116 | Part 5: Coach Rip Scherer: Coach Dick Tomey's Legacy of Leadership and Resilience

This is Becoming Undone Saturday, November 27, 1999. Dick Tomies, 5 and 5 Wildcats, limp into Tempe to square off against Bruce Snyder's, equally disappointing 5 and 5 Sun Devil Squad. Arizona had entered the year ranked 3, 4 in the country, depending on which poll you looked at. While ASU had been ranked 25th. For the Wildcats, it had been almost the opposite experience from just the season before, where they entered the season unranked and finished 4th in 1998. But in 1999, they entered 3rd and finished unranked. My first year in Tucson in 1998 had been spectacular. As my new team, the Wildcats, went 12-1, won a hard fought holiday bowl against a favored, not to mention defending national champion, Nebraska team. That season had started in Hawaii, with a 101-yard Chris McAllister kickoff return for a touchdown, and ended in similarly thrilling fashion thanks to an incredible Brad Brennan grab late in that holiday bowl. The Wildcats hung on for victory, posting the best record, highest final ranking in school history to end that 98 season. While the team was a consensus top 5 heading into 99, the Cats were crushed to open the year at Penn State. With the football medical staff on the road to Happy Valley, the rest of us back in Tucson, we were stuck working. We were doing pre-participation physicals on the other student athletes, so we vowed to not catch any of the score updates during the game. We had decided that instead, we would DVR the game. We'll explain that one a bit, that's a post-VCR reference for the old timers among us, and it's sort of a build your own Netflix on demand kind of situation for those of you that are younger and have never heard of a DVR. Anyway, we recorded the game, that's the point. Once we wrapped up the physicals, we converged on head football athletic trainer Maggie LaCombra's house to hang out, eat together, and watch the game, celebrating our victory. Unfortunately for us, there wasn't much cause for celebrating. We got absolutely donkey stomped 41-7. The team never really seemed to recover, and we underperformed all year. When we finally got to the territorial cup, at 5-5, a bull berth was on the line. The winner would be going to Hawaii in December for the Aloha Bowl rivalry game, territorial cup on the line, winning season on the line, bull berth on the line, the stakes were high. They got even higher for me personally, when Maggie asked if my wife, Kristy, and I would be willing to go to Hawaii if the team won. Why yes Maggie, yes we very much would like to head to Hawaii for free for a trip to the bowl game at Christmas time. So while at this time I was actually assigned to gymnastics, that bowl game trip over Christmas was a potential reward from a mentor I cherished, and it was a seal of approval from her that I had valued deeply. All we had to do was win. The team seemed poised for victory. Maggie let me help out during that week of practice and worked the game in tempi too. It was Thanksgiving week, and I got to spend that whole week working alongside my friend and fellow GA Aaron Barnett, trying to help out as best I could. Football had been his assigned sport since we both arrived in Tucson in 98 while I worked gymnastics, and I was happy to get to see how his day to day differed from mine. Plus he's an absolute blast to be around, so we enjoyed a rare week working together. All we could practice it seemed like a foregone conclusion to me that we would win, of course we're gonna win. At walkthrough the night before at Sun Devil Stadium, Coach Tomy downplayed the Sun Devil's successes. After the normal walkthrough, jog around, get loose, feel the field kind of session, he whistled for everyone to join him near midfield and taken me. With all players looking on, staff looking on, he stood there silently. For what in my mind felt like minutes, just looking around at the signage in Sun Devil Stadium. Finally he broke the silence. This is the biggest damn myth in college football right here gentlemen, he said. It's a **** myth. So what if they played in an NFL stadium at least at the time? So what if they were featured prominently in movies like Jerry Maguire? I'm from Arizona Jerry, I broke Arizona records, I went to Arizona State, I'm a Sun Devil man. So what if they had played in two Rose Bowls to Arizona's zero? In the team's mind, we had a better team and the better record over the past two seasons. Of course we would head to Hawaii. All we had to do was win. That morning one of our undergrad athletic training student workers, Chris, had showed up for breakfast sick. He was pale, he couldn't eat. He was trying to tough it out, soldier on, he did what he needed to do and assisted with all the hotel typical pregame routine, as usual, the best he could. We headed to the stadium and continued and by kickoff, he looked like death warmed over. Our team doc, Dr. Porter gave him something to help calm his stomach, but a quick glance in his direction was all it took to see that he had some serious upper GI stuff going on and it looked like he was going to spew at any moment. It was a close game from the start, but I'll never forget that third quarter. The score was tight, 21-14 in favor of the scum devils. Our defense had held and ASU brought out their kicker on fourth down for a 45-yard field goal try. Special teams had always been a strength under coach Tommy, so I just knew we would block that low trajectory long distance kick, maybe take it to the house and knot it up. Unfortunately, ASU had other plans. Instead, ASU's holer sprang up and hit stud and future NFL tight end Todd Heap on a fake. Heap took it to the house for a 28-yard score. In disgust, I spun around after obviously surveying the field to make sure everybody was good, but I saw poor Chris doubled over the trash can on our sideline and that's if on cue seeing that heartbreaking trick play TD. Chris was involuntary letting loose of whatever remained in the unpleasant confines of his stomach in grandiose fashion in front of 60,000 plus fans and at the very least, one ESPN television camera. ASU went on to coast to a comfortable 42-27 victory and they punched their ticket to the Aloha Bowl in our stead. With it, my hopes of taking my bride to Hawaii for Christmas for free were dashed. After we packed everything up, we headed south to Tucson and Maggie treated the whole medical staff to dinner. At, appropriately enough, a place called Rock Bottom Restaurant. We went inside and ordered up dinner, but while we were waiting, ESPN was already showing the game highlights. We got to the fake field goal play and the ESPN anchor, whoever was, said, Heap goes in for the score on the fake. Check out the reaction from the Arizona bench. Sure enough, they panned to Chris, puking his guts out. Then they show ASU's other scores, with, you guessed it, a quick cutaway to Chris puking after each one. So no, we didn't get to go to Hawaii. But I can't say that I worked with at least one person who hated ASU so much. He actually hurled after they scored and after the lost ASU, we hit Rock Bottom. Sadly, I never did get to enjoy Bowl Week with the Wildcats or any other team for that matter. But I'll cherish the memories anyhow. It was a gut punch, literally in poor Chris's case. We built our hopes all week and watched them slip away in just a few crushing plays. Little did I know at the time that disappointment would feel all too familiar just a year later. It was like the program was stuck at some deja vu nightmare. Both teams five and five. Both teams needing a win to secure a winning season. Claim a Bowl birth. Sadly, Arizona losing in both times. We were so close to punching our ticket, it somehow always an arms length away. But there was one constant anchor through all that chaos. Winds, losses, heartbreak, sideline vomit, the Sun Devils. It was Coach Tomi. Watching him navigate that season. Those seasons was a study in resilience, grit, and oddly enough, love. I heard him repeatedly remind his team and his staff that no matter the outcome on the school board, it was the relationships and the lessons learned that shaped us the most. I think you could see it wearing on his face, especially in 2000. You could sense it in locker room. You could hear about it everywhere you went around town. Pressure. Pressure to perform. Pressure to live up to expectations. Pressure to follow up the best season in school history with another than another. In my heart, I know Coach Tomi was a competitor. He loved to win and his teams took on his persona. I guarantee you he much preferred the role he played in 98 as an unranked underdog starting the season, looking to shock the world and end up near the top. As opposed to 99, where I highly ranked favorite to start the season would slip and fall in an attempt to try to meet those expectations. The harder it gets, the better we play, he'd often say. And make no mistake, it got hard. But even now, decades later, that's why the learning leader in me keeps coming back to Coach Dick Tomi. His leadership and success or failure was steady. He didn't give up. He didn't surrender. He fought. Always fought for the team, the team, the team. If you stuck with me this long, I guess it's worth mentioning that I'm Toby Brooks. These days I wear a few different hats. Professor, speaker, podcaster. Back in the day in the late 90s and early 2000s, I was just a green, grad assistant athletic trainer at the University of Arizona. Little did I know I'd be part of Coach Dick Tomi's final season with Wildcats in 2000. You know, the numbers might give you a glimpse into Coach's career, but I don't think they ever really captured what made him special. You see, if you ask the people who played for him, Coach beside him, or even worked under him like I did, they'd tell you. He shaped them in ways that can be measured on a stat sheet. Coach always used to say football isn't complicated. People are. And he's right. Matter of fact, I'd argue that that's true of just about any line of work. Job straightforward. It's guiding the people that test you daily. If you ask me, nobody did it better than Coach Tomi. Sadly, we lost Coach Tomi to cancer in 2019, but lately I've found myself thinking about him more and more. And as I've grown in my own career, I keep wondering, how can I lead people the way he did? How can I serve people the way he served? How can I love people the way he loved? What was that secret sauce? How did he get people to buy in, follow him, carry his lessons forward in their own lives long after they hung up the pads or closed their office door for the last time? Because in the profession of college football, where wins and losses scream the loudest, Coach Dick Tomi stood out for something that reached far beyond the game. And it's far more enduring relationships. I think it's those questions that won't leave me alone. So I decided to do something about it. I started tracking out his former players, staff, his family, people who knew him best. Together, we've been unpacking the moments that defined him, the values he passed along, and the lasting mark he made on the game, and on everyone he led. We've traced his path through those early years in Indiana, his breakthrough at Hawaii, his run at Arizona, his return to the sidelines at San Jose State, and even his so-called retirement years, where he basically never stopped mentoring, coaching, loving people. It's been a journey of rediscovering a legend while learning how to become better leaders in our own right. So you're tuned in to becoming undone. And this, well, this is the life, lessons, and legacy of Coach Dick Tomi, the Toby Brooks passion project. Super excited about tonight's guest. Joining me is Coach Ripshere from his early days on Dick Tomi's first head coach staff at the University of Hawaii to Arizona. And he's gone on and done some great things. Ripshene et al. So, Coach, thanks and welcome to the show. Well, it's a pleasure to be here, Toby. As I said to you earlier, the chance to talk about Dick Tomi is a no-brainer. It's exciting for me. Yeah. Well, I'm really excited because you were there when he set foot on Hawaiian soil as a head coach for the first time in his career. You also crossed paths again in the U of A years. So we're going to dig into all of that. Let's start at the beginning, though. You were at Hawaii, part of Larry Price's staff, and this new guy comes in late 70s, and he brings a couple of folks with him. Talk to us a little bit about that transition and what it meant for you personally as a young coach. Well, interestingly enough, I was hired by Larry Price in February of 1977, Dick's first year. So I never coached a game with Larry Price. I was there. I was on a recruiting trip in, actually in Pittsburgh, which is my home, and I get a phone call that Larry resigned. And so obviously, it created a lot of turmoil in a lot of people's lives. I flew back. We didn't know who was going to get the job, who wasn't. You know, a lot of significant names were mentioned and interviewed. And I really didn't have any connection. I was an East Coast guy, and most of the guys who were being interviewed were West Coast guys like Dick. So my dad was a high school football coach for years in Pittsburgh and knew a guy by the name of Frank Gans, who was on the UCLA staff. So my dad reached out to Frank Gans on my behalf. And I knew Coach Gans because he had created an opportunity for me to be a GA at Oklahoma State. So I had some background with him. So he was able at least to get my name in front of Dick throughout this whole process. But I was hired as the offensive coordinator quarterback coach by Coach Price. And then obviously, as I said, that thing I'm Bravo. And Dick comes in and he told me, you know, you're not going to be the coordinator. I'm bringing a guy in Mike Flores to be the offensive coordinator. His term was more offensive organizer, but Miguel served as the offensive coordinator. And I became the running back coach and was in charge of the run game. And so, and Mike and I just hit it off. We worked seamlessly. We've been, we've been friends for 40, well since 1977, whatever that was. And we literally speak once a week to this day. So, you know, I was obviously on edge shelves. I mean, fortunately, we had no kids. My wife and I were there living in Hawaii. And Dick said he would evaluate us as the season went on. And, you know, so, you know, we hit the ground running. And it was a blur from the time he got there in late June, early July, I think we brought in 25 to 30% of the roster chain turned over. And that was before the days of obviously the transfer portal and everything else. So it was chaotic and trying to keep good players there. And Dick, because of his connections, significantly upgraded the personnel on the team. And he was a recruiting mastermind from that point on. So it was an interesting time frame. Yeah. And I pointed this out in the episode with Mike and mentioned a lot of staffs. First of all, you've been a part of these types of transitions on both ends. And knowing that a staff is partially staying behind and some new blood coming in, that's kind of a recipe for disaster for a lot of places. And it really takes a special leader to knit those together. Is there anything specific about Coach Tomi with the two folks he brought in and with the existing staff that he did to cement you together as a cohesive unit, as opposed to Larry's guys versus his guys? Well, just his aura and his personality, you know, he wasn't going to tolerate anything but cohesiveness and camaraderie and working together. And he made it known from the very get go. Actually, ironically, Bob Wagner was in the same situation I was in. He eventually became the head coach at the UH, as you know. But Bob and I were kind of the in-between new guys. But Dick just in our staff meetings was just constantly preaching team. His both Schenbeckler background came out and always talking about the team, the team, the team. And no individual, no coach, nobody was more important than the team. And so that became very obvious that if you weren't going to get on board with that, you weren't going to be around very long. And so, you know, Bob Burke came in and Mike and they were both good guys. They blended in. They didn't come in like, hey, we're the good guys now and you guys are the bad guys. And Dick treated everybody the same. And really, it was pretty seamless. I'm surprised we could get out of the huddle, you know, but we managed to put together a respectable year that first year. Yeah. And I've backpedaled a little bit. Like in episode one, I talked about how Coach Tommy wasn't known necessarily for signing five-star guys, but that was really more of a reflection of where he was. He wasn't at an Alabama. He wasn't at a Texas. He was recruiting teen guys who he could mold into what he wanted. And repeatedly, I've had several interviews where people talk about how he was the best recruiter that someone had been around. He could make connections in that human side. So I'm curious, your first few years there on the island, working with Hawaii, what did you take away from recruiting as a part of his staff? Well, recruiting was the lifeblood of the program. And Dick made sure that you were aware of that every day. We met on recruiting, some phase of recruiting every day. And most Thursdays, we would have an intensive recruiting meeting. We would do recruiting role playing and he'd walk in the recruiting meeting and just like out of the blue, go, okay, Rip, you're recruiting, Mike Flores here, Mike's a big time junior college prospect out of Dan Monica. And he has these offers and you, you know, and so you would then go through like you're meeting him at the school and you would start and at some point they could go, Hey, hey, no, no, we're not saying that. That's not the way we're going to phrase that. So Dick was really unique. I took meticulous notes in those recruiting meetings that I referred to literally 30 years later, I would go back drug before recruiting every year and look at my UH recruiting notes. You know, he was just big on, you want to be different. He was like, you would, he would not allow you to meet with a prospect in the coaches office, which is 99% of the time where you coaches would meet with prospects. But he would, he wanted you to take him someplace different, you know, and little tiny things like, Hey, walk me to your favorite place on your school campus. And then it might be sitting on top of the stadium at the top row and you'd sit up there and recruit and talk to the guy. And it wasn't, it, you know, it was all relationship based. Dick would be nuts in today's world of the NIO and you know, there's chase for many good coaches out because it was all relationship based and get to know the significant people in his life. And if the coach told me came in to visit that kid in the school later in the year, he might say to him, he took me where you met with coach here. Well, if he, and well, we made here in the coaches office, you were in trouble. And that happened to me one time, the kids said, well, I think we met and I go, no, no, no, remember, we met him because I didn't want to get chewed out in the road on the way out of the school. But it was just all about being different. Dick would walk into a home visit and as I heard Mike alluded to, but like literally plop down on the floor. Everybody's kind of finding a place on the couch in the chairs to sit and Dick would plop on the floor and start his talk, talking to never addressing the prospect initially. I mean, the mom, the dad, the little sister, petting the dog, you know, whatever it was, but kind of gaining the confidence of this family that I can entrust my son to this group of med and it's not about what they can do for him on the field. It's what they will do for him academically, personal growth wise, those types of things. Yeah, I think those are certainly valuable lessons. And so you leave UH and head to Virginia, Alabama, you got to make some other stops and then your path cross again and you head back to Arizona once coach told me heads that way. So talk me through how that transition came about. What was that conversation like when he called to talk to you about the job? Well, I so real quick, I went to Virginia and then while I was at Virginia after the first year, I actually got hired by Guy Mnemo Bo Rine, who took the head job in LSU. And I was with Bo for six weeks and Bo was killed in a plane crash, private plane crash. And I was not retained by the new head coach that came in and Dick told me on his own called Bill Curry, who just had gotten the head job at Georgia Tech. And then Dick calls me and says, Hey, I've talked to Bill Curry at Georgia Tech. He's looking to hire a quarterback coach. I think he wants to talk to you. So he connected, unbeknownst to me, I didn't ask him to do that, but he had met Bill Curry at the Pro Bowl in Hawaii back then. So I go to Georgia Tech for seven years with Bill, go to Alabama for one year. I was the coordinator of 32 years old. We went seven and five. And I was not the most popular guy in Tuscaloosa and Bill called me in after the end of the season. And he said, I have to sacrifice one to save the other eight. And you're the one they want. So I got let go and Dick was the first guy that called me. And he said, listen, I don't have a spot on my staff, but we're going to create a position here. So I literally went there is like the assistant AD in charge of football, overseeing football and being a conduit with the AD and the program. Good Lord. How awesome would it be to have a mentor like Dick tell me on your side? Let's recap what he'd done for Rip up to this point. First, he keeps him on staff at Hawaii after hiring in, even though Rip had been hired by the coach before Larry Price. Rip stays for a couple of years, then he leaves and spends some time at Virginia before taking a job at LSU. In less than two months into his job in Baton Rouge, the unthinkable happens. Rip's head coach, Bo Ryan, suddenly loses his life in a plane crash. Rip finds himself out of work. Before Rip can even begin his job search, coach, Tommy has already made calls on his behalf, ultimately paving the way for a job at Georgia Tech, where Rip and the whole staff do well. Well enough to go to Alabama, where Rip serves as coordinator for a season. But in Tuscaloosa, seven win seasons are things of nightmare. And said coach Bill Curry decides he has to fire Rip. Coach Tommy finds out and is on the phone again. This time he isn't trying to find Rip a landing spot somewhere else. He's actually creating a job where one didn't exist at Arizona. And a season later, he gets promoted to offensive coordinator. As a leader myself, I can't help but feel woefully and horribly inadequate at this recollection of events. Too often when I hear about former colleagues or students who find themselves between jobs, certainly think about them. I might even pray for them. On rare occasions, I might even text or DM them. Rare or still, I might call them. But especially when they've been released or fired, maybe for cause, I find myself not wanting to get too far involved and advocate for them. After all, what if I put my neck out for them and they mess up again? Then I look bad and my reference gets tarnished somehow. Think it's safe to say that even if that thought had crossed his mind, Dick told me flat out didn't care. His other's first philosophy meant he was going to do all he could to help you, even if it meant him calling in a favor, putting his reputation on the line. But here's the thing. People know you love them and that you've done that. More often than not, they rise to the challenge. That's what ripped it. And it led him to even greater opportunities in the future. And then I sat in all the meetings. I went to training camp. I learned the offense and would sit in the press box during games and help out a little bit with the coordinator. And at the end of the season, Dick decided to make a change of what we were doing offensively. We were very much a option team and he wanted to be incorporate more of a passing game into that. So he, uh, he may be the coordinator and I was there for two more seasons as a coordinator. We actually rented the house in Tucson because I didn't know how long I would be there. And then sure enough, we finally bought a house, moved in in June. And at the end of that season, I got the head job at JMU again through Dick's calling the president and the AD on my behalf, Dick and Joe Paturio actually were the two big drivers behind that. You know, I, so, you know, it just, it, it, it was a, it was a great experience. I was at the beginning of the deserts form era. All those guys were recruited as I was leaving, but you could see it building in that direction and you could see where it was heading and what he built there. I love the selflessness illustrated there. You're not even a member of his staff and he's calling and advocating for you for jobs. And then you are a member of his staff and he's advocating for you for head positions, recognizing that he's not gaining anything out of it. If anything, it's making life harder for him because things are rolling and now he's having to fill holes in his staff. Dick was the most selfless guy. We would have staff retreats at the U of A and we would have alums give us houses, big houses up in Mount Lemmon. It's the, you're familiar with that area, I know, but it was amazing because Dick would put the graduate assistants in the master bedrooms, in the biggest bedrooms, in the nicest rooms. And so further up you were on the, on the, on the structure, the lesser your quarters were. I mean, Dick would sleep on the couch. What? Dick would sleep on the couch and he had GA's staying in the master bedrooms. He was unbelievable like that. We went on a recruiting trip. We were recruiting a quarterback in Florida. He and I were in Fort Lauderdale and we get to the hotel and with Dick, you'd, you'd, like, you didn't get two separate rooms. You stayed in the same room with Dick. So I was an old school guy and I'm, I, that time you had to call and get an iron and I'm ironing my shirt and I'm getting my sport coat ready and Dick's sitting there in the bed and he had rolled his sport coat up like a towel and just kind of shook it out and he, he said, you know, there's a quarterback to end up going to Notre Dame and he said, you know, you, we haven't met this guy yet. He goes, I said, no, he goes, you know, you're going to look a lot more like a head coach than I am. He goes, why don't we tell him you're the head coach? If I said, no, Dick, you know, tongue in cheek, but he was self deprecating, you know, but the flip side of it was he was as intense and competitive as you could ever imagine. Yeah. I think that's what's come out in so many of these interviews is he is really a study in extremes that on paper don't really match. How can you be such a fierce competitor and expect so much out of people, but yeah, be so beloved by them. Ordinarily, that's a tyrant, right? That's a person no one wants to play for. That wasn't him at all. It was just the opposite. This is a guy that people would go to war for and would do anything for because they knew he cared so much. Well, the adage of they don't care what you know until they know that you care. Something I learned from my dad actually, but Dick carried that all the time. And his first, our first game at UH as a staff, I think was against Colorado State and Mike and I were both in the press box and Mike Flores and Mike was basically calling the passing game and I would call the run game and Dick was Dick was the best guy to work for except on Saturdays. Saturday, he literally, when I was in Arizona, he would get on the phone before the game and go, Hey guys, I apologize for what I'm going to say in the next three and a half hours. And I've hardly, you know, I've only been with the guy like six weeks and we're in this game and he's questioning every colleague. Why are we calling that? Why do we do that? That's not only May two years and I find I lost it. I go, Would you shut the hell up? And then Mike and I look at each other and I go, Oh, shit, I'm done. You know, I'm done. My career is over. And Dick goes, he calls the manager over and goes, Hey, take this headset. I'm screwing those guys up upstairs. He took the headset off and walked away. And after the game, we didn't win. I don't believe I think we lost, but I was sheepishly walking into the locker room and Dick's like, Hey guys, you know, and he would make, he would capture a moment. He goes, you weren't the coach's locker room. He goes, Hey, you know, I'm bonding those guys upstairs and you know, I don't know. And then Rick just tells me to shut the hell up. And you know what, he told me exactly what he thought and I needed to do that. And I was like, Oh my God, I thought I was going to get ripped fired, whatever. So, you know, he was unique and he and I would get into it at Arizona. I was a little bit more established and we would get into it on game day, like two little kids arguing, you know, and, and he never held it against us. He never held it against you. Right. Well, I think that's another thing that's come up is there's a personality behind it. He's not just looking for getting the W at any cost. He's looking to build relationships, pour into people beyond the X's and O's. What personal or professional lessons do you feel like you walk away from coach told me having learned? Well, the, you use the term and I, it's said so much as it replies to Dick, but it's, it is relationship. It's relationship based. He didn't just know your wife's name. He knew her background. He knew her interest. You'd go over their house on recruiting weekends. We didn't take the prospects out to extravagant breakfast. We had breakfast on Sunday morning, the last morning of recruiting weekend at Dick's house and the wives would all come and they would make breakfast. It wasn't like it was catered. They were making scramble in the age, cooking the bacon, doing the toast, but he would sit there and, you know, after all the prospects had cleared out, sit there with your wife and just say, you know, how you doing? I mean, how's your job going? Oh, I mean, just take a really personal interest in your kids. He wanted them around. From the time I worked with Dick and then I became a head coach for 10 years, his, his schedule is something that I adopted all the time. And then I, I got other coaches to adopt it that I worked for. We came in early. Dick's philosophy was, Hey, you're wanting time at home. The kids get ready for school. Everybody's getting ready for, it's, it's not quality time. So we're going to come in here at six o'clock and we're going to start, but you're going to be home by dinner time. So in the evening, you can be with your kids and he was adamant about that. He would chase you out, get out of here. You know, we're going to be in here at six. You can't stay in here until midnight and expect to be productive tomorrow morning at six. So get home, get with your family. And I, I carried that through in every one of my head coaching positions and some where I, where I had some influence or say with the head coach to convince him to do things like that. It was all based on relationship, family, caring about Pete. And I think beyond that, he isn't just a relationships person. He also is a, as a leader and a cultivator of leaders. And that's kind of a signal of a great leader is how many leaders do you produce? So the fact that you go from your position at Arizona to a head coaching job at JMU and then eventually Memphis, talk to me about that transition to head coaching for you and what role maybe coach Tomi played as you made the jump. Coach Brent Brennan was on earlier and he said, you know, they don't make a manual for this thing as a head coach, but having coach Tomi there was a critical part of his success. The first day in my office at JMU after most of the day and, you know, just, it was a turnstile with people coming in the door and wanting to see you and you had this and academics and I called Dick and I said, hey, Dick, same thing, Brent said, I said, I'm been looking all over for the manual in this desk. There's no manual. He figured it out on your own. You'll, you'll, you'll do fine. Just go with your gut. And those first months, and he was so patient and you could call him anytime, you know, and he just would guide me through things, but not tell me what to do. But okay, think about this. Think about this. That, you know, he'd give you a different perspective on it and you'd walk away with a much clearer idea of what I need to do now, you know, what I have to do and or what should be done. I'll give you an interesting story too, because he was an early morning guy and Dick was like, all the time, like if he wants you to talk to ask something from a high school coach or something and you'd come in the next morning, go coach, I call him and he goes, well, did you try him at six o'clock in the morning at home? And I go, no, or we would go no. But when I went for my second interview at Memphis and I was sitting down with the president and somehow I, Dick's name came up and he goes, well, I want you to know, Dick told me really, thanks to the world of you. And I go, yeah, he's been great for me. He goes, yeah, he called me at six o'clock in the morning to tell me about you. I cooked and I said, okay, that makes sense. He knew you were going to be home. I love that. People are free at that time, generally speaking. So you can't argue the logic, right? So you have had a, a, a storied career, NFL head coach and collegiate ranks, professional, otherwise. So talk me through how you've seen coach Tommy's coaching impact kind of bubbled to the surface in all your various roles, whether it's as a head coach or in assistant roles. Dick was a defense, he coached on both sides of the ball, but he was a defense first guy. And he was, you know, you win by not turning the ball over. You win with the run game and you win with defense, you know, number one and special teams. And so I, I became fanatical about ball security as an offensive coach. I wanted to make sure we played great defense, you know, you can win a lot of games if you can hold them down, but Dick didn't want to be just like any other offense either. So that's why when he went to Arizona, actually I was at Georgia Tech heading down to Alabama. He was at Hawaii heading to Arizona and he called me and he offered me the coordinator's job at Arizona initially. And I go coach, I mean, I got a chance to go to Alabama, you know, and he didn't take anything against him about that and didn't stick. And he goes, the only thing he said to me is, are you sure? And he knew the climate in Alabama. And I was an outsider and sure enough a year later, you know, he's bailing me out. But I think his style of coaching philosophically in today's game would still be current because you would play great defense, you would be different on offense. He didn't want to do line up back in that day, just line up in the I formation and run toss sweep and run. We had to be creative and innovative and use formations and motions and shifts. And then when he went to Arizona, he started incorporating that the option offense and Ben Griffith was the offensive coordinator and it was the flex bone type of things because his thought was they can't defend that in the pack 12, pack 10 or pack eight at that time, whatever it was, because they don't see it. So I would say in today's climate, he would be the same with special teams and offense. And the other thing that I learned from him as a head coach and I took with me is special teams is an offensive, it's an offensive weapon. You don't just kick the ball and cover you, you find ways to get an extra possession. You have an onside kicks, you have fake punts, you have fake field goals and not just have them, but use them and call them. And the other thing I learned from him as a head coach is it's easy to have those things, but when it comes time to call them in a game, you start getting a little tight and you go, oh, you talk yourself out of it. So what he would do, and I learned this from him and I would do this with my teams, he would say, hey, listen, second time we kick off, we're using this fake onside kick. So now here you are, you can't back down. We're kicking off the second time the players are going coach, you said we're going to go onside kick and we did. And most of the time we were successful, but you put it out there, we're going to fake the punts. The second time we punt, we're faking this. So the first time we kick a field goal, we're doing this fit. I mean, you put it out there, the players, you've got to stick with it. Yeah. I will never forget it was probably the first practice I ever covered. And we had a freshman tailback and he was just kind of, you know, kind of lollagagging with the ball in his hand. And one of our DBs or linebacker, somebody knocks it out and recovers it. And the defense goes insane. Like this is before practice has even started, first practice. And, you know, the tailbacks like what just happened? Well, that was a thing that happened all season, ball hawks. And if the offensive player turned it over, he had to do up downs and the defense celebrated. And I've not been around a team before or since that so celebrated a defensive takeaway for offense securing the ball. Because likewise, if a defender tried to rip the ball out and the running back would hold it tight, the offense would celebrate that they didn't turn it over. And it was just a cultural thing that that one possession could make the difference between a win and a loss. And that was, that was from minute zero of our season. It's a deep cultural thing with him and highly ingrained in me. I'm right now, I'm working as an analyst at UAB with Trent Dilfer, who I coached at the Browns years ago. And, you know, we, we had to in front of the staff just kind of give our opinions of where we need. And I said, listen, I know you guys all think we teach ball security. We're not anywhere close. I mean, we have to be maniacal, fanatic, because that's what Dick was. I mean, if you had the ball in your hand, doesn't matter if you were in a rep or just standing there, it had to be held high and tight, tight to your, and either it was in your hand like that, or you gave it to the manager. But if you, you couldn't just stand there with a ball in your hand. And it just creates an awareness throughout the team. And that's why Dick's teams were so good, taken the ball away, but so good not turning the roll. I've seen undergraduate student managers who would secure the ball because they knew that the defense was going to try to strip it out. Fight. And if somebody threw me a ball, I'd be sitting there like this. I don't even want to get yelled at. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, looking back, how do you think Coach Tomi's coaching style and philosophy has impacted the broader football community? We kind of alluded to this, but what's his lasting legacy on the game of football? I think it's the fact. I think when Dick first started out in Hawaii, before the success followed his philosophy, he was kind of a little bit of an outlier. Everybody's there's a little quirky. He's, he wasn't afraid to express his opinions about things like that. But the more success he had, is he built the UH program and then went to U of A and then that success started. He became, I believe, one of the more highly respected coaches in the business. And it was people started to see the value of, this is, this is more than just football. This is relationship based. And going back to what I said earlier, if they know that you care about them and you spend time getting to know their family and getting to know their, you know, what makes them tick and know what they're doing academically, they're going to play better for you and play harder and give you just a little bit more and give you a little bit of an edge. And I think that those of us that worked with him or for him and those that got to know him in the coaching community saw the value in that. Did, hey, this guy's a little bit out there with this stuff, but look at the results he's given. Dick would not in today's world, there would be, you know, I'm sure there would be players leaving his team, transferring in the trip, but not, not very many because that relationship, whether it can offset some of the big NIL money, I'm not sure, but that relationship based thinking was so strong. But kept it even the bottom of the roster, they felt engaged, they felt part of it. You know, they were important. They had, they had a voice, you know, and he wanted players to have an open relationship with their coaches. Come in here and tell, you tell your coach what you're thinking, you know, tell him exactly what you're thinking. He's going to tell you what, he's going to be honest with you, but you'll be honest with him and that honesty and that credibility that you built with your players, I think it went, eons, it created such an impact on the field, on game day, on the practice field that had a lot to do with coach's success. Yeah. So I was at Texas Tech for a while and I've seen, interestingly, some parallels between Mike Leach and Coach Tomy and that they weren't at the, the most heavily resourced school in their conference. So they had to do things differently. They had to recruit differently and switch things up. And also with both of them, they're right at the cusp. They're just shy of that 600 winning percentage to make it into the college football, a fame. But if you look at the schools that Coach Tomy took over and what he inherited, it really seems unfair that he isn't eligible because he's out of San Jose State or out of UH or even in Arizona, where maybe the tradition isn't, the expectation isn't when nine, 10 games a year, it's get bowl eligible and we've had a good year. What are your thoughts on, on the, the fact that Coach Tomy's career falls short of college football hall fame status? I think he's in my whole fame. I think that it's, it's a great injustice because as you said, what he has taken over when he took over at the U of A, when he took over at the UH was a mess. I think we went five and six that first year. We didn't have a chance. People wouldn't give us a chance to win a game. San Jose, when, you know, they were way down before Dick got him turned around and obviously Brent and John followed, you know, years later. But I think it's an injustice. You know, it should, it should, there should be consideration for some, some subjectivity of, you know, where was this? What were the circumstances? Because he's truly, to me, one of the very best coaches that ever put a whistle around his neck. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I appreciate your time. I've got one last one here as we wrap up. If you had a chance to sit down with Coach Tomy today and have one last conversation with him, what would you say and why? First of all, I'd say thank you. Um, get emotional here. Um, Dick, you know, I was fortunate. I started my coaching career on Penn State with Coach Paterno, who I knew since I was five years old. Uh, good friend of my dad's, uh, Bill Curry, amazing guy. But Dick probably had the single biggest impact on my career of all those guys. Collectively, they did too. In terms of the things that I learned from him, uh, about just being a head coach, building the program, being a coach, not even a head coach, being a coach, developing players, developing relationships, building a staff, developing a staff. Um, it's, but when I say thank you, my career would not be anywhere near it was, if it weren't for Dick. I mean, he, he kept me on at the UH when he didn't have to. I mean, maybe he had to. After our first year, I was literally riding with him to go see a recruit, Keith IU and played at Kamehameha High School, big time prospect in the island. And, uh, we, we got it and, uh, it was a big, big thing. And, and we're riding to go see him right before the signing date. He said, you know, what are you going to show? Are you going to look at buying anything? And I, I was like, well, coach, I don't even know if I'm going to be here next year. You know, because we were on like a probationary staff. And he goes, Oh yeah, yeah, you're fine. You're, you're part of the permanent staff. And I, I wish at some point you would have told me this. But he, uh, you know, at every turn, every opportunity I had, there is some way, shape, or form it connected back to that. It might be three or four layers down, but it connected, but he'd bailed me out at Hawaii. He'd bailed me out and I got fired at Alabama. You know, I heard you talk about his last season in 2000. I got fired at Memphis the week before he was fired. And my son, I took my son who was about, gosh, I guess Scott was maybe a sophomore freshman college. And I said, listen, we're, we're going to Dick's. I had talked to Dick. He called me right after I got fired. And he said, listen, I'm probably right behind you. So I booked the flight. It was a Thanksgiving weekend. We flew in Tucson Friday. You know, sat, we're on the sidelines of the game for Dick's last game. I wanted to be there. It was important to me to be there. Why they ever made that move. I don't know. But, uh, and then we went over to the house afterwards and shared stories and laugh and whatever. This right here is one of those, I can't believe the world is so small moments. You might remember as I shared in previous episodes and this one as well, 2000 was my last season with the Wildcats. A year that started with so much promise. We were five and one after the first six games. Then like fate had other plans, we couldn't catch another win. Injuries, timing, bad bounces, whatever it was, it just wasn't in the cards. So for the second year in a row, we only needed one more victory. And for the second year in a row, we needed it against our rival Arizona state to salvage that winning record, punch a ticket to a bowl game, most likely in Hawaii of all places. But on November 24th, 2000, the day after Thanksgiving, we lost the Sun Devils 30 to 17 in front of 54,297 subdued fans at Arizona Stadium. We'd heard all the rumblings by then. Big money boosters and nameless faceless keyboard cowboys were convinced that Arizona football, a program coach told me had pretty much built with his own hands, deserved quote, better than him. But honestly, numbers don't really back that up. Let's put it in perspective. Before Dick told me 1899 to 1986, Wildcats all time record was basically okay. There were some rough patches, a lot of so so years, only a few truly great ones. By the conclusion of 86, Arizona had something like 490 plus wins, around 340 losses, a few dozen ties mixed in, working out to a winning percentage somewhere around 575. In the Dick Tellme era from 1987 to 2000, the team went 95, 64 and four were about 59.5%. Now that's slightly above the historical average for sure. But look at the highlights. First ever share of the Pac-10 title in 93, a preseason number one ranking in the cover of Sports Illustrated in 94, and then the magic of that 12-1 season in 98, finishing fourth in the nation for the Holiday Bowl victory over the Fending National Champion Nebraska. Summon it up consistently solid with flashes of absolute greatness, all at a fraction of the investment some of the other schools in the Pac-10 had. Since then from 2001 to present, unfortunately our Wildcats have limped along to something like 113 and 150, or a 430 winning percentage, far from what those naysayers expected when they were calling for the change. So going into that final showdown in 2000, I could tell you exactly how I felt. I prayed we'd win. I wanted to go to Hawaii for Christmas. I wanted us to salvage a winning season, but mostly I wanted another shot. I knew just how tantalizingly close we'd been to another great year, and I was sure if we had to do over everything would be different. Most of all, I wanted Coach Tomi to stay and for the team, my second family, to stick together. I don't remember a whole lot about the game itself. It's kind of like time has blotted much of that pain out of my mind. I do remember reality setting in in the third quarter that this might just not happen, but I'll never forget that locker room afterward. It was somber, heavy, crushing. I had a whole another year to go in my PhD program, but the moment I heard Coach Tomi wouldn't be back a couple of days later, I knew my time in Tucson was over. I didn't interact with him every day, but I knew enough. The culture of Arizona football would never be the same. Back to today though. Now, 25 years later, I find out my guest today, Rip Shear, was on that same sideline, probably just a few feet away from me at times while I worked, and he watched. I never even realized it. How wild is that? No one made a fuss about it. It's business as usual. Let's go get one more. And here we are, decades later, connecting over Zoom, reminiscing about Coach and that pivotal moment in time. You know, anybody can be in charge for a while, applying people can boss you around, but true servant leaders, the ones who can make you drop everything just to stand by them even years after you've parted ways. Those are rare. Rip new Coach Tomi needed him that day. In truth, be told, Rip had just been fired and he needed Coach Tomi that day. So he showed up in Tucson and that to me tells me everything you need to know about the power of real leadership. But I owe him, you know, I've been in this business now going on 51 years, and I've had six, you know, I've been blessed to be at three NFL teams and about 15 major colleges, and none of that would have been this case if it hadn't been for Dip Tomi in my life, in my career. Yeah. In terms of what I learned from him and then how he would try to help me advance my career by calling people and getting in touch with people. Yeah, awesome. Well, Coach, thank you so much for your time. I really do appreciate the insights. I know Coach Tomi meant so much to so many, and it's been a real pleasure to connect with people that I didn't even know about before. I had a list of people I knew I wanted to talk to, and then Mike comes out of the woodwork and he suggests you. So it just shows me that his reach, I knew it was extensive before, but it extends, you know, decades and generations, and it really was tremendous the impact that he could have on people. You don't have enough podcasts available. You should get everybody on that would want to talk to you about Dip Tomi. I was, when Mike was going on, he said, hey, I'm going to give Toby your information. And then when you reached out to me almost the next day, I was so, I said, to talk about Dick Tomi, it's, you know, just, it's so easy and I owe him so much. So yes, thank you. Thank you for including me. Well, thank you. My name is Rip Shearer, and I've had the pleasure of being on Becoming Un-Done. Here in Coach Shearer, take us behind the scenes with Dick Tomi. Felt like unlocking a whole new level of insight into the man. Sure, we all know about Coach's intensity and his knack for finding diamonds in the rough, but Rip really made it clear just how relentless and selfless Coach Tomi was when he came to supporting others. Couldn't help but smile at the stories about Dick sleeping on the couch so a grad assistant could have the best room with those famous 6 a.m. phone calls he'd make to help someone land a new gig. To me, that's the essence of true leadership. Doing whatever it takes to lift people up, even when it doesn't directly benefit you. And the best part? Rip's story is reinforced that family wasn't just a buzzword for Coach Tomi. It was the heartbeat of the whole program. Beyond the X's and O's, what strikes me most is how much Coach Tomi believed in relationships as the foundation for success. He didn't just preach it. He lived it every day. Whether he was talking to a recruit in the top row of a high school stadium, or inviting staff and families over for a homemade breakfast on a Sunday morning, it's that genuine human connection that got even the bottom of the roster guys to buy in at 110%. And it made coaches like Rip come running back to his side whenever life threw them a curveball. If you ask me, that legacy is way bigger than any win-loss record. It's a reminder that when you care deeply about people, when you get to know them as more than just cogs in a machine, you can build a culture that endures long after the final whistle. That's the kind of leadership we could all use a little bit more of on or off the field. Thank you to Coach Shear for dropping in, and I hope you enjoyed our conversation. For more info on today's episode, be sure to check it out on the web. Simply go to undunpodcast.com backslash EP 116 to see the notes, links and images related to today's guest, Coach Rip Shear. Coming up next week, you will not want to miss my conversation with Coach Dino Babers, who played for Tomi in Hawaii before serving as a GA and an assistant later in his career. He'd eventually go on to become head coach at Eastern Illinois, Bowling Green and Syracuse, adding to that Coach Tomi coaching tree. I promise he's got some fantastic stories to tell. After that, we'll hear from walk on turned NFL coach Dave Fipp, Special Teams coach of the Detroit Lions, about what it was like to play and serve under coach. So stick with me, we're seriously still just getting started. This and more on Becoming Undone, the life, lessons and legacy of Dick Tomi, a Toby Brooks passion project. Becoming Undone is a nitri-hop creative production written and produced by me, Toby Brooks. Tell a friend about the show and follow along on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn Becoming Undone pod and follow me at Toby J Brooks on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Check out my link tree at linkedr.ee backslash Toby J Brooks. Listen, subscribe and leave me a review at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio or wherever you get your podcasts. You know, podcasting isn't easy. Sometimes it's hard and harder it gets. Hopefully the better I play. Till next time everybody, keep getting better.