Former NFL Coach Jerry Rhome Interview Getting to the Next Football Level (College and Pro)
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I was privileged in September 2009 to interview Former NFL Coach and ex Dallas Cowboys Quarterback Jerry Rhome on getting to the next football level, both college and pro. Coach Jerry Rhome has seen football from both sides of the coin, from being an All American Quarterback at the University of Tulsa finishing second in the 1964 Heisman Trophy to playing in the 1967 NFL Classic Ice Bowl Playoff Game against the Green Bay Packers to coaching College Football to leading the then expansion Seattle Seahawks as Offensive Coordinator in one of the best and most entertaining go for it offensives I’ve seen in pro football to being a Coach of the 1987 Superbowl Champion Washington Redskins, whew! Amongst Quarterbacks, Jerry Rhome has coached at the Pro Football Level are Troy Aikman, Kurt Warner, Warren Moon and numerous Pro Bowl Quarterbacks and Super Bowl MVP.
Jerry Rhome recently retired from coaching in the NFL and is now offering 1-1 Coaching for Middle School, High School, College and Professional Football Quarterbacks, Wide receivers and Tight Ends, helping, teaching and advising players get to the next level as well as Conducting Coaching Clinics and doing Motivational Speeches in Georgia and throughout the United States. I know if I played football or had a kid who played football and wanted to get to the next level, I would want to learn Football under Coach Rhome 1-1. Anyone wishing to get in contact with Coach Rhome should go to his website, www.jerryrhome.com Coach Rhome also has available his instructional book and DVD featuring Peyton Manning, “How to Grow a Winning Quarterback”, which you can get autographed at his site by Clicking Here. If any Radio Station Program Directors are reading this, based on my personal experience in doing this interview, Jerry Rhome would be a great addition to any Radio Station wishing to having any kind of no holds bar entertaining talk Football Show. Lastly, before you read this great interview, please check out this Blog’s large Online Discount Online Gift Shop which helps support this Blog.
1. If you are an aspiring pro QB out of high school with various College Scholarship offers, in your opinion are you better off in terms of being drafted in the NFL, going to a Mediocre College team where you are guaranteed to start or Going to a Top Ten Ranked School where you’ll have to beat out at least 3 other High School All American QB’s and may never play?
I don’t think that you should make up your mind to choose a college that’s going to parlay you into the NFL. There’s no way you can predict going in as a Freshman that you’re going to be an NFL quarterback. You can get hurt. You might not be as good as you think you are. There’s all kind of things. You need to take into consideration the kind of education you want, the happiness you want, where your family lives, there are a lot of things that enter into it.
You know it’s just like marrying a woman. Are you better off marrying the best looking woman you can find or are you better off with a fine one that’s not that good looking but is very nice and sweet and down to earth? That’s a tough question. Everyone has to make their mind up for themselves. It’s like every top High School Quarterback going to a Major College Football Program thinks they are the best. Wherever you go it just takes one player to beat you out as Quarterback and put you on the bench.
You never know what’s going to happen. Kids flunk out, get hurt, You Get your chance, you play better, get hurt, new quarterbacks join the program.
2. What would you advise a high school player in terms of picking a college?
I don’t think any kid should go into college thinking he’s doing it in order to go to pro football. I think that’s the wrong way to go into College. That’s putting the cart ahead of the horse. I think he ought to go to the school that he wants to because of the kind of school it is, what he’s going to get out of it with an education, the offensive scheme, what his lifelong dream has been but not in preparation to go into the NFL. Are you going to college to get education or to play football or both? What are your chances of playing? Look at their coach, look at the offense they’re running. If you’re a throwing quarterback and they’re running the spread I’d be kind of excited but if they were running the wing T Triple option, something like that where they’re not throwing the ball that much, I’d mark them out.
I think you have to be smart and see what the school already has. You can’t walk into a situation with 3 other Freshman High School All American Quarterbacks that are legit or a Redshirt Quarterback who is going to start the next three years. You’d be walking into a beehive! That’s why you see so many kids transferring. You’re always going to have competition but it just comes down to common sense. If you’re fortunate to have many scholarship offers, if you take your time, trust your parents, trust your faith, use common sense, you’ll be all right. There may be distance factors to consider. If I was working with a kid and the parents asked me, I’d try to advise them based on what they think and what I know.
If I was 16 again or had a kid, I’d know I’d be using your Coaching help and advice. I know you’ve seen everything from both sides of the spectrum from being a player and being a Coach
You’ve got to understand, I’m not cheap!
You pay for the best! If I had the money!
That’s a better way to put it! If I accepted every person that emailed me and asked me to work with their kid, I wouldn’t have time to sleep! The difference between me and somebody else as far as my coaching and training is I don’t do this for a business per se, I do this because I want to do it but I charge a certain amount of money because I don’t want to do this every day! Unlike others, I stay connected to the kids I work with. On a typical Sunday, I’ll probably get 30 texts all over the country telling me how they did. I just got off the phone with a quarterback who was just cut by Baltimore Ravens. Drew Willy who played at Buffalo. A fine, fine young man. I’ve looked at enough film on him and I’ve seen him on the field and I’ve worked with Drew Willy on the mental and physical part that he’s a legit NFL Quarterback. There is no doubt in my mind he’s good enough! He has the size, intelligence and the skills to play in the NFL. If somebody would give him a chance, he would make an NFL team. He’s NFL talent. He deserves it. I’ve talked with his parents and I’ve encouraged him to hang in there and keep working out. I just don’t work with anyone and just say oh well, goodbye. I enjoy the Coaching part. I really honestly feel I’m the most qualified guy in America to work with a high school kid, college kid, a middle school kid to get them ready for whatever they think their next step is but I am expensive because I don’t want to do it every day- I’m retired! If you’re going to pay for what you just said is the Best, then you got to pay for it! Teams call me because they trust me and ask me what I think of players who I’ve worked with. They know I’ll be fair in what I say on both sides of the coin. Same thing working with high school kids. I think I could pick up the phone and reach anyone I want to reach but 95% of the time, teams contact me. I prefer to work in Georgia but I will give training throughout the United States, it just depends.
3. In your personal opinion, does playing in College under an Ex-NFL Head Coach or Coach or name College Coach, make any difference in how high an NFL team evaluates a players draft potential?
Just because someone was a Head Coach or Coach in the NFL doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll be a better Coach than a College Coach with no NFL experience. Basically, a Coach is going to teach a player as best as he can to play football. When I coached at Tulsa, I just coached to the best of my ability to make the kid the best player I could. There was no, I’m going to coach this one kid a certain way to be a pro player and another kid this way to be a College Player. It was just to be the best player they could be.
So what would you say to a Quarterback in College that you were coaching who asked “Besides playing at the level I am in College, what do I have to do to get to the next level”?
Easy, I’d just say “Just keep doing what I’m telling you”! I’m coaching the best I can. Every day of my life I coached the best I could. If the player has talent and that coaching is good enough to help him get better, then maybe he’ll have a chance. My quarterback my last year at Tulsa was a second round draft pick that went to the Raiders, Jeb Blount.
The only thing the Coaches in college do for a player in regards to the pro scouts eyes, is answer a scouts question as to what kind of kid he is, does he work hard, does he study, is he a problem, is he good in the weight room, does he work hard on the field, is he lazy, does he make excuses? They’re looking for Character. And that’s what they find out from a Coach. A coach can say all he wants to about how great a player is. The scouts already know how great a player a kid is they’ve been looking at him on him on film and working him out. What they want to know is about his character.
4. Say a Head Coach and other coaches gives a player a bad character reference. How will that affect the players draft status?
If a scout gets repeated negative reports from various Coaches it is going to have serious repercussions for the player. They find out. They dig. Especially today they dig. Kids in middle school, high school and college, have got to realize that their track record is going to follow them all the way up to the NFL.
In regards to the Coaches, it basically comes down to which Coaches a pro team knows and trusts, who on the pro team has friends on the staff and they really trust each other. 10 years ago it wouldn’t have affected draft status, 5 years ago maybe, now yes. A team has to analyze whether or not it wants to take on another headache. Some of these teams have had more headaches then other teams. I just know that the game has changed in the last 5 years because of the headaches and the problems. The NFL can’t afford to keep playing and pursuing guys that stand up in front of the country and say “I basically can do anything I want to do”. Cause that’s not going to work in America any more. And any kind of job! Today because of the internet and the media as opposed to 10 years ago, the slightest thing one does wrong, the whole country knows about it within 24 hours. Everyone in the public eye is under a microscope. The College Coaches are now doing the same thing the pros are doing in weeding out the high school guys the way the pros do the College Kids. The College Teams talk to the high school coaches, the counselors, they talk to people and do the same thing as best they can. They dig. And if they find out a high school kid is a bad character, they’re going to walk.
5. If hypothetically Peyton Manning decided to go to Harvard University instead of Tennessee, if he played the same way he did at Tennessee in the same type offense, would he still be a first round draft pick and drafted #1?
I think if the greatest quarterback in College football is playing at College, the pros might question as to why he chose to play at a level lower then say a Tennesee but he’d still be first round draft pick but maybe not drafted as high as #1 as some scouts might grade him down a little bit because of the caliber of competition. They might wonder why one of the best high school quarterbacks in America would chose to go to an Ivy League school.
6. If a player isn’t drafted, are they actually better off being a free agent in terms of money and making a team then being a 7th round draft pick?
It depends. Moneywise you might get better money, a higher bonus, as a free agent as you can have multiple teams bidding for your services. But if you’re a 7th round draft pick a team will take a longer look because they have invested a draft pick in you and might be inclined to give you a better chance to making the team. As a free agent, you can chose the team that you think you have the best chance to make.
7. One draft question that’s been eating at me for months and I can’t get a decent answer on any forum is if John David Booty at USC is a fifth round draft pick how come Mark Sanchez who couldn’t beat out Booty for 2 years in the same pro offensive as the starting Quarterback at USC, is the fifth pick of the first round of the NFL draft? I realize teams have different needs but this makes absolutely no sense to me!
There is such thing as improving. A Quarterback in his Freshman year is not necessarily the same player his senior year. There is also the old “Don’t Fix it if it’s not broken”. Maybe the other quarterback was playing at a high level and they were winning with him. Again, the success in a college program does not depend or hinge on how well a guys going to play later on in Pro Football.
8. Can you elaborate to me about the NFL Combine.
What the NFL Combine is all about is who the Pro’s think are the best prospects in the country at each position. They have a certain number they are going to pick. They do a lot of research to decide who goes to the Combine and who doesn’t. Those players that get to go, they’re getting their chance to step in front of the whole National Football League. They’ve got all the scouts to check them out. They’re the lucky ones. The ones that didn’t get to go, they better hope that somebody comes and works them out one on one. I have done that. I did that with Mark Rypien. He didn’t go the Combine. I went and worked him out one on one. I recommended him to the Redskins. We drafted him in the 6th round. He took them to the Super Bowl!
9. How Did You Break Into College and Pro Coaching?
I went straight from playing quarterback in the NFL to coaching college with Tulsa University, my alma mater without a break. I was very fortunate because my Offensive Coordinator in College became the Head Coach and Athletic Director at Tulsa and he knew what I could do and hired me. I got hired by the Seattle Seahawks as a Coach because the Seahawks Head of Player Personnel knew what I could do because he had been with the Cowboys when I was playing with them and he went to the Head Coach and said you ought to hire this guy to come in and that’s how I got hired at Seattle. A lot of times its what you’ve done in the past with people and they know you’re a good person and they know what you can do and are capable of doing what they need and you get a break.
Steve Largent played under me at Tulsa. He was a 4th round pick by the then Houston Oilers. When I went to the Seattle Seahawks I recommended Steve Largent to everybody that he’s a first round pick draft pick but nobody really listened to me because everybody was saying he was undersized. He wasn’t the biggest and fastest but he was the best. That’s something we sometimes miss out. He had great feet and great hands. The Oilers cut him and my Coach at the Seattle Seahawks because I had taken Jim Zorn who was a Free Agent from Pomona and had worked with him all Spring and he was going to be our starting Quarterback as a Rookie trusted me enough and came to me and said “Do you still like Largent”. I said yeah and he said we can get him because the Oilers had just cut him. He asked, can he start for us and I said yeah the first day he could start for us. He made Rookie of the Year and is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I also coached Raymond Rhodes at Tulsa. He’s been a Head Coach in the NFL and he’s been one of the top Defensive Coordinators in the NFL and he was a very good NFL player. He was a wide receiver at Tulsa, went to the New York Giants, was converted to defensive back and was one of the better ones.
10. What is your opinion of players turning pro before their College eligibility is up?
I have always advised College Players to stay in school. Of course I’m not the one getting the money but I have always advised players to stay in school with the exception of Vince Young. Vince Young basically came from a very poor environment, he grew up in a tough situation. Vince Young made something out of himself with the help of his High School and University of Texas Coaches. He turned pro to take care of his family amongst other reasons.
I think one should get their College Degree and I personally think there is a little bit of honor in staying with your College Football Program and helping them the best you can. I like to see someone finish what they started with their College. I feel like that they’re obligated. The colleges gave them a scholarship. I think one’s final college year is so much fun. I think they owe their teamates that. I’m always disappointed when a player comes out early. That’s why I’m so proud of Tim Tebow at the University of Florida and Colt McCoy at the University of Texas for deciding to stay in College. I wouldn’t in a minute if I was in those guys situation leave my last year. I could have left my last year when I was playing at Tulsa University going into my 5th Year because of transferring from SMU because they changed the offensive. After my Junior year, I was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys along with Roger Staubach and the New York Jets as a Future Pick which doesn’t exist today. I could have left and turned pro but I never even dreamed of it. It didn’t even enter my mind. I was just dying to go back and play my senior year and do what I knew that team could do and have the fun that I knew we were going to have. I loved the Coaches. I had Sammy Baugh there for a year. I had Glenn Dobbs who had been a pro quarterback as Head Coach. I had a guy named F.A. Dry who had hired me to coach at Tulsa straight out of playing pro football. My loyalty to Tulsa was there and it proved to be the right decision.
Wow, Sammy Baugh!
Sammy Baugh and I talked on the phone all the time. We’d stayed in contact. He even called me on a Radio Show on my Birthday 1993 when I was Coaching in Arizona. The great Sammy Baugh. I loved the guy. He taught me a whole lot.
11. Interview Overtime: The Internet, Sports Collectors and Coach Jerry Rhome
I appreciate people ordering my book directly from me because when its sold from anyone else online somehow the money doesn’t go to me! People are even forging my autograph on the book! So if you want a genuine Jerry Rhome autograph and you want Coach Rhome to get paid for his book, you should order the book directly through me! It’s amazing, it’s really amazing, all the stuff going on today. I’ll get letters in the mail saying “Will You Sign all these these Jerry Rhome football cards for all my kids and my neighbors” and I’ll write back, “OK I will, what are their names” and I’ll never hear from them again! They do everything they can. I’ve got one guy sending me the same request for numerous autographs on cards two years in a row- I guess he forgot he already sent me his request. I wrote back to him, “Just like I told you last year, give me the names of your people and I will sign their names on the cards with my autograph.” Another guy involved in Sports Memorabilia and Collecting phones me and says “I’ve got 2 Dallas Cowboys helmets from the 1960′s and one is is yours and the other is Bob Hayes”. I started laughing and I told him “Look, Man, let me tell you what. I got to tell you something old buddy. I left the Cowboys after 4 years and went to Cleveland. You think they had my helmet sitting around going Auh we’re not going to use this helmet cause Jerry Rhome had it sitting on his head? The minute I walked out the door they had it assigned to someone else. For someone to think they can buy Joe Namath’s helmet or Jerry Rhome’s helmet or Roger Staubach’s helmet, you got to be kidding! Get real man! My college helmet is in the College Football Hall of Fame. They asked me to donate it. I gave up my Helmet but I wrote my name on the inside of the Helmet and people are still asking me if its really mine. It has a single bar and I know all the scratches. It’s featured in a Sports Illustrated book about the History of Football Equipment. There’s so much ripoffs going on.
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