Mrs. Coach: Life in Major College Football

By Kathy Kronick

Mrs. Coach is a true story about the life of a college football coach and his family. The excitement of meeting celebrities, dealing with the media, and the highs and lows of winning and losing, are all covered in this book. If you have ever played any sport, attended any games, or realized the hardships of frequent moving to a new home, you will enjoy the drama and the humor contained in Mrs. Coach. Every avenue of the college athletic world is covered in this cant put it down book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 2, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462856503

Kathy Kronick

Kathy (Currey) Kronick spent a total of fourteen years as a coach’s wife at Stanford, Long Beach State, Cincinnati, and UCLA. At all of these universities she played a vital role in their football programs, where she witnessed and experienced their inner workings.Kronick holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Deaf Education and a Master’s degree of Science in Counseling. She taught the Deaf for twenty two years in schools throughout the United States. In 2003, Kronick was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. She spends much of her time raising funds for research and providing public awareness about the disease. Kronick enjoys speaking engagements, that she delivers with a touch of comedy. She resides in Huntington Beach, California, with her husband Craig Kronick.

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Copyright © 2011 by Kathy (Currey) Kronick.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011906702

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4628-5649-7

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4628-5648-0

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4628-5650-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

96137

Contents

CHAPTER I: My Personal Playbook

CHAPTER II: Stanford University Cardinal

CHAPTER III: Long Beach 49ers

CHAPTER IV: Cincinnati Bearcats

CHAPTER V: UCLA Bruins

CHAPTER VI: The Final Score

CONCLUSION

This book is dedicated to the memory of Ron Settles and his family.

They were an example of true courage.

On April 26, 2011, my dear friend from Stanford University, passed away after a courageous battle with Pancreatic cancer. Gale Bunnell was a tribute to all that is great on earth.

Dear Readers,

I am sure there was a time that you were told, You should write a book. Whenever I told the stories of my life as a major college football coach’s wife, people wanted to hear more. I think we find certain lives interesting and would like to know what goes on behind those scenes.

My experiences were exciting, frustrating, glorious, and sad. Not every coach has the same experiences—some, a very few, stay at their posts for years, some win consistently, and some are able to include their families in their daily schedule. This was not the norm in my experience. I hope, over the years, the time away from family has lessened and family time has become more acceptable within the ranks.

Not every wife saw the world of football as I did, of course. I am sharing my stories as they affected my life and the life of my family. My wish is that the reader comes away from this book with an insight into the dimensions of college football. I hope it provides an insider’s view of all the emotions felt by those of us who were vital to the life of the game. It is my intention to help you see the game through the eyes of the coach, the player, the players’ parents, the wife, the children, and the fans.

Please enjoy,

Mrs. Coach

Mrs. Coach’s Years of Service

            Stanford University—Cardina                       1974–1977

            Long Beach State University—49ers            1977–1983

            Cincinnati—Bearcats                                     1983–1988

            UCLA—Bruins                                              1988–1989

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My heart felt thanks to my loving husband, Craig, who supported me throughout my many hours devoted to the writing of Mrs.Coach.

Thanks too, to my friends for their assistance and encouragement, Carol Fingerhut, Cindy Norr, Sally Otterson and Dee White.

CHAPTER I

My Personal Playbook

My body was frozen. I couldn’t feel my toes, and my ears were so cold they burned. A Minnesota girl didn’t wear a hat on a date in the winter. This guy was handsome, and we were in a University of Minnesota fraternity house. This was big time, a major college football game. We walked a few blocks to the stadium. I tried to keep smiling and hoped the wind wouldn’t blow my hair-sprayed-1970s flip out of place.

I had been a cheerleader in high school. My parents went to all the local high school games in our town of fourteen thousand. We supported our teams and would ask the coach what the chances were of our beating Moorhead that year. Every team has a big game and Moorhead was ours.

We would check the newspapers every morning to see if the Minnesota Gophers had won or lost. We never traveled to a game. They tended to lose more than win. Besides, they were a good two-and-a-half-hour drive from my hometown of Detroit Lakes. Loyalty to our university required us to at least check the sports page and hope they had won.

Like many Minnesotans, my family lived, breathed, and died for the Vikings. Hey, we had ten thousand lakes, millions of fish, tons of snow, and Vikings football. (Oh yes, the Twins.) But the Vikings were one of the states’ biggest claims to fame. They did especially well when Bud Grant was the head coach.

No one complained about the weather during a football game. We were proud to be shown on TV withstanding our subzero temperatures wearing layers of L. L. Bean clothing. We were mostly Germans, Norwegians, and Swedes.

I don’t remember much about the university game that afternoon or even who we played. I just kept trying to look good while I was freezing to death. One moment at halftime would become forever emblazoned on my mind. I was standing up trying to move my arms and legs and keep my circulation going when I was hit in the face with a huge mass of fabric. It was a stuffed image of the coach, Murray Warmath. It was tossed around the stadium bleachers with people booing and jeering. A group of students carried it to the fifty-yard line and set it on fire.

The team was on the sideline so I figured the coach couldn’t help but see it. I wondered if his wife and children were watching too.

The poor man, I thought. I didn’t know him. I had never met him. I just felt sorry for him. Having touched the image, I felt like a member of a lynching mob. I was sure that coach wanted to win more than any of those students.

How barbaric it was!

Little did I know that my future was to hold many more stadiums and fan reactions. I was only twenty. I was worried about my hair and was just trying to keep smiling in that subzero weather.

The summers and winters passed as I studied my way through college. I didn’t attend any of my school’s football or basketball games.

One year, my roommate in the sorority house was Kathy Grant, the daughter of Bud Grant. We met at Camp Courage in Maple Lake, Minnesota. It was a camp for the orthopedically handicapped and for the deaf and hard of hearing.

Kathy invited me to their home for a weekend. When I phoned to let my parents know where I would be, my father wanted to send along a list of questions to ask the coach. He couldn’t believe I had that opportunity.

The Grants ate dinner in a large dining room with the coach at the head. There were six children in the Grant family. Coach Grant was a big man with amazing eyes. They twinkled and reminded me of Paul Newman’s eyes. He also had a little grin that if you looked hard enough, you could see it every now and then. I tried not to stare too much.

Coach Grant was well known for his love of the outdoors and his passion for hunting. Their home was on a large piece of wooded land. There were some occasional animal visitors and a few cages for pets outside.

The first night at the Grant’s home, I was awakened and startled by an animal. Coach Grant had put a raccoon in my sleeping bag. I screamed and looked up. I saw the coach heading down the hallway. He stopped to look back at me. There was that grin and those eyes, twinkling, happy, and enjoying the moment.

Kathy looked up and acted as though nothing unusual had happened. Evidently, this went on whenever they brought friends over.

That year, 1969, we watched the Super Bowl on TV at the sorority house. I sat next to Kathy Grant and watched the Vikings play Kansas City Chiefs. I sure was proud to be watching it on TV with her. The head coaches wore live mics on the sidelines. Hank Stram was the opposing coach. He looked like a wild, angry, uncontrollable man next to the tall more together Grant, who was a picture of silent strength.

Unfortunately, the Vikings lost. Kathy didn’t talk much about football. She took it all in stride. She didn’t walk around like the daughter of someone famous. She had to listen to the remarks, after a loss as well as after a win, and handled it all with dignity.

Kathy Grant and I graduated with Bachelor of Science degrees in deaf education. I was older than Kathy and left Minnesota for my first job in 1972. I haven’t been in touch with her since then.

I needed to find a job. I also needed to decide whether to go to the East Coast or the West Coast. I was interviewed over the phone for two teaching jobs, one in Norfolk, Virginia, and the other in Ventura, California. I called from the placement office telephones at Saint Cloud State. I was offered both jobs and chose to go west. (My father got the phone bill.)

My parents bought me a bright yellow Camaro, my senior year. They knew I needed transportation to get to my student teaching job in Faribault, Minnesota, at the Minnesota State School for the Deaf. It was a very brave thing for them to do. My sister was killed in a car accident a few years earlier. She was almost twenty-one and was driving a brand-new car she had gotten from my parents. It must have been difficult for Mom and Dad to do this again.

I packed the car with all of my possessions, and told my mother to sell my clothes. I would buy new ones. I was a working girl with a paycheck. The car was packed from floor to ceiling with my huge stereo and two speakers, taking up the majority of the space. (No iPods then.)

I thought I had the hottest car on the road. That was until I hit the desert heat. My car did not have an air conditioner. Who needed one in Minnesota? It did have, however, a head bolt heater, which required an electrical cord to hang out of the front of the car radiator.

The people west of North Dakota had never seen such a thing. When I stopped for gas, everyone wanted to know what that plug was for. I told them they were looking at the first electric car. I couldn’t find an extension cord long enough to