Ahead of Their Time

What does it mean to be USC’s football coach, with a couple of national championships under your belt, living in the entertainment capital of the world?

J.K. McKay learned early.

He remembers having dinner as a kid at Chasen’s in Beverly Hills with his dad, the late Trojan coach John McKay, and legendary Alabama coach Paul “Bear” Bryant. The waiter approached with a request.

“Coach McKay,” he said. “Mr. Sinatra has a table in back and wants you to stop by.”

McKay, who already had won two of his four national titles, didn’t budge.

“You tell him to come up and see us,” he said.

And Sinatra did, proving that even the Chairman of the Board couldn’t always do it his way, not when he was dealing with the coach who poured the foundation for one of the most successful programs in the history of college football.

“That’s when I realized my dad was big,” recalled J.K., who also goes by John and is an attorney in L.A. He played receiver for his father and, along with quarterback Pat Haden, was co-most valuable player of the 1975 Rose Bowl.

His father died almost five years ago, but now J.K. watches a modern-day version of him pacing the USC sideline. Pete Carroll has won two national championships and is one victory from his third. Like McKay, Carroll has a way of camouflaging his intensity. While McKay served up a steady stream of one-liners -- a former player called him the Johnny Carson of the coaching world -- Carroll is a so-called player’s coach who thinks nothing of tossing a football after practice or throwing elbows in a lunchtime basketball game.

“There’s a common thread between them,” said Rich McKay, J.K.’s younger brother and president of the Atlanta Falcons. “Outwardly, they both have that easygoing, affable way. Life’s great. Nothing bothers me. Everybody must think they go home at night and it’s no big deal. But on the inside, they’re very, very competitive.”

McKay, who died at 77 in 2001 of diabetes-related complications, coached the Trojans from 1960 to 1975 and won national championships in 1962, ‘67, ’72 and ’74. His teams had three unbeaten seasons, won nine conference titles, went to eight Rose Bowls and had a 16-year record of 127-40-8, making him the winningest coach in Trojan football history. His record in his last 14 seasons -- before he left to coach the expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers -- was 119-29-7.

Before McKay replaced Don Clark as USC’s head coach, the Trojans had gone nearly 30 years without winning a national championship.

“If you’re going to build a house, you’ve got to put concrete down to start with. John McKay was that foundation,” said Craig Fertig, who played quarterback under McKay and later was one of his Trojan assistant coaches.

Although Rich McKay attended Princeton and never played for his father, he and J.K. still refer to their dad as “Coach.” They knew well how his competitive fires raged. Some of their most cherished memories are of sitting with him at his Coliseum locker -- the cramped cubicle with “McKay” scrawled in chalk on the metal -- and soaking in the atmosphere in the hours leading to a home game.

McKay might have been quick with a quip when he was talking to reporters, but he was almost silent during those introspective times with his sons.

“He was not the most verbose guy,” Rich said. “You knew his emotions from knowing him. He was going to keep them inside. I knew by the looks he had what emotions he was going to feel.”

From 1934 to 1976, there was an annual Chicago College All-Star game, which pitted the best college players against the defending NFL champion. The game was usually no contest; from 1955 on, the pros won every game but one.

That was no consolation to McKay, however, after his all-star team lost the 1973 game to the Super Bowl champion Miami Dolphins, 14-3. He was so competitive, he saw the game the way few others did: as a must-win measuring stick for college football.

After the loss, he and 12-year-old Rich wordlessly left the locker room and started to board the bus, where the assistant coaches were laughing and cracking open beers. Fuming, McKay instructed his son to get off the bus and the two silently walked the three miles back to the hotel in a rainstorm.

“We walked through neighborhoods you just don’t walk through,” Rich recalled. “My mom was really mad at him for that.”

Corky McKay, who died last April, met her husband when they were students at the University of Oregon and John was a standout football player for the Ducks. Years later, John would frequently refer to her in interviews and news conferences. Among his memorable lines was the time he was asked about emotion in football.

“It’s overrated,” he said. “My wife is emotional, but she’s a lousy football player.”

Some of his other classics:

Questioned after a loss during the early days at Tampa Bay about his team’s execution, he responded, “I think it’s a good idea.”

Asked why O.J. Simpson carried the ball so often: “Why not? It isn’t very heavy. Besides, he doesn’t belong to a union.”

Then there was the time in 1976 that Buccaneer kicking hopeful Pete Rajecki told reporters that McKay’s presence made him nervous. The coach responded: “Tell Mr. Rajecki I plan to attend all games.”

In his later years, McKay lived in Tampa and spent his winters in Indian Wells, where he loved playing golf at Eldorado Country Club. He was “almost painfully shy,” said golfing buddy Paul Jenkins.

“He wasn’t like his public persona at all,” Jenkins said. “When we’d go to a party, he’d find a spot in the corner, some place where he wasn’t at the center of things.”

McKay was a huge fan of John Wayne, and evidently the feeling was mutual. Before USC played Texas on Sept. 17, 1966, in Austin, the coach honored Wayne’s request to let him give a pep talk to the Trojans. Under the name Marion Morrison, Wayne played football for USC under coach Howard Jones.

Said Fertig of Wayne’s impassioned speech: “He made Vince Lombardi sound like a kindergarten teacher.”

A week after the ninth-ranked Trojans won that game, 10-6, McKay received a letter from Wayne, who was in Durango, Mexico, filming “The War Wagon” with his friend, Bruce Cabot.

The letter, typed on Wayne’s personal stationery and signed Duke, read:

Dear John,

I want to thank you and your staff and your whole squad for the wonderful manner in which you all made me feel a part of the group.

I shall treasure the football and start using it to train my four-and-a-half year old kid.

I think the Texas bunch were good losers, but tell the squad we don’t care whether their opponents are good losers or bad losers as long as they lose.

Good luck for the rest of the season. There’ll be two fellows in Mexico rooting all the way -- Cabot and Wayne.

The night before every USC game, the entire team would go to the movies together. When they were in L.A., the Trojans got royal treatment, usually watching the films at one of the studios. Rich McKay remembers seeing the yet-to-be-released “Bullitt” before the 1968 Rose Bowl.

But when the Trojans were on the road in some small college town, they would have to buy out a theater and watch just like the general public. If McKay didn’t approve of what was showing -- “Easy Rider” got a thumbs down -- a copy of Wayne’s 1949 classic “Sands of Iwo Jima” rolled instead.

“Our guys could recite every line,” Fertig said.

The last two USC seasons have had Hollywood endings. And, the McKay brothers say, their father would be delighted to see the Trojans back on top. He was unfailingly loyal to the school, and the down seasons gnawed at him even from afar.

“He would love this,” Rich said. “But that doesn’t mean he would want to go to this Rose Bowl game. He wouldn’t want to -- it’s not his time. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to root for them, wouldn’t bleed for him. He would know that this isn’t his time.”

But it sure is McKay’s kind of time.

Said Rich: “I think he’s just happy to see it back where it belongs.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

John McKay biography

* Who: John H. McKay was born July 5, 1923, in Everettsville, W.Va. He served in the Army Air Corps during World War II.

* Playing career: He entered Purdue University and then transferred to Oregon, where he started at halfback in 1948 and 1949. He was a three-year letterman for the Ducks and still holds the school record for yards per carry (6.4).

* Assistant coach: He served as an assistant at Oregon and USC before becoming the Trojans’ head coach in 1960.

* USC coach: When McKay succeeded Don Clark as head coach after the 1959 season, USC hadn’t won a national championship in nearly 30 years. McKay won national championships in 1962, 1967, 1972 and 1974 and went undefeated in 1962, 1969 and 1972. Many still call USC’s 1972 team the greatest in college football history. The Trojans went 12-0, outscored opponents, 467-134, and never trailed in the second half. He’s the only coach to take a team to the Rose Bowl four consecutive years, 1967 through 1970. In 16 seasons, McKay had a 127-40-8 record, three undefeated seasons, won nine Pac-8 titles and coached 40 first-team All-Americans and two Heisman Trophy winners, O.J. Simpson and Mike Garrett.

* Innovations: The inventor of the modern I-formation, he was a firm believer in the running game and proved that great running backs could carry the ball 25, 30 or 35 times a game.

* Pro coach: Became head coach of the NFL’s expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1976, losing 26 consecutive games in his first two seasons. Led the Buccaneers to the 1979 NFC championship game and two more postseason appearances in 1981 and 1982. McKay retired after the 1984 season and despite a 44-88-1 record in nine seasons, was the team’s winningest coach until 1997, when he was surpassed by Tony Dungy.

* Etc: McKay was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1988. He died June 10, 2001, of kidney failure because of complications from diabetes.

Source: Times research

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*--* COACHING RECORD

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*--* USC Season W-L-T Bowl 1960 4-6 1961 4-5-1 1962* 11-0** Rose 1963 7-3 1964 7-3** 1965 7-2-1 1966 7-4** Rose 1967* 10-1** Rose 1968 9-1-1** Rose 1969 10-0-1** Rose 1970 6-4-1 1971 6-4-1 1972* 12-0** Rose 1973 9-2-1** Rose 1974* 10-1-1** Rose

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*--* 1975 8-4 Liberty Totals 127-40-8 (.749) Bowls 6-3 (.667)

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*National champions

**Conference champions

*--* TAMPA BAY Year W-L Finish 1976 0-14 5th AFC West 1977 2-12 5th NFC Central 1978 5-11 5th NFC Central 1979 10-6 1st NFC Central 1980 5-10-1 4th NFC Central 1981 9-7 1st NFC Central 1982 5-4 7th NFC Conf. 1983 2-14 5th NFC Central 1984 6-10 3rd NFC Central Totals 44-88-1 (.331)

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