’s first season and trounced Oregon in the Cotton Bowl.
Then Neuheisel got a call from Donahue.
After 20 seasons at UCLA, Donahue was ready to retire, and he wanted Neuheisel to replace him.
Just a year into his first head coaching job, Neuheisel thought it was too soon to abandon an opportunity he’d been lucky to receive. He turned down UCLA.
“The timing was no good,” Neuheisel said. “Sometimes that’s just how life works.”
Neuheisel stayed at Colorado for three more seasons. His teams won 33 games in all, enough for him to land a job at Washington in 1999.
After he left Boulder, the NCAA found that Neuheisel and his staff had indeed taken a lot of shortcuts, 51 according to their ruling.
The main area in which the NCAA found violations was recruiting. The main offense was a practice called bumping, where Neuheisel or a member of his staff would run into a recruit during a period when contact was forbidden and claim it was coincidence.
In 2002, Neuheisel told the NCAA that he and members of his staff had accidentally bumped into recruits on high school campuses.
There were smaller violations, too; recruits would keep free Colorado apparel or eat a free meal.
“He was moving at light speed,” Norrie said. “If something was a potential problem, he’d just keep punching through.
“I don’t think that any of the violations were malicious. … He just kept trying to go through brick walls. He was moving so fast, and sometimes when you do that, things slip through the cracks.”
Donahue said he was surprised when he heard of the violations, which cost Colorado five scholarships.
“Looking back … I’m sure he wishes he would have done some things differently,” Donahue said. “But the most important thing when those things happen is that you learn and go forward and correct them. I believe Rick has done that.”
By the time the NCAA ruled in 2002, Neuheisel had already moved past Colorado, past the pressures of the Big Eight, and onto the Pac-10.
The violations may have tarnished his reputation, but it wasn’t seen as a major indictment. At that time, Neuheisel said he thought the NCAA was trying to set an example with its Colorado investigation. He insisted that there were no major infractions.
And Neuheisel’s stock continued to soar.
At Washington, he was one of the highest-paid coaches in college football.
In his first year, the Huskies finished second in the conference and won seven games. In the next season, they won 11 games, beat Purdue in the Rose Bowl, and finished the season ranked No. 4 in the nation.
But even with all the success, there were more indications of rushed leadership and poor decision-making on Neuheisel’s part when he did not react strongly to disciplinary problems. During Washington’s Rose Bowl season, at least 12 players were arrested or charged for a crime that carried jail time, the Seattle Times reported.
In 2002, the UCLA head coaching job opened once again. UCLA’s new athletic director, Dan Guerrero, led the search.
Neuheisel was not considered for the job. Instead, UCLA picked Karl Dorrell, a former receiver who had occupied the locker between Neuheisel and Norrie.
And then there was more chaos at Washington. It reached a crescendo in 2003. One year after the NCAA ruling on violations at Colorado, Neuheisel was questioned about his role in an NCAA tournament gambling pool. Though he denied his involvement initially, he later admitted to it. Washington fired him that summer.
An easy choice
Neuheisel had hit a low point. He had fallen fast from the peak of his profession to unemployment. Another football season was just around the corner, and Neuheisel did not have a sideline to stand on,
“There were all sorts of things going through my mind,” Neuheisel said. “But within a month of being terminated by Washington, I knew that I wanted to coach. That’s when I made a call to Rainier Beach High School to see if I could help out. I wasn’t going to sit and do nothing.”
Years before, Donahue had explained something to Neuheisel. He told him that coaching is not all about scoreboards and packed stadiums, but that there was a greater gratification over the long run.
At Rainier Beach, Neuheisel really started to understand it.
“You can’t understand that delayed gratification as a young coach,” he said. “And it’s unfair to expect somebody to. … I think that gratification is the reason you see very few people leave this business. No one wants to go back and start another career. There’s an allure to coaching; to be around people, to see them go on and be successful.”
So Neuheisel got back on his feet on a high school football field in Seattle as a volunteer assistant.
It took two years at Rainier Beach before he could take another small step up the ladder he had ascended swiftly as a young coach.
In 2005, Neuheisel landed a job in the NFL as an offensive assistant for the Baltimore Ravens.
That same year he settled a wrongful-termination lawsuit with Washington and the NCAA. The NCAA and the university agreed to pay him $3 million. Washington had initially sent a memo approving involvement in tournament pools, and the NCAA had conducted its investigation improperly.
Meanwhile, the UCLA football program was sliding.
In 2005 the Bruins lost two of their final three games in the regular season after starting 8-0. In 2006 and 2007, things only got worse. Dorrell’s teams finished 13-13 over those two seasons. And after the Bruins ended their 2007 season with a loss at USC, Guerrero released Dorrell.
For the third time since Neuheisel left Westwood, the UCLA head coaching job opened.
The comeback
At first, no one thought Neuheisel would have a good chance to replace Dorrell, Cook said. Texas Tech’s Mike Leach, Boise State’s Chris Peterson and former Detroit Lions’ coach Steve Mariucci were reported to be top candidates. Those coaches had the type of recent success and recognition that Neuheisel lost in Seattle.
But Neuheisel had the support of UCLA’s football alumni, coaches and players.
Shortly after Dorrell was fired, Donahue met with Guerrero and Associate Athletic Director Bob Field to discuss coaching candidates. Neuheisel was the first coach Donahue suggested.
Norrie, who is now a broadcaster with ABC, also approached Field to offer his support for Neuheisel, and Cook was vocal as well.
“It looked fairly bleak,” Norrie said. “But Rick got an interview and made the most of it. … There was a groundswell of support from former players.”
That support was a key factor in Guerrero’s search.
“We knew everything relative to his background and the prior situations,” Guerrero said in an interview with the Daily Bruin in May. “We had the benefit of speaking with people who have known him for many years.”
Neuheisel interviewed twice with Guerrero, who considered the decision for almost a month.
Neuheisel became UCLA’s coach on Dec. 29, 2007, just before his 47th birthday. As Neuheisel said, the cosmic forces finally collided and the timing was finally right.
And now Neuheisel finally feels ready.
“It’s different now because I know I can do the job,” Neuheisel said. “Earlier in my career, I was kind of scratching and clawing to make sure my peers did not think I was lucky. I’m past that now.
“I am much more comfortable doing this.”
In his announcement, Guerrero said he hired Neuheisel because he is certain that Neuheisel is not the same coach he was at Colorado or Washington. The first sign of the experience and maturity that Guerrero cited in his announcement came quickly.
Neuheisel hired two of the best coordinators in college football ““ DeWayne Walker and Norm Chow. Both had lofty resumes, but neither was a friend or acquaintance of Neuheisel’s, like some of his previous assistants at Colorado.
“I didn’t know Norm and I didn’t know DeWayne,” Neuheisel said. “But I’m at a point in my career where I don’t need to have friends. I need to have people that are really capable.”
Neuheisel inherits a program at UCLA that has fallen from the elite level of the Pac-10. The Bruins have not reached the Rose Bowl in 10 seasons. Their last Rose Bowl win came in 1985, when Norrie was quarterback and Neuheisel was playing in the USFL with the San Antonio Gunslingers.
According to Donahue, there are two things a new coach has to do well in order to rebuild. The first is recruiting. That is the lifeline of a program. The second is getting those players to buy into a system, which is just as important.
“A college coach has to do both,” said Donahue, who won five Pac-10 titles at UCLA. “I know that Rick can do both, but it takes time. It takes two or three years to build a program. Nobody can do it in one year.”
Neuheisel knows that now. He knows he cannot move at light speed.
“He has definitely slowed down in some areas,” Norrie said. “He realized that there has to be more attention to detail. I think he learned how things are done and how to delegate and make sure that there are people that are responsible.
“He is more deliberate, and it is not just on his part, but with all the people involved in the program.”
When Neuheisel talks about his road back to UCLA, all of the ups and downs, it seems like a big chapter of his life has finally closed. It’s a chapter defined by big breaks and hard falls, by a constant pressure to move forward without ever missing an opportunity.
He sits in an office in a new wing of the same building where he crammed for that constitutional law final. The office has a big, sweeping window that looks out toward Ackerman Union. And it has a massive desk topped with a mountain of paperwork.
“I’m going to do everything I can to get us back to the Rose bowl. That’s where we belong,” Neuheisel said. “We’re not going to do it in one day, but I know this place has the bones for success. I know we’re going to get there.”
Like always, there is more work for Neuheisel. He still holds big hopes and energy and determination, and he understands there will be more ups and downs.
But now he is not in a rush. Now he has the job he’s dreamed about for the past 20 years.