Charlie Strong gives Rocky Top a heaping helping of Louisville loyalty

Mike Bianchi SPORTS COMMENTARY

December 31, 2012

NEW ORLEANS — Last week, Texas Tech coach Tommy Tuberville hurriedly walked out in the middle of a dinner with recruits and never again returned. He accepted the Cincinnati job the very next day.

Last season, Todd Graham resigned via text message to take the Arizona State job only 11 months after being hired by Pitt — a program that gave him his first job at a BCS school and allowed him to completely remodel the entire football complex at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. "Everything he told us has been a lie," Pitt receiver Devin Street said at the time.

And then there's Charlie Strong.

He could have left Louisville a couple of weeks ago for a bigger, better job at Tennessee. Actually, he probably should have left Louisville a couple of weeks ago for a bigger, better job at Tennessee. But, deep down, he knew that would make him a hypocrite.

"I talk to the players all the time about trust and commitment," Strong, the former University of Florida defensive coordinator, said as he prepared the Cardinals for Wednesday's Sugar Bowl matchup with the Gators. "When I recruited them, I stressed the process and commitment and that they just had to stay with me. So when I had the opportunity to leave, I just couldn't walk out on them like that."

Maybe there is hope for college coaches, after all. Maybe there is some honor and loyalty left. Maybe every coach out there isn't like Bob Petrino or Lane Kiffin or the other coaching vagabonds who use this job as a stepping stone to that job and that job as a stepping stone to this job.

Who else would turn down the opportunity Strong turned down?

Why would he do it? Why would a kid from Arkansas who grew up fantasizing about coaching in the SEC; who toiled mostly in obscurity for three decades as an assistant coach in hopes of one day getting his chance to be a head coach in the SEC; who finally got a call from the SEC and had the golden opportunity to realize his dream … why would he say no?

Nobody would have blamed Strong if he'd left Louisville for the Tennessee job. In fact, there are those who think he is crazy that he didn't. He's been the head coach of the Cardinals for three seasons. On today's coaching carousel, that's an eternity.

The Vols reportedly offered him $3.5 million per year to coach in the high-and-mighty SEC, but do you know what Strong told them? He told them to keep their stinking money.

"You can buy a person a lot, but you can't buy his heart," Strong said upon turning down the job. "His heart is where his enthusiasm is, where his loyalty is. My enthusiasm and heart are with the University of Louisville."

He was paraphrasing author Stephen Covey, but it might as well have been George Bailey, the main character in the holiday classic, "It's a Wonderful Life." There's a scene in the movie where George is offered the job of his dreams by the richest man in town – the greedy, contemptible Mr. Potter. Initially, George is tempted, but then he shakes Potter's cold, clammy hand and realizes there's no way he can leave behind his friends at the family-owned building and loan.

"NO! Doggone it!," George says when rejecting Potter's offer. "You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn't, Mr. Potter! In the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider!"

Speaking of which, maybe Dwight Howard could learn something about loyalty from Charlie Strong, who says he feels a sense of commitment to the team and the town that took a chance on him because they believed in him.

Strong won two national titles as a defensive coordinator at UF under Urban Meyer. He was an assistant coach for 25 years under iconic head coaches like Meyer, Steve Spurrier and Lou Holtz. And, yet, he never received one head-coaching offer until Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich offered him the job three seasons ago. One prominent southern university, Strong once said, even refused to hire him because he is married to white woman.

"He [Jurich] gave me my first chance to be a head football coach after being an assistant 27 years," Strong said. "I was always on everybody's short list [of head coaching candidates] but Tom let me know from the very beginning I was the only one on his list. . . . From the day I took this job, Louisville trusted me and believed in this program. When you have a chance to work for an AD that gives you everything you ask for, you can't just turn and walk away."

No wonder it took Charlie Strong so long to get a college head-coaching job.

He obviously is out of step in a profession filled with gypsies, tramps and thieves.

mbianchi@tribune.com. Follow him on Twitter @BianchiWrites. Listen to his radio show every weekday from 6 to 9 a.m. on 740 AM.

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