Derrick Odum had it made. He was 25 years old and had a good, high-paying job as a salesman for a Salt Lake pharmaceutical company. Just to get the job, he had to compete against 500 applicants. "Most people would die for that job," says Odum. But not Odum. He quit.
After two years, he traded his $40,000-a-year job for a $650-a-month position as a graduate assistant coach for the University of Utah football team. Odum, a former Ute defensive back, lives on savings and rents a room in a house, but mostly he lives at the office. In accepting the position at Utah, he gave up a company car, medical and dental benefits and a 401K plan."Call me stupid," says Odum.
Some observers have done just that. "You're not too bright of a guy," Ute coach Ron McBride told Odum, only half in jest. Most acquaintances concluded the same thing. "You're nuts," they told him.
What else do you call a guy who gives up a successful career for lower pay, longer hours and no guarantee that the sacrifice will lead to a full-time coaching position, which is in itself an unstable profession that offers modest pay for all but an elite few?
Graduate assistant coaches - or G.A.s, as they're known - are the coaching profession's version of medical interns. They are overworked, underpaid and anonymous, but that's usually the apprenticeship they must serve to break into the business.
G.A.s perform coaching duties 10 to 12 hours a day for what amounts to a scholarship. The NCAA requires that they not only be accepted into graduate school but that they make steady progress toward an advanced degree. In reality the degree is secondary (and often neglected) to practical experience and rubbing shoulders with coaches who could offer them future employment.
Odum is not the only one willing to gamble his future for such an opportunity. He shares a small office with Louis Wong, a tackle on BYU's 1984 national championship team who played two years in the NFL. Wong was a teacher for eight years before he reversed field. At 33 years old, with a wife and two children, he quit a teaching/coaching position at Alta High School last year to become a graduate assistant.
"Most people would say I was set in a career," says Wong. "But I always wanted to expand my education and learn more about coaching."
Wong and Odum perform regular assistant coaching duties and much of the so-called grunt work for the Utes. They tutor players (and chase them to class when necessary), attend staff meetings, assist with game plans, study opponents' film, help plan practice, attend position meetings, break down film, coach positions in practice and watch practice film. They also manage to squeeze in a class or two and their studies, although most G.A.s take light loads during the season.
Long hours and sacrifices notwithstanding, Odum and Wong are among the lucky ones. G.A. jobs are difficult to come by. Schools were once allowed to have five G.A.s and one volunteer assistant, with a limit of a two-year stay. Now there is a limit of two G.A.s and no volunteer assistants, and G.A.s can hold their positions for three years. As a result, not only are there fewer jobs, but there is less job turnover.
"How does a young guy get started now?" wonders Ute assistant coach Tim Davis. "It's impossible. The NCAA doesn't give enough young guys a chance."
BYU head coach LaVell Edwards agrees. "It makes it difficult to get started," he says. "It (a G.A.) is the best way to break into college coaching. Not many hire high school coaches anymore, which is what happened to me."
Wong tried and failed to land a G.A. position a few years ago. Odum had to wait a year to get a G.A. position, which is why he spent last season as a student assistant, performing the tedious task of breaking down opponents' game film into specialized segments for the coaches' viewing convenience - third-down plays, inside running plays, outside running plays, dropback passes, play-action passes. To do this means sifting through 80 plays a game and as many as 10 games.
"I slept in the office," says Odum. "I usually worked from 7 a.m. to 11 or 12 at night. Some nights I would just stay in the office and sleep on the couch, wake up and break down more film."
Ideally, an aspiring coach spends two or three years as a G.A. and then finds a full-time job. Failing that, the persistent ones take a G.A. position at another school for another two or three years. Not many are as fortunate as Ute defensive line coach Steve Kaufusi, who served only one year as a G.A. at Utah before a regular coaching job opened on the staff. Then there are the guys like Davis, who set a world record for persistence.
He worked as a student assistant for one year and a volunteer assistant for another year at Utah before he secured a G.A. position at Wisconsin. After serving a couple of years there as a G.A., he worked another year as an unpaid volunteer coach while holding down a side job and waiting for another coaching opportunity. He was literally loading a 180-pound side of beef onto a truck in a refrigerated building when he got a call from McBride asking him to be a graduate assistant at Arizona.
"I was gone before the phone hit the receiver," says Davis, who, like many G.A.s over the years, moved in with McBride and his family to save expenses. After six years as a volunteer assistant, a student assistant and a graduate assistant, he finally landed his first full-time job as an assistant at a junior college.
"That was six years of lost income, plus I took out a $25,000 loan to live on, which I just paid off," says Davis, 38. "I lived at the office. I slept on the couch. I lived and breathed football, but I had that kind of time to give. I had no family. I wonder how Louie does it."
This is how: Wong's wife works to support him and his two children. Last year he left his home at 6:30 a.m. and returned to his wife and children at 9 p.m. This year McBride allows him to arrive later so he can see his kids off to school.
"It's something you have to do to coach," says Wong. "It's hard on the kids and my wife, but it's for a short time. I hope the profession I choose will allow my wife to stay home. I have my teaching certificate to fall back on if things don't work out."
Wong says he was motivated by a desire to obtain a master's degree and to show the way for other Polynesians. For his part, Odum missed the passion.
"I just wasn't fired up to do my job every day," he says. "I hated it. I had nowhere to release my competitive instincts. The softball league wasn't getting it done. Now I'm fired up every day. It's so rewarding when you give a player an idea and it works."
Leave it to Davis, the king of G.A.s, to summarize. "The attraction of this," he says, "is winning and working with the kids and the football."