Hours after Mike Riley was fired as Nebraska head coach, he tweeted a statement that called Nebraska an "awesome place," thanked Husker fans and included a brief note on his future.
"I still feel young and ready to coach, but at this moment I'm looking forward to being a grandfather and look forward to other opportunities that may open up for me."
Wait, Mike Riley is a real person with real emotions and a real family? And he's excited about putting football on the back-burner for a moment to spend more time with his family?
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Routinely forgotten during the cutthroat and chaotic coaching carousel is the fact that these coaches, whose names are thrown around like prized livestock, are real people who are forced to make life-altering decisions in hours, not days or weeks. While sympathy runs thin for coaches with six- and seven-figure salaries and buyouts often five times the size of a lifetime's worth of income for low-income families, it's never an easy decision to leave a job.
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Between graduating from Alabama in 1975 and arriving at Nebraska in late 2014, the now-64-year-old Riley moved 13 times for jobs. That means his family also moved 13 times for jobs. And his likely successor, 42-year-old UCF head coach Scott Frost, would make his sixth move since returning his alma mater as a graduate assistant 15 years ago.
What makes it so brutally difficult for coaches to leave a job they love for another opportunity? I caught up with three Big Ten head coaches who voluntarily left their last jobs for their current ones.
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Chris Ash – Rutgers
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Rutgers Athletics[/credit]
Chris Ash began his coaching career at his alma mater, Drake, as a graduate assistant in 1997. It was the first of seven different jobs over the next 19 years, at which time he became the highly sought-after defensive coordinator at Ohio State.
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Ash, then a 41-year-old who spent most of his career in the midwest, left the Buckeyes for the head coaching job at Rutgers, which he called a perfect fit but said it was challenging for his family to leave somewhere they loved.
"I've been very very lucky and fortunate in my career to work with some outstanding coaches and have gotten a lot of advice along the way. Coach Meyer at Ohio State gave me a lot of advice about becoming a head coach and what to look for.
"…I was at a great place with great people and we were doing really good things. It was a very very tough decision to leave that situation and the job had to be right. It had to be one that had potential. It was in a great league. It was in a great recruiting base. You had the right support.
"But it's a hard one, there's no doubt, because you've got relationships with coaches [and] players. You've got family that enjoyed where they live and their neighbors and all that, so there's a lot that goes into it. And when you finally make that decision, you got to pack up and move on and you've got turn your focus to your new players, your new job and go at it with all that you've got."
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Paul Chryst – Wisconsin
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Paul Chryst, a 52-year-old Madison native and former Wisconsin quarterback, is in his third season as Badgers' head coach. His first of 13 coaching stops since 1989 was at West Virginia as a graduate assistant. Along the way, he spent six total years with Mike Riley with the San Antonio Riders (in the now-defunct World League of American Football) and Oregon State.
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Chryst was Wisconsin offensive coordinator from 2005-11 before becoming Pittsburgh head coach in 2012, his first-ever head coaching job at any level. Three years later, Gary Andersen left Wisconsin for Oregon State and Chryst returned to his hometown. He said conversations with his Pittsburgh players made the decision easier.
"I was extremely thankful for the opportunity to get the first head job at Pitt and really enjoyed being there and most of all, loved coaching that group of payers. I think probably every coach that goes through those transitions [and] they're different.
"What helped the most was being able to talk to many of our current players at Pitt. They knew the history that I had at Wisconsin and kind of back home [and] . . . helped me and said they'd be all right. It's never easy but I was truly grateful for every job that I've had and felt fortunate to be able to coach for a living."
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P.J. Fleck – Minnesota
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Minnesota Athletics[/credit]
It took P.J. Fleck just seven years to earn his first head coaching job and 11 to become a Power Five head coach. The 37-year-old first-year Minnesota coach started at Ohio State as a graduate assistant in 2006 before returning to alma mater Northern Illinois as a receivers coach from 2007-09. Those were the first two of six coaching stops in 12 years.
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Since arriving in Minneapolis in January, both he and his wife Heather have talked about the challenges of leaving Western Michigan, specifically leaving behind relationships while uprooting the lives of their four children. Fleck also mentions the importance of remembering how difficult transitions are for those on the other end.
"Change is hard for everybody. It's not just hard for the people you leave; it's hard for the people that are accepting you too. The kids, the players, they're not the ones who picked you. You picked them. They just kind of show up one day and there's a new head football coach.
"Personally it takes a toll on everybody. You build a lot of relationships, have a lot of friends [and] have a lot of people that support you. And then the next day you're gone. You do everything you can to keep those relationships that were really close. That's kind of the fun thing of coaching. You build so many relationships in different places.
"But one of the hardest things is the children. I think I speak for all the coaches that have made coaching changes and have had to make coaching changes. It really effects our sons and daughters a lot of time. It's not the easiest decision in the world but we also know what professions we're in."
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