First, can you let me know what’s next for you and what you’re doing now?
Well, I’m semi-retired. I’ve taken on coaching consulting roles – New England last year, but Bill was only bringing essential personnel back this year. I was working with Iowa for the two years before that.
I was going to coach my kid’s high school team but that’s been pushed back, so now I’m just sitting on my hands waiting.
I’ve really been a support mechanism for coaches. When I was in New England Joe Judge had been moved to the wide receiver coaching role and Bill felt the need to bring in someone to help with the kicking game – just helping really. It was enjoyable. But now I feel a little lost – I still feel like I have lessons to pass on to young players and coaches. I feel like I’m dressed up with no place to go.
You coached wrestling and lacrosse before football – any of those lessens help you as a football coach?
It’s ironic, because early in my career I wasn’t enamored with Spring ball. I was from Long Island and never played lacrosse. But we played against Belichick in Wesleyan and I ended up rising up the ranks due to lacrosse.
When I was coaching high school in Detroit I ran into Bill when he was coaching for the Lions. He came to the high school to help the lacrosse team and ended up recommending me to help him on his staff when he became the Browns’ coach. He brought me on board.
So I went from division III to coaching for the NFL as a quality control guy. I got into coaching because of Bill.
Who were your mentors as a coach?
Going back to my high school days, I had two coaches – Richard Wilson and Joe Karney. Back then I was a quarterback and thought I’d be the next Y.A. Tittle. They had me teaching Phys Ed classes. They didn’t see me as a division I prospect – division II at best. They saw me more as a teacher-coach then as a player. That helped me to understand that as a potential path.
Jim Butterfield was my division III coach at Ithaca. I worked for him and he taught me how to mentor others and helped me grow up. He’d tell me to tuck my shirt in and shave. I thought I had all the answers but I didn’t even know the questions and he showed me that. He was a great guy and had that program roaring at Ithaca.
Bill Belichick goes without saying.
What did he show you?
The biggest thing was his focus on fundamentals and techniques. The importance of practice – to practice execution. He was a heck of a coach, Bad football keeps you from winning games, he’d say. They never played bad football. They didn’t win every game but they didn’t beat themselves. You coach what you get. If you don’t try to coach for perfection you’ll never get it.
Everyone cross-trained under Bill. If you were a quality control guy you also helped in the weight room, film and with the kicking game. You can’t pay it lip service.
How about Bill Cowher?
Cowher was a player’s coach. He was an excellent motivator and knew how to coach veterans. He knew how to take care of them and to manage personalities. He’d get going with those speeches sometimes, but he knew how to motivate guys. They wanted to play for him – they knew he cared for them. The turnaround was that they had to give back to him on gamedays and to help mentor the young guys.
Aaron Smith and Kimo – they would grab the younger guys and help them. They knew that if the young guys weren’t prepared it’d mean they’d have to practice more.
I worked with the vets a lot on special teams in Pittsburgh. Heck, I had to throw Farrior off of special teams. He didn’t want to leave – he was indignant when I took him off.
Harrison, Kiesel, Iwuoma, Kriewaldt – they made a living at first off of special teams. I was blessed to work with the whole team. That’s one thing about being a special teams coach – you work with everyone. Hines was a terrible holder – a great receiver but a bad holder – so we had Tommy Maddox holding. You feel like the underdog as a special teams coach. And if one or two guys get hurt, it creates disorder. Sean Morey got hurt on the first play one game and it had a ripple effect on the entire team.
Any other guys?
Jim Mora Sr and Ken Wisenhunt – I was always around good people. Not many division III guys get to coach in the NFL.
Scott O’Brien also was a great special team’s coach and was my mentor for special teams. He told me that a lot of coaches want to coach linebackers and receivers, but most don’t think about special teams. It was a good career thing then. O’Brien and Cowher showed me that talking up the importance of special teams wasn’t always just lip service. They believed that it could win or lose games.
Why sign with Steelers as the special teams coach in 2002?
What happened was that, in Indy, the owner decided between Polian and Mora and decided on Polian. They brought in Tony Dungy which was a good move, but it cost us our jobs. Wisenhunt was the tight ends coach in Pittsburgh and he talked to Cowher on my behalf. I interviewed with Cowher and he hired me afterwards – in part I think due to Ken.
What did Cowher say to you in the interview?
He wanted to know what I wanted to do – he was mostly concerned about the punting game. I was nervous – I didn’t know what to expect. You always saw this intense guy on screen, but he was relaxed in the interview. His main thing was that he wanted to be sure I used the same verbiage and techniques that they were already using so he’d understand it.
He sat in every special teams meeting and sometimes would talk so long he’d almost take it over. I had to tell him I only had 30 minutes and he just took up 20!
I enjoyed my time there. Cowher and I had our ups and downs, but the Rooneys ran the team the right way. Art would come in with his brown bag lunch tucked under his arm and would turn off lights if someone left them on. Cowher told me it was a big little city – football helped keep people’s heads held high. You had to be smart when you went out because you represented the team. My kids sure thought they were hot stuff when we won the Super Bowl too.
Kriwewaldt, Iwuoma sung your praises in getting the Steelers special teams units so ready – what did you focus on and what made you, in your opinion, such a good coach?
You can’t BS players. I never played so I couldn’t pretend that I did. I would teach them but didn’t ask them to do anything they couldn’t do. And if I didn’t know the answer I would tell them I’d find it out – I wouldn’t BS them.
I would bring in Chidi, Clint, Sean and ask them if we could do certain things. Things look good on the board but I’d ask them if they thought we could really do it. I’d get their buy-in and they’d be accountable for things that way.
And you had to hold guys accountable – to treat them like men. You have to point out bad effort – you can’t compromise on that. And you have to treat everyone the same, regardless if it was Troy Polamalu or the last guy on the depth chart. Players wanted to be treated like men – with respect.
I didn’t come from a big time football program – I viewed things as an experiment. Can a guy with my background make it in the NFL? I knew to do so you had to treat guys well. They want to know they are cared about. Guys will make mistakes but you have to teach them and treat them like men.
Any good stories you can share of your time there?
Well, the big one is when Ike Taylor hit a player in his back on a good punt return by Randel El. The return came back due to it and Cowher was belligerent. He was hollering at me and it got to the point where there was only so much I could take. So I told him that yes, I taught all my guys to block guys in the back! Well, he got so upset. We went toe-to-toe except he was much taller than me, and it was shown on TV.
My wife was at a bar watching the game and a guy said that Cowher was ripping into the special teams coach. My wife told him that she wished the special teams coach would keep his mouth shut!
He did apologize later, and I told him I got it. We all want to win. But no one likes getting hollered at like that
Any other good memories?
In the Super Bowl. We were up 21-10, but as a special teams coach we never relax until the clock hits 0:00. You have to be prepared. There was a minute left and I was worried that we’d punt, they’d score, and we’d need our hands team ready for an onsides kick.
Meanwhile, everyone around me had their caps on and were giggling. I’m still nervous when Kriewaldt comes over and puts his arm around my shoulders and tells me “Coach Spence – you’re a champion today!” I’ll never forget that moment.
The Super Bowl was my greatest experience. A funny story – we were 15-1 when we ending up going to the Pro Bowl in Hawaii. The kids were young and remembered going. So when we beat Denver in the championship game, when I got home, the kids were upset. They wanted to go to Hawaii. But instead, we were going to Detroit for the Super Bowl. The kids just said “Really dad? We could have gone to Hawaii. Now we have to go to Detroit instead!”
You asked out of your contract after the Super Bowl win to coach with Wisenhunt in Arizona – why?
If Russ got the job I would have stayed. I roomed with Russ for a while and he would make fun of me. I’d talk about the special teams strategies and he’d say “It’s not hard Kevin – just tell the players to go tackle the guy with the ball!” I’d just tell him that it must be the same for offensive linemen – just block the guy in front of you! We got along well.
But they hired Tomlin instead of Russ and Wisenhunt took the Arizona job. It was a crapshoot – we had no idea of Tomlin was bringing in his own guys. Ken offered me the job so I figured I should take the job – it was the safe, right thing to do.
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