Sparky and Me
Guest Writer
Thursday September 2, 2004
By Aaron Hutton
Aaron: I appreciate your taking time to seem me.
I have to be honest with you. The reason I requested this interview is that in the months leading up to your appointment as the Rampage’s head coach I had the irrational need to be the devil’s advocate to the local media who – I feel – were being unfair to the other coaches who were competing with you for the position.
On the Rampage’s message boards, I tried to give reasons why the other candidates were just as deserving as you were.
Unfortunately, message boards being what they are, I didn’t stop there. I also gave reasons why I felt you shouldn’t have gotten the job and your supporters called me out for it.
Sparky: Really? Wow.
Yeah. I was challenged to ask you face-to-face about some of my concerns so this interview is an attempt to publicly accept and honor that challenge, to clear up some questions I – and maybe some other Rampage fans – have.
It’s also to welcome you back, because all things considered, I DO believe you deserve this opportunity.
Ok, great.
My first question relates to your time here as an offensive coordinator. Fans who were around from 2001 though 2003 were told several times by the media – both local and national – that Clint Dolezel called his own plays. How true were those statements?
Those statements couldn’t be truer. I encourage ALL of my quarterbacks to call their own plays. My son at Creston High School called his own plays.
After the Rampage where eliminated from the 2000 playoffs in Oklahoma City (go figure), Michael Trigg offered me the offensive coordinator position at the airport.
I told him we’d talk about it when we got home, but he was quite adamant about it. I said to him that if I’m going to be the O.C., than I was going to need full control of the offence.
When we got home, we got the deal done, but understand that the key to that deal was that I was in charge of the O.
The next order of business was getting a quarterback capable of running a system, calling his own plays, being a leader and a man with passion for the game.
For me, Clint Dolezel was my guy for the job.
Our process was that Clint and I watched game tapes individually and we brought our reports to each other. Then we would have our normal quarterbacks meeting.
During the game, if Clint started to feel uncomfortable, he would want me to take over until he recovered. Once he had his confidence back, he’d resume control.
Now, not all of my quarterbacks like to do it. Nick Browder isn’t comfortable doing it and I’d like to point out that, with my play calling, in his preseason games in Grand Rapids and in the few games where he relieved Clint, there was only one drive in which he didn’t score.
In Oklahoma we had great success with several different wide receivers and three different quarterbacks so I’ve seen great success with my system even without Clint.
I also take input from my wide receivers.
It’s a system that has worked for me up to this point and if I have a quarterback who isn’t willing to take charge, I have no problem calling the plays.
In the time that I was here, Michael Trigg never called an offensive play. Not one. Something no one ever seems to bring up is that if anything went wrong with the offense I was going to be the one who would get fired.
Speaking for myself, last year when Bob Cortese was named the Rampage’s head coach, I was optimistically concerned. When Michael Baker was named an assistant coach, I thought things were looking up. But when you turned down the offer to stay here as our offensive coordinator, that seemed to be the beginning of the end for us last season. Would you care to elaborate on your reasons for not staying?
I’d love to. In any position – and you’ll relate – your livelihood comes first. After the head office made its decision, in my final interview I wanted to know why I didn’t get the job. When they told me, I understood and accepted those reasons.
When Cortese wanted to interview me, I was excited about the opportunity to stay here and continue our success. We talked for about a week, but with all due respect for Coach Cortese, he wanted some say in the offense and the proposal he laid in front of me wasn’t giving me any of the added responsibility I needed to grow as a coach in the AFL.
There was also a disagreement as to whether his 40 point-per-game offense would mix with my 60+ point-per-game offense and I wasn’t comfortable with that situation. Our football philosophies didn’t seem compatible, so I had to decline.
It was a painful decision to make because I DID want to stay here. As much as people want to say we didn’t have talent last year, that’s not true. We HAD talent and we could have been successful here last year.
Many have assumed it was your lack in confidence in Cortese that prompted your decision. Any comment on that?
I can’t judge a man that way. I can judge a man based on how he treats me and his ability to allow me to do what I do. He wanted to mix two offensive schemes and you can’t do that in any professional sport. There has to be one man in charge and if he’s going to delegate a job to some one, he should have confidence in that some one to do the job without having to step in.
But I can’t judge Cortese overall as a coach.
Could you please elaborate on what happened after you decided to move on and how you came to be with the Oklahoma City Yard Dawgz in arenafootball2?
I was going to take the year off.
It’s been said often about me that I haven’t been a head coach and that can’t be further from the truth. I’ve been a high-school head coach.
If you talk to any college or pro head coach, they will tell you that the worst coaching job in America is as a high-school coach. Not only was I a head coach, but a head coach for an urban public school where the drawbacks and setbacks include little-to-no budget and undisciplined players. I’ve had success under those conditions.
I started at Creston in ’98, so from 2001 on I was wearing two hats. The average high school head coach will compete 45 times in a five-year period. In that time I was up to 170 games including high-school playoffs, Arena Football games, regular and post-season.
I guess you could say I’ve had dog-years of coaching experience.
So I was planning on taking the year off and finish up my son’s years as quarterback at Creston. Just recharging my batteries while spending some time with my family.
That’s when I got a call from the AFL Head Office.
They called on Barry Switzer’s [af2’s Oklahoma City franchise owner] behalf. They said that no one in the organization had Arena Football experience and that Gary Reason’s – who has had no coaching experience of any kind at any level – was their head coach.
My first reaction was, “Common, guys! You gotta be kidding me. Let me get back to you.”
They told me it was a great opportunity for me to show what I could do, but this is late in the off-season and they hadn’t gotten things started that they should have by that time.
I mean, I had concerns, you know?
But then I remembered Oklahoma City. This is an AFL-caliber city and they have this new 18,000-seat arena. It’s an expansion project. Barry Switzer and Gary Reasons are attached.
It was a gamble though. This was going to make or break my resume in one short year.
Through a lot of prayer and hard work, we took that expansion team to the playoffs and lost the divisional championship to a team we beat twice in the regular season. We lead the league in attendance and we set a lot of milestones for an expansion franchise. I contribute my return to Grand Rapids to what we did in Oklahoma City.
During your press conference you said your first step in improving the Rampage was to find someone to coordinate a championship-worthy defense. Have you narrowed the field for the defensive coordinator position?
I’m taking my time with this. Those hires are going to affect the fate of not only the Rampage, but of Sparky McEwen. I owe it to this city and organization to have the best football staff available.
I have a short list of about five guys who are all good. Rick Frazier is definitely on that list, but I’d be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t look any further. I have to get a guy with NFL experience because I want too…
I’m sorry, did you just say NFL experi…
Yes, NFL experience because I have to be able to tap into that resource. That’s the kind of talent I want to bring to Grand Rapids.
Have you kept in contact with Grand Valley State University’s former star quarterback Curt Anes or his agent?
We actually have the same agent. Curt Anes is a talent. Does he have the ability to play in the AFL? Yes. Definitely. Absolutely. If the opportunity arises where we could bring him here it helps that we are in his backyard and that we share the same agent. But the main reason he would come here in an attempt to make it back to the NFL is that I am a quarterback’s coach. But right now, Curt is exploring the NFL and he deserves that to himself.
My last question: WZZM television quoted you saying the NFL is your ultimate goal. Have you thought about when you’d like to achieve that goal?
Yes. I document all of my goals.
I didn’t dream of playing professional football. I was blessed with that opportunity, but my dreams have always been to coach in the NFL.
But the number one goal on my list right now is to continue to coach in the Arena League until I win a championship as a head coach. And whether that’s in one year or three, I’ll get it done.
I’m excited to be here in Grand Rapids and I’m not looking at the NFL right now. I’m happy getting this thing going here. Getting quality free agents (a huge goal of mine) so Rampage fans will be treated to a great night of football.
Again, I’d like to thank you for your time, honesty and the opportunity for a guy to keep his promise to his fellow fans. Before I wish you and the Rampage luck, is there anything else you’d like to add?
Yeah, sure.
A lot of people wanted to make this out to be “local high-school coach gets AFL job” but it’s deeper than that.
It’s now understood that this organization went after Danny White hard… EXTREMELY hard. That says a lot about this organization. If I were in charge of hiring the new head coach, I would have done the same thing. He’s the guy in the Hall-of-Fame and it was a great honor to be on the same short list as he was.
I hope and pray some day I will be considered for the Hall-of-Fame. That takes years of hard hours.
Some people say, “Well, you were considered runner-up to him,” and I think they fail to understand that that’s an honor.
I was on my way to Vegas. If not Vegas, than Philly or Dallas. I don’t want people to think that this was “just a local hire.” It’s been documented that my offenses have scored higher than any other in this sport and I like to think that the fact that I’m around here is just a bonus.
Well, thank you one final time and “Go Rampage!”
Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.
