George Allen was thinking about his Long Beach State quarterbacks.
Yes, that's THE George Allen, four-time NFL coach of the year with the Rams and Redskins, now 72 and preparing to make his Big West Conference coaching debut with the 49ers Saturday at Utah State at 1 p.m.Allen liked the potential of senior quarterback Bobby San Jose, who redshirted last year.
Allen also liked the leadership of another '89 redshirt quarterback, Todd Studer. "I told him he reminded me of Roman Gabriel," Allen said. Allen expected a blush from a flattered Studer.
"He said he never heard of Roman Gabriel."
George Allen sounds a little like George Burns here. Raspy voice. Humorous stories about the generation gap
between his quarterback of now and his Ram quarterback of 20 years ago.
He doesn't plan on any generation gaps in his coaching. "Age is just a number," he says. "I try to take an interest in each player. Talk with them, get to know them.
"I handle a young man the same way I handle an old man. You teach 'em, discipline 'em and motivate 'em. The big thing is to select the right person - people that want more out of life than watching TV and eating."
That's one of his long-range goals for Long Beach, to recruit freshmen who desire education as well as football. Almost the opposite of his "Over-the-Hill Gang" Redskins, built by trades for old players and sudden impact.
The challenge of rebuilding the 49ers with youth and stabilizing a foundering program that many write off as hopeless was just what Allen was looking for after six years away from coaching.
After a well-publicized return a year ago to the site of his first coaching position, Iowa's Morningside College, for fall two-a-days to help the current coaching staff nurse the team out of its 15-game losing streak, Allen began getting college coaching offers and longing to accept.
Most were from the East. Long Beach was 30 minutes from home in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif.
"I took the job because it was so difficult," Allen says. "Everyone said it was an impossible job."
His daughter, Jennifer, said, "Oh, no!"
"My wife said, `Take that job, and I'm going to start smoking,"' says Allen, a fitness devotee.
"A lot of people told me I ought to have my head examined," Allen says.
Instead, he examined Long Beach and found it needed more than just football players. It needed big money immediately to improve locker room facilities, playing field, water sprinklers, uniforms, equipment room - everything. "It adds up to treating the players with a little more respect," he says.
He wants players to feel first class. Long Beach chartered a plane to last week's 59-0 loss at Clemson, a game played because of a $250,000 guarantee to the 49ers' struggling finances. Long Beach also was to charter to Saturday's conference opener at Logan.
Allen signed on in December 1989 and spent most of the off-season campaigning for dollars. "I didn't realize in this stage of my life I was going to be a fundraiser," he says, "but that's part of turning the program around." It's been his biggest adjustment. "Trying to do too much, not delegating - it's my fault," he says. He spent 15- and 16-hour days shaking hands, doing banquets, tending to countless non-football tasks. Someone even asked him to fix their parking ticket.
And, oh, the interviews. He's a master, telling stories, personalizing each one. To a reporter from Las Vegas, he says, "Jerry Tarkanian just called me yesterday." Probably did, too.
To a reporter from Salt Lake City, he recalls being 25 or 26 on his first trip through Utah, moving from Morningside to California's Whittier College. "I stopped at the Great Salt Lake and got out of my car. I took a run as fast as I could and dove right in. You hit that water, you don't go under," he remembers. "It's like hitting a force of mercury."
His trip to Clemson was like that, one of the few experiences he wasn't prepared for. "I thought we could pull off an upset. I never go into a game not feeling that way," he said in the post-rout news conference.
Another reason he returned to coaching, he remembered, was that it was fun. "I'm kinda waiting for the fun," he admitted at Clemson.