Photo courtesy of SJSU Athletics
By Matt Weiner (@MattWeiner20) – Reporter
Under the hood of every car is a complex jungle of metal that’s a foreign language to an uninformed eye.
Those who possess an uninformed eye can go from A to B without telling a piston from a radiator.
But, when a malfunction occurs and you’re left stranded in an abandoned parking garage on an empty stomach that’s beatboxing from pangs of hunger, you’d be willing to trade a finger or three to know how to fix it.
And the person who ends up fixing it suddenly becomes the front runner for best man at your wedding.
For the extremely gifted ones like Dick Vermeil, it meant the first step to becoming a Hall of Fame head coach in the NFL.
Before spearheading “The Greatest Show on Turf”, the 2000 Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams, or losing the 1980 Super Bowl as head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles, Vermeil was a walk-on quarterback for San Jose State University and part-time mechanic in 1956.
“I started to do auto bill work for the coaches and the P.E. department because they weren’t making a lot of money,” Vermeil said. “I could repair the problems they were having with their cars and buy the parts wholesale and then charge them 50% less than it would be if they took them to a garage.”
During my short career as an athlete, “Make yourself useful” is a mantra I’ve heard an infinite amount of times from coaches and assumed that it is always related to on the field matters.
For baseball, it means showing up early to rake baselines or sculpt a pitcher’s mound with a tamping iron and a pile of fresh dirt.
However, Vermeil applied this to propping a hood up and whipping around a wrench like it was a pigskin for the same guys he was taking orders from on the gridiron.
“I was working on Dr. Bronzan’s car, Gene Menges’ car, Max Coley’s car and other cars in the department that helped supplement my income,” Vermeil said. “Those experiences brought me closer to the department and coaches because we were sharing experiences outside education and football.”
The mental imagery of Vermeil talking to coaches while slinging a socket set with skin marred by sweat and oil stains, paints a picture of a sincere ice breaker. So natural and distant from awkwardly forced that it would never be seen in any college campus during syllabus week.
“He was a good quarterback. A little guy who was very feisty, smart and a great competitor,” said former SJSU teammate and head coach Claude Gilbert.
In Bronzan’s eyes, Vermeil’s potential was seen just as easily as his crisp combover and beaming pearly whites.
“Just great family experience, then all of a sudden to be in a situation where the head coach of the football team is sort of taking you under his wing and guiding, directing and motivating you,” Vermeil said.
During Vermeil’s two years as quarterback, the Spartans went 5-14-1 and he amassed 671 passing yards, a 50.5 completion percentage and a touchdown-to-interception ratio of 3-11.
Nothing about those stats screamed future hall of famer and that was the beauty of his playing career. Progress is not immediate nor easily seen.
Many journey’s just like Vermeil’s take shape like a stick of bamboo, growing for years under soil, then suddenly sprouting and skyrocketing past the stratosphere.
“The result of the influences around me, the people that believed in me and recognized talents within me that I didn’t recognize, you just start growing and it becomes a feeling that becomes infectious,” Vermeil said. “You just want to keep feeling that level of satisfaction and level of pride.”
Growth underneath the soil traces directly to a statistics class he took while earning his Masters in physical education.
“I was fascinated with statistics and it positively influenced all my coaching,” Vermeil said. “I liked applying the numbers to football things to create percentages.”
Vermeil crunching numbers with fingers wrapped around a yellow ticonderoga pencil and a hand clenching a calculator was noticed by few, but soon in due time it would be noticed by many.
“As I matured, some of the time invested in the practice field was deeply influenced by the numbers I came up with over the years.”
Each day as a Spartan, Vermeil was building evidence that his football career didn’t have to exist between the sidelines for him to be a part of the game.
One day following the 1956 season, Bronzan called Vermeil into his office and gave him a significant vote of confidence.
“I can remember him calling me into his office and saying ‘Dick I want you to know that I just recommended you for the freshman coaching job at Notre Dame with Ara Parseghian.’”
Notre Dame decided to go with another option, but the initial offer showed him that he was a valuable asset and had people in his corner.
Vermeil thought to himself, “Holy mackerel, my football coach just recommended me for a job at Notre Dame? I wasn’t even sure if I could spell Notre Dame at the time.”
Instead of waking up on third base, Vermeil had to bunt to get on first and steal second and third by the skin of his teeth.
In Vermeil’s case, this meant serving as head coach for Hillsdale High School who was up against a Willow Glen squad that was on a 40-game winning streak to begin the season.
Before kickoff, Vermeil looked into the stands housing about 50 people at the time and saw an unforgettable face.
“In the pregame warm up, I look over and sitting in the stands is Dr. Bronzan … you just never forget those examples and a leader like Dr. Bronzan has set for me.”
Bronzan’s nature to show up for his players and see potential that a player didn’t know about “subconsciously” set a precedent for how Vermeil would operate.
“I was always looking for something in that player that he didn’t know he had and working him to the point that he developed those skills,” Vermeil said. “Kurt Warner is a great example.”
Warner’s odyssey of grocery-store checker turned quarterback of “The Greatest Show on Turf” is an amalgamation of everything Vermeil went through at San Jose State.
It’s a story of how a stringent work ethic can lead to success being pulled out of the most unlikely of heroes.
“I can think of many more athletes who I believed that because of what people did for me, positively influenced my approach to working with other people,” Vermeil said.
The Rams’ 2000 Super Bowl was built on the back of Vermeil’s genuine care for players just as much as the tireless work in the film room and practice field.
“That’s why he’s a winner,” said former SJSU teammate Bob Keller. “He loves and appreciates his players.”
Vermeil’s love for his players is a reciprocation of the love he was shown while attending San Jose State by Bronzan.
All it took was a busted whip and a handy repairman.
