First, can you let me know how you got into coaching?
Well it started as my career as a player was ending. It was something I knew I probably wanted to do – but I figured it would end up being at the middle school level or something. I volunteered coaching at my old high school for a year or so, then I was blessed to be offered a coaching position at Alabama State and have been here since.
Who are some of the coaches that you patterned your coaching style after, and why?
Three coaches really impacted my style. Coach Markum at Alabama State – he had a hard mindset and liked to have guys do a lot of running – a lot of conditioning. And big on discipline.
Then Tom Coughlin.
Speaking of discipline..?
Ha yeah. He was my coach for the first five years I played and had that same mindset. A lot of discipline. He expected you to have both feet on the ground and make eye contact with him when he spoke to you.
Then Jon Gruden my last two years. He was a mixture of both. He had energy and passion and I liked the way he communicated to the team. I adopted a lot of that – the way he spoke to us about opponents.
What makes a good return specialist from your perspective – what made you good?
My personal opinion – you have to be a natural catcher of the ball. I was a receiver and before that I was a centerfielder when I played baseball. You have to be able to know where the ball is going to land and be square to the field.
You also have to have great peripheral vision. You have to be able to look at the field right before you catch the ball and make that first guy miss. There’s always a gunner or snapper who gets to you quickly – you have to be able to make that guy miss first and take off.
How did you and the Jaguars look at the Steelers rivalry – was it a rivalry to you and how did you approach it?
It was a unique rivalry. You are talking about the Steelers – that name alone carried so much prestige and respect. The second season there, challenging them for a division crown – it became a good rivalry. They were good games and we had some success against them. They were great battles – Lake, Kirkland, Lloyd, Chad Brown – good luck finishing those games healthy!
How did you prepare for those games to help with that success?
Coughlin did a good job of creating a mindset of toughness in practice to help us prepare for those games. He didn’t burn us out but he ran rigorous practices to get us ready for those games. He let us know that it just took one small edge to win those types of games.
What did you do as a returner to prepare differently?
I would watch film and really try to see who were the guys on special teams that cared the most on that team. Who were the headhunters that wanted to make plays. In fact, I still have those VHS tapes of their special teams. Good football never gets old!
The Steelers had one special teams guy – Orpheus Roye – he was a killer. I would always want to know where he was on all teams and who was blocking him. He was that good. And Hines Ward played on teams then too when he was young. In fact, the second hardest hit I ever had was by Ward on special teams!
Who were some of the guys you remember going up against and why? Who did you like matching up against?
Well as the third wide receiver from a small HBCU school, it was stressful playing against them at first – a lot of pressure. I remember warming up – the pre game warmups – and seeing Greg Lloyd with the trainer doing butterfly stretches, where you sit down cross legged an stretch out your legs by pushing down on them. Well, the trainer was standing on Lloyds legs! I thought, wow, someone is going to get hurt today! And I was right – later on in the game Lloyd b-lined to Keenan McCardell and split his helmet open with a shot to his head. He said that he did it because McCardell called his house the night before and talked trash to him. But that didn’t happen – I think someone else must have done it.
What are some of your best memories of those games?
Not a best one, but I remember Roye knocked out one of our guys on special teams – will never forget it. Our center, Cheever, he was supposed to block him. But Roye knocked him out cold – arms in the air and landing on his back, unconscious. Cheever was the wedge guy and Roye the wedge-buster. They had to carry Cheever off the field. The Steelers always seemed to have guys that wanted to hit you harder.
I was also part of Steelers history – part of the longest Steelers punt. I forget who the punter was, but I lined up 40 yards back and he hit it good – 68 yards inside our 10 yard line. Coughlin was on me for that but I’m not sure what he expected me to do. Even if I got to it I wasn’t going to field a punt inside our 10 anyway.
I also remember the game when we had an interception for a touchdown down the sideline and it looked like Cowher was going to step onto the field and hit our guy. It looked like he wanted to punch him, his jaw sticking out and everything! We watched it on film the next day and said we wanted to make every coach feel like that!
What do you think of the rivalry today?
I love the pageantry and passion of a good rivalry. I’m not sure where the Jaguars and Steelers fit on that now – I know the Steelers and Bengals, Steelers and Ravens – I love watching those games. Those are old-school rivalries.
I grew up a John Stallworth fan – he was from Alabama too – and a Swann fan. Then a guy names Jerry Rice came along and that changed that! But those two guys were what got me wanting to play wide receiver.
Read more by former Steelers via the book Steelers Takeaways: Player Memories Through the Decades. To order, just click on the book:
