FRED WHITTINGHAM WAS fired by the Oakland Raiders, and maybe it's just as well. During his 14 years as an NFL coach, he watched the deterioration of play and players in the pro ranks with a purist's disgust. In the end, he longed for the college game.
"I'm ready to coach guys who aren't making millions, guys who want to get better," he says. "Guys who are just playing for a scholarship and just love to play."When the Raiders made one of their regular coaching purges, Whittingham, the club's defensive coordinator, and his colleagues were offered jobs elsewhere in the organization. Whittingham asked to be released from his contract. What he really wanted to do, he told them, was return to the Utes as a volunteer coach. He'd coach free of charge.
As fate would have it, a spot opened up on the Ute staff and he was gladly given a paying job. He'll coach linebackers for the Utes, working under another guy named Whittingham - Kyle, his oldest son. For the time being, Fred's glad to leave behind the brats of the NFL.
"I'm fed up with a lot of them," he says. "The tackling is terrible. The technique is terrible. The work habits are terrible."
Whittingham finds this something of a sacrilege. He played middle linebacker in the NFL for nine years, during the '60s and '70s, the league's glory years. He played on the same fields as Butkus, Nitschke, Brown, Unitas, Sayers, Starr. It was a different game.
"People can't tackle anymore," he says again. Why, he is asked? "I don't think the love of the game is there. It's love of money. They don't want to get hurt. Not all of them, but I'd say the majority of them are that way. The game has changed."
This is galling to a man who loved the game so much that he played until he wore down the cartilage between his knees right down to the bone. Mad Dog, they called him, for his fierce and reckless play. He had his Achilles tendon rebuilt twice and his teeth replaced. He had his knees operated on a half-dozen times. Now he walks like a man who is stepping on broken glass. His body is such a wreck that he can do nothing so strenuous as racquetball and jogging.
"It's hard to explain," he once said. "I loved to play the game . . . I miss it."
He said this six years ago, shortly after he turned 50. If he could, Whittingham would step onto the field today and play for free. But he and players of his generation have passed the game onto a new generation they wouldn't understand. Today's players make millions of dollars; they'll be set for life when they retire. Whittingham's generation loved to play the game and laid the foundation for today's millionaires to make their millions, but they receive nothing from it financially.
So here Whittingham is, back at the university. When he left Utah three years ago, he told Ute athletic director Chris Hill, "Maybe I'll come back in a few years and work for Kyle." And so he has.
He never sold his house in Provo. He bought it some 25 years ago when he was coaching at BYU and never got around to selling it, despite leaving for two different coaching stints in the NFL. He always planned to return to Utah to be near his children and grandchildren, and he figured there would always be a team there he could coach.
Football is almost all Whitt-ing-ham has known since his wild and sometimes troubled youth. After retiring as a player, he stayed close to the game by becoming a coach. High school one year. BYU nine years. The Los Angeles Rams 10 years. Utah three years. The Raiders three years.
With the Raiders, he built one of the NFL's best defenses two years ago, but last year they were the league's worst. The coaches were fired, and Whittingham, the original man's man, is not about to complain.
"Last year, for some reason, a lot of players were inconsistent and got old in a hurry," he said. "And we didn't do a good job coach-ing. When you're in that position, you either do the job or you don't. If you don't, they'll relieve you, and that's fine. There are no ill feelings."
Whittingham, who hired Kyle as his secondary coach at Utah, built one of the finest defenses in the country at Utah before the Raiders called. When Whittingham left, Kyle was given his father's job and office. When the Fred returned to Utah last month, Kyle offered him his old office, but Fred refused. He took the one next door.
"We offered him whatever he wanted," says Kyle. Asked about being his father's boss, Kyle says, "I wouldn't say he's working for me; he's working with me. By no means do I view it in that light. He's the best teaching coach I've been around. It's not like we haven't been together before. This is not new to us."
Fred coached Kyle when he was a coach at BYU and Kyle was an all-conference middle linebacker. Fred later coached Kyle during his brief stay with the Rams. Then Kyle became one of his assistants at Utah. Now Fred is Kyle's assistant. The father-son combination seems to work. With the Whitt-ing-hams as coach and player, BYU led the Western Athletic Conference in every defensive statistical category one year. With the Whitt-ing-hams as coaches, the Utes did the same thing in 1994.
"It's a great situation," says Fred of his new job. "(Kyle) gets all the stress and decisionmaking, and I get a chance to teach and coach again. As defensive coordinator, you miss the interaction and teaching with the players."
Especially players who are more interested in tackles than contracts.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Fred Whittingham's career in football
Year Job, place
1957-58 Played for BYU
1960-62 Played for Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo
1963-65 Guard/def. end/linebacker, L.A. Rams
1966-67 Linebacker, Philadelphia Eagles
1968 Linebacker, New Orleans Saints
1969-70 Linebacker, Dallas Cowboys
1971 Linebacker, Philadelphia Eagles
1972 Head coach, Alhambra High School
1973-77 Linebacker coach, BYU
1978-81 Defensive coordinator, BYU
1982 Special teams/tight end coach, L.A. Rams
1983-90 Linebacker coach, L.A. Rams
1991 Scout, L.A. Rams
1992-94 Defensive coordinator, Univ. of Utah
1995 Linebacker coach, L.A. Raiders
1996-97 Defensive coordinator, Oakland Raiders
1998- Linebacker coach, Univ. of Utah