CONWAY, S.C. — James Ernest Mora spends much of his time watching football, the game he coached with distinction for 40 years, with a keen eye. So does Dick Vermeil, who coached his way into the Hall of Fame.
Both had agreed that James Lawrence Mora had been out of the profession too long and wanted to see him on the sidelines, leading players once again.
… But UConn?
“First off, I thought Jimmy should be coaching a football team,” Vermeil, 83, said this week. “And secondly, when I heard he took the Connecticut job, I said, ‘Oh, my gosh, there’s a lot of problems to solve up there.’”
Mora’s father, successful NFL head coach with the Saints and Colts, urged him to take the UConn job last November, knowing it would be a challenge. And he has been in touch all season, ever the crotchety coach-dad, letting Jim L. know where his team needs to get things right.
“I didn’t expect a lot, from the very beginning,” the elder Mora, 87, said on Sunday, a day before UConn’s Myrtle Beach Bowl matchup with Marshall. “I was looking at the past and the records and what they did last year at UConn (1-11) and I’m thinking, ‘Wow. I don’t know what the problem is there, but they must not have very good players.’ I didn’t know what to expect, but I wasn’t very encouraged.”
UConn AD David Benedict, too, surprised observers when he hired a coach with the pedigree of Jim L. Mora, 61, four years after he had been fired at UCLA. He began coaching as a grad assistant as soon as his playing career for Don James at the University of Washington ended in 1983, then he coached under Don Coryell with the Chargers, and on his father’s staff in New Orleans, and worked with Mike Holmgren, Steve Mariucci and Bill Walsh with the 49ers.
“Every day, a situation comes up where I have to tap back in to those guys,” Mora said, after UConn’s last walk-through on Sunday. “The defining theme is stay consistent, focus on getting better every day, always be there for your players, develop trust and try to keep the focus narrow. Any of those coaches I’ve been with, they were remarkably consistent in those areas.”
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As a first-time head coach, the younger Mora led the Falcons, 5-11 the previous season, to the NFC Championship Game in 2004, then later coached the Seahawks. At UCLA, he was 46-30 with four bowl appearances in six years, then worked for ESPN while out of coaching.
“Without sounding arrogant, I didn’t have any doubt that I could come back and start this program on a path back to success,” he said. “The reason I came back to coaching is because I missed it. I missed the players, I missed the comradery of the staff, I missed the competition on game day. I missed the relationships. It wasn’t ever about proving anything. I love to coach football.”
Vermeil, after coaching UCLA to the Rose Bowl in 1975 and the Eagles to the Super Bowl in 1981, left the profession, citing “burnout.” He spent 15 years in TV before returning as head coach of the Rams, starting with 5-11 and 4-12 seasons, then winning the Super Bowl XXXIV to cap the 1999 season.
“I was out 14 years and that first year was tough,” Vermeil said. “But what me and my staff did do, we stuck to the principles we started out with. We were going to build an environment that people enjoyed working in, and playing in, through the entire organization, while losing. And then work like hell. And attack the problem, not the people. It’s so easy to get down on your football players when you’re losing, and if they’ve been losing for a long time, they don’t have enough football players there.”
When he got to UConn, Jim L. Mora set about changing the environment, and he won over players with a positive, confidence-building approach, especially as UConn lost to Syracuse 48-17, Michigan 59-0 and NC State 41-0 on successive weeks to fall to 1-4.
“That was a disappointment to me,” Jim E. Mora said. “The thing that was encouraging to me, from the stuff that Jimmy tells me, he really likes the guys on this team. He said they bounce back and they stay optimistic and confident and you could see see the improvement as I watched the games.”
The elder Mora coached with Vermeil at Stanford and UCLA in the early 1970s, so Vermeil has known UConn’s Jim Mora since he was very young. “And he has a lot of his dad in him,” Vermeil said, “the intensity, the passion, the communication skills.”
Vermeil sent encouraging texts during the season, often urging Mora to look for small victories within those tough losses.
“Taking over [at UConn], I always felt that he was capable,” Vermeil said. “But whether the program accepts his approach and sticks with it, gives it time to see it mature … I’m saying, he really got it going much faster than I thought he would. Credit to him.”
Things turned around with a win over Fresno State on Oct. 1. The Huskies beat Boston College for the first time in school history and, to clinch bowl eligibility, upset Liberty in their last home game.
“I don’t think their players are better than some of these teams that they beat,” Jim E. Mora said. “They beat Fresno State, they beat Boston College, they beat Liberty and I don’t they’re as talented as those teams, but they found a way to win. … That’s where the coaches come in, and I was proud of him for that.”
The elder Mora made it from his home in California to see Mora’s debut at Utah State, and he traveled across the country to see the last regular season game at Army. He’ll watch the Myrtle Beach Bowl on TV.
“My Dad is the major coaching influence in my life,” Jim L. Mora said. “Very few days go by that we don’t touch base. He has a real understanding of what we are doing here and what the odds were against us. He’s been a constant source of encouragement, but he never lets me off the hook. If we’re not tackling well, he tells me. If we’re not hustling to the ball, he tells me. When we had those games where we had a lot of penalties, I heard from him.”
As a father, as well as a coach, Jim E. Mora is most happy to see his son doing what he loves and looking so happy doing it, and you bet he’s proud of the way it has turned out.
“I’m happy for him,” the elder Mora said. “He loves to coach, and he’s coaching and that makes me happy. I think he’s a better coach now than when was coaching Atlanta. I like the way that Jimmy stayed positive. He likes coaching [at UConn], he likes the guys he works with, likes the school. He gets close to the guys that he coaches, and at the same time, he’s demanding and he’s tough. I’ll you the truth, he’s a considerably better football coach than I was, and I really mean that.”
Dom Amore can be reached at damore@courant.com
