M Ruler
October 11th, 2012, 01:06 PM
Standing 5’7” and in a signature straw hat, Bob Ford doesn’t command your attention right away. Then you hear what he has to say. Ford is in the midst of his 43rd season as head coach of the University at Albany football team.
What hours do you work?
From Aug. 1 to Thanksgiving, we work seven days a week. Sleep comes easy in this business. If we’re playing an away game, our coaches work 84 hours a week. Home game, 72 hours.
How much longer can you go?
This is a sport you need to stay healthy in. You have to be pumped up and motivated.
Also, I never want to go 0-11. That’s never happened.
I thought I’d stay here three years, then move on professionally. I was offered opportunities to leave, but as the years went by, this became my baby. And we had success, which helps keep you employed in this business.
I walk into the office and pretty much giggle from the time I walk in until the time I go home at night.
The opposite of your itinerant father, right?
He was constantly in search of the job. And he never found it. And if you hate your job? Forty hours is a long time—think about how long 40 hours really is.
My dad moved virtually every spring. We lived in 14 towns in Massachusetts, plus Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
He was a border patrolman in Fort Kent, Maine, during World War II. He worked on the Boston and Maine Railroad, sold pots and pans, sold Metropolitan Life Insurance, owned a gas station. And the other jobs, I was too young to remember.
We moved so much, I went to seven elementary schools. There’s an advantage growing up like that: You are adaptable. But you don’t put down very deep roots, because you know you’re going to move again sometime.
Your family went broke at one point.
We had friends who owned a farm. They had a chicken house attached to a barn. We cleaned the chicken house and put up Sheetrock and we all moved in.
So I know this: I don’t ever want to be poor again, because that wasn’t a great experience. But I have no desire whatsoever to be wealthy. None. Right now, I make more money than I can spend. [His base salary is $130,000]
Your first job didn’t go so well.
At 26, I was the youngest head college coach in America, hired at St. Lawrence University. Four years later, I was the youngest head college coach in America to be fired, for not winning enough.
I was in Syracuse on a recruiting trip. I decided to pick up the paper as I was eating breakfast. There was a story in the sports section that I had been fired. That’s how I found out.
That’s how you learn. Either that, or you’re destined to fail. A lot of very successful people have made very bad decisions. It’s about what you do next.
How is coaching like running a business?
You’re a CEO, to a degree. I have 95 kids, 10 full-time coaches, a football operations guy, a cadre of trainers, three strength training guys, academic support, equipment people.
I have three goals that never change.
I want to turn out great young men, who have an impact upon society, an impact upon their community, who are able to stand on their feet and talk, look you in the eye and shake your hand.
We want to turn out great students. Third thing is, turn out good football players. Otherwise, I’ll pick up the paper and find out I’m fired.
You always wear these hats...
My dad developed skin cancer as he got older, and we are out in the sun a lot at practice.
Probably 10 years ago, I found a straw hat I liked in Saratoga, at a store on Broadway, on the left-hand side as you’re going up.
It gets to late October, and if you’re in a straw hat, you look like a doofus. So I went back and found a similar style in felt. They last about two years. I stock up.
Strangers stop me in the airport: ‘I know you! The hat!’
Are you calm and cerebral, or prone to yelling?
Sometimes I have to get right up close and test a kid’s manhood. If the kid knows you really love him, he’ll accept it.
Will more parents keep their children from football, with this new focus on concussions?
When I played, if you were conscious, you went back into the game. And you could not have water on the field. It was a toughness thing—amazing there weren’t more deaths.
Here’s the thing: The size of our field has not changed, yet the player has.
When I started, the average shoe size was 10.5. Now it’s 12.5, and we have three 17s on the squad. We have a left tackle who is 6’7” and about 340 pounds.
Bigger bodies at a faster speed—boom, collisions. The head snaps back.
There is always risk involved. Studies have shown the head injuries in soccer are greater. But I think it all has to discourage some mothers from allowing their children to play the sport.
How do you still relate to 18-year-olds?
This job keeps you thinking young. I don’t ever complain very much about my health to our kids. Suck it up and get after it and put in a day’s work.
Obviously an age gap has opened up. It’s mostly rap music in the locker room. Golly, some of it is brutal—like I’m going to hum that all the way home, right?
Quick info
Robert “Bob” Ford
Title: Head coach, University at Albany football
Tenure: 43 seasons
Age: 75
UAlbany career: 260 wins, 139 losses, one tie
Conference titles: Five during the past decade
Resides: Clifton Park
Family: wife, Donna; daughter and four grandchildren
What hours do you work?
From Aug. 1 to Thanksgiving, we work seven days a week. Sleep comes easy in this business. If we’re playing an away game, our coaches work 84 hours a week. Home game, 72 hours.
How much longer can you go?
This is a sport you need to stay healthy in. You have to be pumped up and motivated.
Also, I never want to go 0-11. That’s never happened.
I thought I’d stay here three years, then move on professionally. I was offered opportunities to leave, but as the years went by, this became my baby. And we had success, which helps keep you employed in this business.
I walk into the office and pretty much giggle from the time I walk in until the time I go home at night.
The opposite of your itinerant father, right?
He was constantly in search of the job. And he never found it. And if you hate your job? Forty hours is a long time—think about how long 40 hours really is.
My dad moved virtually every spring. We lived in 14 towns in Massachusetts, plus Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
He was a border patrolman in Fort Kent, Maine, during World War II. He worked on the Boston and Maine Railroad, sold pots and pans, sold Metropolitan Life Insurance, owned a gas station. And the other jobs, I was too young to remember.
We moved so much, I went to seven elementary schools. There’s an advantage growing up like that: You are adaptable. But you don’t put down very deep roots, because you know you’re going to move again sometime.
Your family went broke at one point.
We had friends who owned a farm. They had a chicken house attached to a barn. We cleaned the chicken house and put up Sheetrock and we all moved in.
So I know this: I don’t ever want to be poor again, because that wasn’t a great experience. But I have no desire whatsoever to be wealthy. None. Right now, I make more money than I can spend. [His base salary is $130,000]
Your first job didn’t go so well.
At 26, I was the youngest head college coach in America, hired at St. Lawrence University. Four years later, I was the youngest head college coach in America to be fired, for not winning enough.
I was in Syracuse on a recruiting trip. I decided to pick up the paper as I was eating breakfast. There was a story in the sports section that I had been fired. That’s how I found out.
That’s how you learn. Either that, or you’re destined to fail. A lot of very successful people have made very bad decisions. It’s about what you do next.
How is coaching like running a business?
You’re a CEO, to a degree. I have 95 kids, 10 full-time coaches, a football operations guy, a cadre of trainers, three strength training guys, academic support, equipment people.
I have three goals that never change.
I want to turn out great young men, who have an impact upon society, an impact upon their community, who are able to stand on their feet and talk, look you in the eye and shake your hand.
We want to turn out great students. Third thing is, turn out good football players. Otherwise, I’ll pick up the paper and find out I’m fired.
You always wear these hats...
My dad developed skin cancer as he got older, and we are out in the sun a lot at practice.
Probably 10 years ago, I found a straw hat I liked in Saratoga, at a store on Broadway, on the left-hand side as you’re going up.
It gets to late October, and if you’re in a straw hat, you look like a doofus. So I went back and found a similar style in felt. They last about two years. I stock up.
Strangers stop me in the airport: ‘I know you! The hat!’
Are you calm and cerebral, or prone to yelling?
Sometimes I have to get right up close and test a kid’s manhood. If the kid knows you really love him, he’ll accept it.
Will more parents keep their children from football, with this new focus on concussions?
When I played, if you were conscious, you went back into the game. And you could not have water on the field. It was a toughness thing—amazing there weren’t more deaths.
Here’s the thing: The size of our field has not changed, yet the player has.
When I started, the average shoe size was 10.5. Now it’s 12.5, and we have three 17s on the squad. We have a left tackle who is 6’7” and about 340 pounds.
Bigger bodies at a faster speed—boom, collisions. The head snaps back.
There is always risk involved. Studies have shown the head injuries in soccer are greater. But I think it all has to discourage some mothers from allowing their children to play the sport.
How do you still relate to 18-year-olds?
This job keeps you thinking young. I don’t ever complain very much about my health to our kids. Suck it up and get after it and put in a day’s work.
Obviously an age gap has opened up. It’s mostly rap music in the locker room. Golly, some of it is brutal—like I’m going to hum that all the way home, right?
Quick info
Robert “Bob” Ford
Title: Head coach, University at Albany football
Tenure: 43 seasons
Age: 75
UAlbany career: 260 wins, 139 losses, one tie
Conference titles: Five during the past decade
Resides: Clifton Park
Family: wife, Donna; daughter and four grandchildren