Jeff Connors
Gone, but not
forgotten
Love or Hate Him: Jeff Connors
was an integral
part of a very special time at East Carolina
By
Ron Cherubini
©2003 Bonesville.net

Photo: UNC-Chapel Hill
Media Relations |
Love or hate him, Jeff
Connors won’t care.
Even a mention of the
former, long-time strength and conditioning coach at East Carolina
University evokes any of a number of reactions all up and down the
emotional spectrum.
The passion that his
name conjures up in his critics, his fans, and those who say they don’t
care is a testament to at least one thing about the man who dared to go
to Chapel Hill: Jeff Connors loves his work and his players and it
shows.
Regardless of
political posture, what is undeniable is that the recipe for a decade of
Pirate football success included a heavy mix of Connors, and what has
followed in the wake of his separation from ECU has been a program that
hasn't been as successful on the field.
That is not to
say that Connors’ departure led to ECU’s football decline, but it does
underscore the fact that he was a key part of a winning formula for East
Carolina football.
Connors is the first
to admit that he wears his emotions on his sleeve, and that sometimes, it
gets him trouble. He also realizes that because of this, a lot of
what he would have liked to have done in the lead up to his departure
did not happen.
“I wish that I would
have explained my situation to some of the people who had really done a
lot for me over the years,” Connors said. “Unfortunately, changes are
very swift and cold. That’s the nature of the profession. There’s no
time for emotional farewell parties, instead they give you a hanging
party most of the time. You’ve got to have a thick skin.”
Still, in retrospect,
with a few years of distance between him and his ECU tenure, Connors
prefers to conjure up the positive memories of a time that he recalls as
almost magical.
“My memories of ECU
will never be tarnished by anonymous critics or snipers,” he said. “My
family prospered there and I think that I learned a lot about myself
through my coaching experiences. I really enjoyed the years when we had
a bunch of coaches on staff that liked to have a good time.”
And though during the
tempest that immediately followed his departure he wasn’t exactly
embracing the commentary coming from Greenville, Connors today holds no
ill will toward the Pirates and their fans as a collective body. In
reality, Connors is still very connected not only to many of his
athletes, but also to many within the school and community. They are his
friends and fans.
“Fans can’t be too
emotional,” he said. “In my opinion, neither can players nor coaches. I
don’t have any bitterness toward people for being angry that I went to
UNC. At least they care about the program enough to lash out. It takes
great passion to build a program. Personally, I am fanatically
passionate and emotional and I hope to be until the day I check out. If
you love something halfway, the relationship will not survive. When
factors arise that prevent you from giving love, you move on because you
can’t live in a gray twilight with a broken heart. That’s life.”
Before he moved on,
however, life was good… very good at ECU.
Jeff Connors came to
ECU in 1991 as the tradition-proud football program was trying to figure
out if the schedules of the mid-‘80s – aimed at ratcheting up the
profile of the team and school – had done more to embarrass the program
than take it to the next level. For Connors, who was wrapping up a
Master’s Degree at Bucknell University, where he was the strength and conditioning coach, the schedules had obviously not done much in raising
his awareness of the university that he would soon call home.
“I thought East
Carolina was actually Western Carolina,” he said. “... I had been in
Tennessee so I thought of Western Carolina first."
Connors was linked to
the opportunity via the then-strength coach from the Philadelphia
Eagles, Ronnie Jones, who had heard about the position from then-ECU
assistant coach Steve Logan. Connors went through the necessary
interviews and started to get hooked on the opportunity that ECU
presented for a strength coach.
“I was very impressed
with Henry Van Sant,” he said. “He told me he wanted an extreme
disciplinarian. He also told me not to be afraid to implement a program
that focused on a team ethic and accountability. Henry went on to tell
me things about when he was coaching and it really got me fired up to
come to ECU. The things most important to (Van Sant) were my strong
point(s).”
It would be remiss to
define Connors as simply a disciplinarian. It is more his focus on
accountability through discipline. And it was just what the doctor
ordered for an ECU program that had, indeed, grown by a trial by fire in
the mid-to-late ’80s — a program that was looking for men to put the program’s
experiences into context and exploit those lessons learned through that
dark era in ECU football.
At ECU, Connors
was presented a clean canvas on which he could place his mark not only
on a rising program, but also on the industry itself – where today, he
is considered one of the top strength coaches in the country and a
thought leader in the field. Connors is one of just 36 worldwide
strength and conditioning coaches to have earned Master Strength Coach
Certification from the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches
Association (CSCCA).
Dave Hart, acting on
glowing endorsements and Connors’ high-energy, high-demands, high-reward
philosophies, made the hire and ECU finally had its spark plug to put in
what was building into a football machine in Greenville.
At the time, there was
no denying Connors’ impact on the program, particularly the players. It
is an allegiance, forged in the very sweat that the strength coach
demanded of them over and over again, day-in and day-out, that is most
illustrated today by the fact that Connors’ staff at UNC is full of
former standout Pirates: Guys like Jeff Kerr and Jerris McPhail are
there not for Carolina first, but for Connors.
Born of the
fundamentals
To best understand why Connors was the
perfect strength coach for ECU at that juncture in time, it is easiest
to take a look back in his life.
Hailing from Brownsville, PA, Connors grew
up in a part of the country where towns, in many ways, are woven
together less by county lines and more by prep football programs. To
suffice, Brownsville is the quintessential blue-collar, coal-mining,
Friday football type of town, and Connors from a very young age was given
to it.
“Where I come from, football is a microcosm
of life,” he said. “I grew up with my father as my high school coach (at
Beth Center High School). He was very demanding and it a was tough (high
school) program. They used to take us up in the mountains for
three-a-days. If you wanted to come home, you couldn’t find your way
home if you tried. We ate three times a day and we practiced three times
a day and the only water we had was in two buckets with sponges. One guy
would wipe his face with a sponge and the next guy would suck water out
of it. But, you had to live with (your teammates), and battle the three
times a day. When you came out of that camp, you had taken some steps
(toward maturity and discipline). There was zero room for excuses.”
These ingredients have served him all his
life, but particularly as a teen, they helped shape a methodology for
life that has since carried him.
“When I graduated from high school, I
weighed 160 pounds,” he said. “Strength and conditioning was key for me
to make it in college. I was a quarterback in high school, but played
cornerback in college. (I) went to Salem (W. Va.) College, and they were
also an underdog program. They had a bunch of renegades from all over
the country who were Division I (caliber) guys.”
There, as a 5-9, 190-pound corner, Connors
distinguished himself as a competitor who refused to give up on any
play. A starter the entire time he was there and team captain as a
senior, Connors led the team in interceptions as both a sophomore and a
junior. And, it was perhaps during his time as a player there, that
Connors developed the mantra that you must finish stronger than your
opponent to be a champion.
Part of the lessons-learned were from the
rigid physical training that Salem Coach Larry Blackstone – who now is a
coach in the Ohio prep school ranks – insisted his players go through.
“They basically beat us up ever day in the
off-season,” Connors recalled. “We had a 22-station work program… dead
lifts, heavy squats, and an exercise called Billy Cannons (where the
athlete puts 200 pounds on his back and shuffles feet from his hips very
rapidly with three-inch steps back and forth at a high rate of speed for
30 seconds). I have never used (Billy Cannons)… never understood it, but
it was tough. We’d do agilities 45 minutes to an hour and the 22-station
circuit every day. A number of players blew lunch every Monday. It was
amazing. All of us got stronger and tougher. I had tremendous respect
for my coach’s refusal to compromise accountability. It didn’t matter if
the best athlete missed a lift… they were fired immediately. Everyone
knew there were no second chances and I think that is why we were
successful. It’s difficult to find coaches who are bold enough to lay it
out like that.”
Those lessons, borne in sweat, ingrained
themselves in Connors, and his post-collegiate career choice only served
to further his principles. Connors headed south after graduating from
Salem. He found himself looking to make a career in law enforcement,
serving as a police officer in South Florida. Though he served only two
years, the experience was worthy of a man who would go on to set out
life principles for young men. As it was, the action… the intensity of
being a flatfoot, stroked the other half of Connors’ psyche. Discipline
and Intensity… the method of setting goals, driving to and through them,
and attaining them the right way has been a staple in Connors’ methods
and the underpinnings for his work all were built through his
experiences.
“What I went through both in high school
and college stuck with me,” he said. “Everything I tried to do – even
when I was a police officer on the midnight shift – I enjoyed the
action… the chase. It was like being in a football game, except that I
was too stupid to realize they were shooting at me. Fortunately, I got
out of that in a reasonable amount of time.”
And for collegiate strength training, it
was a good thing he did.
Connors' move into strength training as a
profession was preceded by stints as a high school football and
wrestling coach at The Benjamin School in North Palm Beach, FL, followed
by coaching football at the Tennessee Military Institute.
During that period, Connors had made a name
for himself through power lifting, where he had climbed the ranks to
become a top-5 power lifter, recognized nationally. At the same time, he
pursued and completed his Masters’ in High School Administration
at Bucknell University while taking on the dual role of student/
Strength and Conditioning Coach, with the aim of redirecting his career
into either school administration or strength and conditioning coaching
professionally.
“Football and police work went hand-in-hand
in preparing me for strength and conditioning,” Connors recalled. “I
knew I wanted to be in (strength training) in some capacity, whether at
the collegiate or high school level. It made no difference to me. (I
decided) to go in that direction in regards to my career.”
While at Bucknell, Connors had a reputation
of inspiring athletes to tap their true athletic potential and as being
an innovator in an emerging field.
“I felt that having been the son of a coach
and educator, I felt like my calling in life was to work with young
people,” Connors said. “I was willing to take the vow of poverty.”
Fast-forward back to ECU
Connors’ style is to commit to an objective
and doggedly pursue it and it was no different with the East Carolina
job — though he admits that when it all materialized he was uncertain of
what was potentially waiting for him at ECU and, honestly, even what ECU
was about.
“Essentially I guess East Carolina had
considered several people with the recommendation of the staff. My name
came up and Bill Lewis called me and asked me if I would be interested
in the position,” Connors said. “I thought I had been to East Carolina
before, but I realized that it was Western Carolina I was thinking of.
At some point, I realized it was not the same school.”
Connors quickly made calls, researched
the post, and learned about the Pirates.
“I was told East Carolina had a tough
program,” he said. “That the school had a great strength and
conditioning program and I was told there were guys who came out of that
program with great strength. After hearing that, I got interested and
told Bill Lewis I was interested.”
Interestingly, after a five or six weeks,
Connors had heard that someone else had been hired by ECU, but that
disappointing news was soon debunked when Lewis called Connors to offer
him the post.
Connors sensed it would be a good move
which was confirmed by his conversations with then-Associate Athletic
Director Van Sant. Moreover, Connors understood the South.
“I was real excited, I was very familiar
with the South and I wanted to get back down here,” he said. “My first
impression of Greenville… I was comfortable and from a small area.
Western Pennsylvania is coal mining and farm area – an area where
football is a dramatization of the underdog experience. It was a great
parallel to come down to ECU where they were saying, ‘We take on big
schools, we want to prove we are there.’ It all played into my
upbringing. It was a huge deal for me and I wholly identified with the
‘chip’… no question.”
At Bucknell, Connors wore many hats, one of
which was the recruiting coach for the wrestling program – an experience
he credits to helping him greatly. In that position, without
scholarships to dangle, Connors became adept at emotionally connecting
with prospective athletes and found he had a knack for making that
important bond. That bonding ability would prove an essential ingredient
for success as a Pirate. The result was the signing of a great deal of
state wrestling champions to that program.
“East Carolina was much different than
Bucknell,” Connors assessed. “There were much better athletes, they are
a Division I program with possibilities for bowl games… that kind of
stuff. I wanted a chance to get out of the ‘Ivy League’ type program and
get dirty.”
When he arrived in Greenville, Connors saw
a little bit of good and a little bit of not so good at ECU.
“The immediate state was that there were a
lot of competent athletes returning to the team but at that time there
was not much structure in the strength and conditioning program,”
Connors recalled. “Somehow the relationship between the strength coach
and head coach had gotten worse. It wasn’t optimal. The only thing I
know was that I presented my system and it seemed that Bill wanted to
implement it.”
But there was a lot of work to make things
happen and Connors believed the most important first step was to present
the proper image to his new players.
“That first summer, it was just me,” he
recounts. “I made sure I was first man there
and last to leave. I wanted people to know my commitment. I mopped the
weight room every night because I wanted it to look good. I took on the
whole staff responsibility myself until someone was hired.”
The message of
Connors’ actions was meant to show his players the level of commitment
necessary to be champions.
“I wanted to let
the players know they had to be responsible,” he said. “I went to find
Dion Johnson and got him out of his room. David Daniels was shocked that
I came to the dorm. Well, Dion was surprised to see me. They knew I was
there to make a statement. He was my first MIA and I wanted to set a
precedent. We went straight to the field and ran. The players took note
and I think that (the discipline) is what they wanted. Every man who
wants to be successful will appreciate the discipline. I looked at the
guys like Robert Jones and Bernard Carter and Ernie Lewis and I thought,
‘We’re going to do a lot here.’ They were excited and I was excited to
be getting things going.
“Conditioning is
the foundation of my program. We are going to run and work hard every
day. To me anyone can lift weights and that is something that requires
time but not a whole lot of toughness. No, that comes from conditioning.
We developed a team concept to attack the conditioning together.”
The talented
Pirates bought into it wholesale and Connors reinforced it daily.
“I thought the guys were very receptive,”
he said. “I was just so excited about coming in here. I had always been
pretty confident – I went through a tough program in college – and I was
confident that I could get the same thing accomplished. I thought (the
Pirate players) were highly enthusiastic and responded to me and they
wanted to win football games. It was a privilege for me to be there and
I am really proud to have been there with that type of athlete.”
More than a Coach
Connors embedded himself into the coaching
staff and the group was much more than just colleagues.
“I really enjoyed the years when we had a
bunch of coaches on staff that liked to have a good time,” he said. “We
celebrated some hard fought victories in the middle of the night. “I
liked to be around people and there was nothing better than skipping
around Greenville after a big victory. Dave Huxtable and I probably had
some of the best times of our lives after the games in 1991.
“Football can be a roller coaster ride.
You gotta get busy living or get busy dying. You’ve got to find ways to
stay upbeat during the tough times and celebrate the hell out of the
good times. I love to celebrate. I think that’s what Pirates do. I’ll be
the first to admit that I had some Jesse James in me and that’s probably
the reason I was a good fit at the time. I’ve tried to teach the
players to have energy and challenge them. I’ll never forget Larry
Coyer’s pre-game talk at Washington. He said, ‘Men, you’re cowards. You
know it and I know it.’ That was a little extreme but Larry told it
like it was.”
Connors employed some unique motivational
tactics himself.
“I had two boxers come in and fight three
rounds in the locker room before the Cincinnati game one year,” he
recalled. “That was fun. I had the privilege of preparing some pre-game
hype for a few years which I really enjoyed.”
Without a doubt, Connors and his Pirates
connected and what resulted was truly some of the greatest football
the program has produced. And, above that, a national reputation of
being a team that would never be overpowered physically nor out-endured
on the field.
The formula that evolved at ECU?
“Foundational, really deep,” Connors said.
“(You) start out with principle-centered character that you demand all
year round. You have guys in the program, guys like Larry Shannon, Jason
Nichols, Marcus Crandall, MoFo (Morris Foreman), Emmanuel (McDaniel),
Jerry Dillon, the Hart brothers, and Leonard Henry. These guys were very
demanding of their teammates. We ran 300s every Tuesday during the
summer and those guys pushed it to 10, I didn’t.
“It was a pride thing, a leadership thing.
You don’t just become a Pirate, you have to pay a price. They demanded
that price. That is a big reason we were successful, in my opinion. It
wasn’t a magic formula. It was a daily developmental process that came
from tough kids, who really cared about winning, who were demanding of
their peers. It started with me and my attitude every day because I was
the guy guiding the ship in the off-season. I wanted to be an extension
of the leadership of that team and the head coach. Logan was not just a
boss, he was my friend. We confided in each other and I felt privileged
that he thought that much of my opinions. Loyalty is extremely,
extremely important to me no matter where I work. That is one of the few
things that we had and we took it very seriously and did at East
Carolina.”
Though he left ECU, he deeply means every
word of his inspired reflections on his time there. Connors is a man who lets passion carry the day.
“I was an extension of the coaching staff
and I saw myself as a soldier,” he said. “I simply wanted to be a good
soldier. I like the front line.”
A decade of
memories defined by people
For 10 years, Connors sold out for the
Pirate program and, even today — after all of the misunderstandings, the
statements on both sides that many, including Connors, wish could be
pulled back, and the personal attacks that followed his departure — ECU will
always be part of Connors and his legacy will always be a pivotal one in
terms of ECU’s growth and recognition as a football program.
“Over a period of time, I developed a very
strong relationship with the boosters at ECU,” he said. “What those
people did for me when I was there is tough to replace. I don’t take
anything for granted. Walter Williams was a great friend and George Koonce
is still a great friend to me. Joe Wallace, Ralph Vitola, Danny Bercini,
Frank Ceruzzi, John McMillan, Jim Mullin, Jeff Foster… all class guys
with immeasurable love for the program. There is a long line of people.
Those people were such great people who really showed appreciation and
stayed with us during the tough times.”
More than that, the players that saw
Connors more like a father, meant everything to him.
“Bond is common to many strength coaches,”
he said. “Whichever parent spends time is the one who must give the
tough love. If you love them, you’ve got to give them discipline, which
is something I believe very strongly in. They may not like you but
somewhere down the road they appreciate you. At the same time, you want
them to know they can talk to you.”
And the Pirate players did bond with
Connors… developing a well-known possessiveness of their strength coach.
Case in point:
“Dealton Cotton called me one morning,”
Connors retells. “He said, ‘Coach, Mom died. I keep getting up and
dialing the number. I know she’s gone, but I can’t deal with it.’ We got
together with him and took him to a pastor – Gene Tyson. That was
indescribably rewarding. I felt good (knowing) Dealton became renewed
and that he felt comfortable calling me (about something so serious).”
There were many other stories like that one
during the Connors tenure.
“I don’t know the statistics,” Connors
said. “But the percentage of athletes that grow up with no father is
earth-shattering. And, there are a lot of single parents doing a great
job but some of those kids are missing something. When they get to you
as a freshman in college, you are the first thing, the first strong
authority that they’ve encountered. Even in high school, sometimes they
get through on talent and are allowed to have freedoms that they cannot
have on the collegiate level. The molding and confrontations that go on,
on a daily basis… people don’t see how many days during a year you are
nose-to-nose with someone to maintain principles that help sustain your
program.”
The relationships with his players have
carried him, not only through their successes on the field of play, but
on their successes in life, the personal victories. It has been
overwhelming to Connors when he looks back on that decade in his life.
“ My last year at ECU, I sat down and wrote
a 250-page book about the Pirates of the 1990s,” he said. “The main
reason I did it was that I didn’t want to forget anything. That was
before I had a clue that I might be leaving. My memories are intact.”
His players’ attachment to him, even now
that he is in the enemy’s camp at Carolina, serve as a strong testament
to his person.
“As a coach, you can’t play favorites,”
Connors said. “When somebody has been through the program, you know… you
really connected with those individuals, you really helped them and they
respect you. Robert Tate, Jerris (McPhail) and Jeff Kerr… I can’t think
of a more rewarding situation than to have the guys you helped improve –
and they are very tough individuals who have paid the price – and see
them as coaches influencing other people, that is very rewarding. I see
part of myself in them. That is a real emotional deal for me.”
Tate, Kerr, and McPhail are all on Connors’
staff at UNC and cite the influence of their mentor in helping forge the
men they are today.
“I am not going
to take the credit for building anything at ECU,” Connors said. “The
players deserve all the credit. I can’t imagine many other players in
the country who worked as hard as those guys.”
And it has been a
mutually rewarding experience for Connors, who has learned a bunch from
his prodigies.
“Being
around athletes keeps you young,” he said. “Working with adults, you
have to constantly be watching your back. The worst part of the job is
having to produce results in the summer on a voluntary basis. No other
coaches are faced with this situation. Just think about your employees
in a business working on a voluntary basis. How many do you thing could
be maximizing production? Now guess what? You can still be fired for
their lack of productivity. You must be the guru of charismatic rapport
or get yourself a magic wand.”
It was his connection on a human level with
his players that created a job description unlike many in the profession.
“What happened with me was that I fell into
that role of motivator,” he explained. “One summer, I was excited and
talking to Junior Smith and Damon Wilson about respect and they asked
Steve (Logan) if I could give some type of additional information to
them during the pre-game setting. I thought Steve was very gracious in
allowing me to do that and it was a lot of work trying to think of a
genuine theme each week. It was difficult, but I was very proud to
contribute to that because as a strength coach in-season,
responsibilities are limited, so to be involved at that level was unique
and I was honored to do it.”
Connors’ routine included spending Friday
night putting together some sort of presentation.
“It ranged from bringing in Vietnam
Veterans to Martial Arts people,” he recalled. “I always like the
parallels of training for football and military training. Stuff from the
Marines’ War Fighting Skills book. (Topics like) principal-centered
leadership. (There was a) guy in Greenville by the name of ‘Gunny’ Born
who helped me a bunch. I was intrigued by those (military) concepts. (I
saw) a lot of parallels with things I believe about preparation and what
was working for the most successful organization in history (Marine
Corps).
“I’m not sure, but I think, that at that
time we had some very strong scriptural studies going on within the
team, so I tried to also (incorporate that). It was new to me because I
never really pursued detailed knowledge of the New Testament. It was a
learning experience for me and I thought that I learned a lot as a
result of the research that we did. We incorporated biblical principles
into those presentations and some excellent stories I obtained from
Reverend Steven Harrison. I wasn’t the most qualified to do that, but I
learned a lot about how the origin of successful principles in athletics
largely was borrowed from that book. I’m not going say I’m some perfect
Christian, but it helped me grow as a Christian… so, that is another
thing that made that time special for me.”
On Saturdays, he would deliver the
presentations, complete with guests and props, if necessary. And the
result was not only visible on the field, but in the demeanor the
players showed coming onto the field, on the sidelines, and after the
game.
It was a unique role for a unique program
that was uniquely successful in a world dominated by bigger budget programs.
End of an era
For Connors, there were a lot of reasons to
stay in Greenville, not the least of which was the program and the
players.
“With regard to East Carolina, one of the
huge strengths is the fan base and the support for football,” he said.
“I think any coach who is smart, would do everything possible to build
up that fan base and recognize those folks from Eastern NC. When I came
back from the Peach Bowl and saw the streets lined from Kinston to
Greenville… that was incredible to me.
“The atmosphere
after the upset of Miami in Raleigh was euphoric… no way you could not
see and appreciate the support for football.”
Yet, there was a
pull for Connors in the form of career opportunity – a carrot he had
seen dangled many times before.
“I interviewed with Butch Davis for the
Miami job the year before I came (to UNC),” he said of one such
opportunity during his ECU tenure. “I thought I was passing up a great
opportunity because I was very impressed with Butch Davis and what he
was working for and (I) felt privileged to be interviewed. I thought he
might be going to the NFL and would be a good ticket if that were what I
wanted to do.
“Sounds glamorous to be in the NFL and wear
an NFL coaching uniform, but the reality of it with strength and conditioning coaches, I feel like you are within an uncomfortable
situation sometimes because you are trying to motivate million dollar
athletes to train and they have to be paid to train. You need to have a
head coach that is truly dedicated to strength and conditioning. I had
been a police officer in South Florida and my wife was from there and it
is not an easy place to live. I felt good
about our program and no dissatisfaction with the (their) program but I
stayed (at ECU) because of my strong feelings toward East Carolina.”
Greenville was
home
As much as the ECU community is identified
with a
large hunk of his professional achievement, Connors is clearly cognizant
of the lasting impact that Greenville – the home to his family – will
forever have on his life.
“(If you) stay anywhere for 10 years,
you’re going to develop relationships,” Connors said.
He is a family man and in a profession that
oftentimes keeps dad or mom away from home for long days and nights and
weekends on the road. Because of those demands, Connors especially appreciated how the community embraced his
family.
“My wife (Michele) is very strong,
independent and very tolerant,” he explained. “I really admire her
success in real estate. In conjunction with having to raise our children
to the large part on her own and her understanding toward the coaching
profession… I give her 95 percent of the credit when it comes to the
strength and character of my children. I really think that.”
For both his teen-aged son Beau and his
daughter Kaitlin, to hear talk of Greenville is not the conjuring up of
a fan-base that took sides for and against their father. Instead, it is
a memory of a wonderful childhood in family-friendly town.
For Beau it is memories like “…being around
the players and experiencing bowl games…” and for Kaitilin, it is days
spent swimming.
“Kaitlin loves to swim and I think that the
‘Big Guy’ (Matt) Maloney got her interested in that.”
ECU and Greenville are at best, great
fibers in the development of Connors, his career, and his family, and at
worst, undeniable remnants of a past that was not so bad.
“Greenville… ahhhhh… it’s my home, man,”
Connors said, exhaling. “I don’t know how to put it. It’s the only place
my kids ever knew since they were babies. You move away from your
hometown, it is still your hometown. I don’t expect to have anyone
patting me on the back in Greenville, but it will always be my hometown,
even though I grew up in another state, because I found out so much about
myself during that time I was there. I want that program to be
successful because I put a whole lot of myself into it. I don’t care who
is coaching there.”
Moving on to Chapel Hill
Really, despite the buzz around campus of a
rumored falling out with Coach Logan, difficulties with then-athletic
director Mike Hamrick and rebuffs for a teaching position, the decision
to head to UNC came in the form of opportunity.
“You know, I’ve been through this before,”
Connors said of explaining his decision. “The educational opportunities
for my children, the (career) opportunities for my wife, and (my
personal opportunity)… I felt as though it would be an excellent career
move because (UNC) was the (flagship) school in North Carolina. The
resources (at UNC presented) an opportunity to further my career. I
really felt like I had a great interview and was excited about what John
Bunting could produce.
“I think in this profession, realistically,
we are only stewards of whatever program we are working for. The
institution will go on much longer than (us). We do what we can when we
are at an institution and hope to be remembered”
And, Connors felt he needn’t explain his
decision. After all, he was leaving behind a strength and conditioning
program that was a model for schools around the nation. He had delivered
top service to ECU.
“The average time (at a program), I don’t
know,” he pondered. “Ten years, I thought, was a significant
contribution. I passed up the Miami job and never regretted it. The big
reason was loyalty to Steve Logan and that program. No matter what the
emotional commitment is, no matter how much you believe in a cause –
and, it certainly was a cause – you always (in the end) do what is best
for your family, and stability was an issue.”
It’s hard to fault a man bettering his
stature in life. And to hear Connors recall it, reveals a little
something about beloved coaches all over the country.
“I don’t know if I’m just naïve or
non-informed on what you could say to that whole issue between the two
schools,” he said. “I’m trying (to understand it). I was disappointed
with the reaction and also flattered because I had no idea that I was
significant to people. I was working, doing the best I could do. I was
not running for office.”
He was just making a career decision.
“The attractive thing about coming to North
Carolina was the fact that program was down and needed a shakeup and I
was confident I could get it done,” he said. “I had done all I could do
(at ECU) and the (UNC) challenge was attractive to me. To have an
opportunity to build a high-visibility program was an attractive
challenge.
One note of interest: UNC and ECU won the
Peach Bowl in Connors' first year at each institution. ECU was
7-15 the subsequent two years and its been 3-14 so far at Carolina.
"So it is like de ja vu for
me," he said. "I’ve been through this before. I guess God wants to see if I still
have it in me. Rebuilding process. Very challenging during that time
period at East Carolina and it is the same way here."
A challenge he is still working to turn
around, which underscores the focus that is surely to hover around
Saturday’s clash between a Pirate team that does not thinly resemble
those from Connors days and a UNC team that looks anything but stronger
than the teams that preceded Connors’ arrival to Chapel Hill.
Yet, the game
goes on
So it is, that come Saturday, Connors will
be back in Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium for the first time since his departure. He
will be in the Blue, not the Purple, and as a professional, he will not
be torn on his allegiance during the game. There will be a chip of ego
on his shoulder… he does not like to lose and, particularly, he wants to
be successful in facing his past.
“It would be small minded
of me to roll into that game with vengeance toward a few outspokens on a
message board,” he said. “I will be coming there to win a game. Anybody
who has been through so many emotional ups and downs like I have been at
ECU, would be fooling themselves to say that they would be coming in
without a lump in their throat. I know my hair will be on fire, but all
I can really do is spectate.”
Yet there is still a true
kinship with his former program and there are ECU milestones he hopes to
some day call his own.
“My goal at East
Carolina, which may sound lofty and conceited, and I hope it doesn’t,”
he said. “I wanted to be the first strength coach to make it to the Hall
of Fame. I thought I would be (at ECU) a long, long time. Things change,
obviously, and you’ve got to reset your goals. I just hope that people
can say that I did a good job while I was there and that we accomplished
some things that were unique and that the fans got some joy out of the
’90s. I know I had a great time while I was there.
“I don’t feel any
negatives toward ECU at all. I was somewhat naïve toward the depth of
the stress toward UNC. I was just naïve toward the depth of the negative
feelings toward UNC… I really didn’t realize it ran that deep.”
Love or hate him… there is
no denying that when Connors was at ECU, whether by fact or folly, he
was a big piece of a magical combination in Pirate football history.
And… each day since his departure, maybe not so openly, Pirate fans and
perhaps Connors himself have come to understand how fortunate everyone was
during those wonderful years of progress and victory.
Send an e-mail message to Ron Cherubini.
Click here to dig into Ron
Cherubini's Bonesville archives.

|