Screen Name or Email
Now I remember!
Digital only subscription $25.00 for 30 days
It’s not as if Elvis, aka Jim Harbaugh, has entered the building. But a Nebraska football coach is on stage and there’s a vibe in the large ballroom that longtime Big Red observers didn’t recognize.
The media like Riley.
Like, really like him.
“I hope he succeeds,” said Pat Forde,
Yahoo.com college columnist. “I really want him to win.”
Say what?
“It’s an inspired hire,” said Gene Wojciechowski, ESPN’s national college columnist. “I hope it works.”
Somewhere, Tom Osborne just fainted.
Once upon a time, the thought of the national media rooting for Nebraska was about as likely as their hoping for an early deadline. Or a salad bar.
But this man Shawn Eichorst brought to Lincoln is already a game-changer in one sense.
It’s a sense that should not be underestimated.
Riley is easily the most popular Husker coach with the media I’ve ever been around.
The college football press didn’t dislike Osborne (how could you?), but there was not exactly a comfort zone there. Osborne would politely give his time and thoughts but always made it known that he didn’t want to be there.
Lincoln was basically the dentist’s office on the football writers tour.
And when the trouble came to town, say in 1995, very few came to Osborne’s defense in the sports section.
Frank Solich was seen as a good man and nice guy, but dry quote. Few media types took the Bill Callahan era seriously.
As for Bo Pelini, he had some friends in the press box, but most found a handy excuse to stay away from his unpredictable volcano.
Now here comes Riley, getting the media to swoon by just being his relentlessly natural, pleasant self.
During Riley’s 15-minute session before a few hundred writers Friday morning, Steve Greenberg of the Chicago Sun-Times tweeted, “I want Mike Riley to be my life coach.”
Later, Greenberg added this tweet: “If he hadn’t done so already, new Nebraska coach Mike Riley has just won over the B1G media. How? Just by being himself. Terrific guy. Nice fit.”
David Jones, Penn State columnist for the Harrisburg Patriot, tweeted, “Boy, I’ve always heard about Mike Riley in front of a group. This guy makes it look so easy.”
Riley, in fact, had people eating out of his hand. This, the longtime coach at Oregon State taking over a Nebraska program that hasn’t been in the national spotlight in years.
A lot of Nebraskans want to be “relevant.” I don’t know what that means. Are you relevant because you went to a major bowl one year or a guy from Sports Illustrated tweeted about your team?
Nebraska now has a coach who is relevant. I saw it Friday, as Riley was the Pied Piper, with a media entourage second only to the Harbaugh Traveling Circus.
People wanted to be around Riley. They wanted to know what he thought on different topics. “People like him. He’s a nice guy, genuine,” said ESPN’s Brett McMurphy.
“There aren’t a lot of normal guys in this business,” said Ralph Russo of the Associated Press. “I’ve always liked him.”
Said USA Today’s George Schroeder: “Great guy. ... Like your next-door neighbor. And very good coach. Knows how to do a lot with not a lot. Not saying you can’t recruit to Nebraska, but that will serve him well there.”
Riley is not a great quote. But he’s incredibly real. He cares. He takes the time to call a writer by his name. He’s usually smiling. Amazingly disarming.
He explained it well when he was asked again how he felt to be known as a nice guy (as if nice guys can’t finish first): “My dad always told me just be yourself. Players see through phonies.”
I never covered Bob Devaney. But I’ve read and heard the stories from the scribes who came before me. They all loved Devaney.
There’s a lot of Devaney charm in Riley.
Devaney lived in a different world. Part of his appeal with the press was taking them out for dinner and drinks when they rolled into Lincoln. How many off-the-record press conferences were held at the old Legion Club on O Street? Too many to count.
Between Devaney and the late Don “Fox” Bryant, his social sidekick as sports information director, they packed an unstoppable one-two punch on national media from 1962-72.
Winning sells. But did the legend of Nebraska get engraved in college football lore in part because the press box image-makers loved Devaney? You better believe it.
I never would have thought the Devaney approach could work in today’s super-sized, all-comers media world, with more than 900 chaps from newspapers and websites and such stacked on top of one another looking for a quote.
But then I saw Riley work his magic Friday, taking the time to shake every hand, seeking out national media he knew from Oregon State. Everybody’s friend.
On the flip side, the everyman is a coaching mentor. The Big Ten coaches all paid their honest respect to the man. Harbaugh, who was Riley’s quarterback with the San Diego Chargers, called him “family.”
McMurphy said ESPN conducted a poll of 100 Division I coaches last fall. Of the “most underrated coach,” Riley came in second behind David Cutcliffe. For “the coach you would want your son to play for,” Riley finished sixth.
Relevant. Respected. Credible.
What does it mean? The media types can’t block or tackle — trust me.
But recruits and parents of recruits pay attention to the major players in college football media. Coaches can’t afford not to be media savvy.
In Riley’s case, he’s just being himself. And now he could be rewarded for being himself at Oregon State, when the world wasn’t watching.
There’s a saying: It doesn’t cost anything to be nice. And you never know who you might see again one day.
Will it win games? No. But if and when Riley wins and wins big? The trip back to the national spotlight for the Huskers will be an express elevator.
I could sense the headlines already being written.
“He’s such a nice man, but he’s sneaky tough,” said Wojciechowski, who went to Corvallis, Oregon, to do a long story on Riley.
“I’ve been in team meetings with him, and he commands their attention. He commands their respect. They really want to win for him. And now he’s at a place with all the tools. It will be fun to watch.
“You guys are lucky.”
I had to look around. He was talking to me.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1025,
tom.shatel@owh.com,
twitter
