I'll never forget the day the news broke on Mike O'Cain's firing from Clemson.
It shouldn't have been a huge surprise, because the Tigers' offense slumbered in 2004 and Tommy Bowden needed to do something after his football team fell woefully short of the lofty expectations that followed the spectacular finish in 2003.
But it was a jolt because O'Cain was a Clemson man, having played quarterback for the Tigers in the 1970s, and a good man. You figured that maybe something short of a firing could've been worked out.
Bowden shouldn't be criticized for trying to make his program better. This is a business, and everyone knows that going in. But still, it just felt a little weird and unfortunate.
O'Cain, who later joined Frank Beamer's staff at Virginia Tech, has been given the play-calling duties with the Hokies. It's hard not to be happy for the man, because he's such a good man.
My friend Darryl Slater, who covers Virginia Tech for the Richmond paper, re-posted this 2007 story on O'Cain in the wake of the coach's recent promotion.
It's a fantastic piece that should be read from beginning to end, mainly because it provides a great window into O'Cain's kind and gentle nature. But there's also an excerpt about his Clemson experience that I thought would be of interest to you folks.
O’Cain arrived home earlier than usual that day, around 10 a.m. the Tuesday after Thanksgiving 2004. He walked into his house, which he and his wife, Nancy, had built after he began a job in 2001 as an assistant at Clemson, his alma mater. They vowed to never move again.
“Tommy just fired me,” O’Cain told his wife, whom he met when he was a high school junior.
“I thought he was kidding,” Nancy said this week.
No, the news was as true as it was harsh. Earlier that day, Clemson coach Tommy Bowden walked into O’Cain’s office and dismissed him as the team’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. O’Cain said Bowden had never warned him that his job might be in jeopardy.
“The thing that was hard was the lack of being prepared for it,” O’Cain said.
This firing stung more than the others, in part because he always dreamed of coaching at Clemson.
He still had years ahead of him when, during his junior year at Clemson, he was moved from starting quarterback to third team. He understood North Carolina State cutting him in 1999 as head coach after seven seasons, in which he went 41-41. He knew there was nothing he could do in 2000, when North Carolina axed coach Carl Torbush, ending O’Cain’s one-season run as offensive coordinator.
Keep playing. That’s what he always told his players and, now, himself. But he needed time to breathe. He spent the 2005 season doing color commentary for replay broadcasts of Tech’s home games. He used the spare time to hunt, visit the beach and be with his parents; his mother died in 2005, his father in 2006. He worked with former teammates in a business that sold Internet-based phone service.
“I was content with not coaching if I didn’t get the right situation,” he said.
He never again wanted to work for someone he didn’t know well, as he did with Bowden. But he told Nancy he’d drop everything to work for two coaches, both old friends: Tech’s Frank Beamer and Vanderbilt’s Bobby Johnson. One day in early 2006, Beamer called.
In almost 13 years of doing this for a living, by far the nicest and classiest coaches I've come across are O'Cain and Georgia's Mark Richt. When you're in a cut-throat, competitive situation, it's hard to rise above it all and maintain grace and perspective. These two guys manage to do it, and it's extraordinary.
My feeling on O'Cain's ouster from Clemson was that he believed he got a raw deal. He was given coordinator duties before the 2004 season, but my sense was he never believed it was truly his offense.
It's probably also reasonable to conclude O'Cain felt insulted by the way Bowden handled the firing. As he said in the article, there was never any warning. And the quick, cold manner in which Bowden walked into the room and told him he was done had to hurt.
There was really no right or wrong in the whole situation. Again, this is big business and these coaches are big boys.
You just felt that maybe Bowden could've treated the O'Cain a little differently than normal, because O'Cain is a different guy.
A Clemson guy. A great guy.
LW
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