NOMAD OF COACHING : Perry Moss, Who Has Held 21 Football Jobs, Has Never Had to Look for One

He is the only man alive who has coached in every major American professional football league since the All-American Conference folded in 1949. But as far as Perry Moss is concerned, he’s never been out of his league.

His ABC’s of coaching include the NFL, the AFL, the WFL, the USFL, the AFA, the UFL, even two leagues called the CFL, the Canadian and Continental leagues. He’s also found the time to coach at 10 major colleges, including head coaching stints at Florida State and Marshall.

Moss has practiced teams indoors for outdoor games, now he’s working them outdoors for indoor games as an assistant coach with the Pittsburgh Gladiators of the new Arena Football league.

But in a nomadic profession where coaches change addresses and employers as often as they do socks, Moss has never been on the outside looking in, as far as employment was concerned.

“I’ve not missed any leagues, at least none that I’ve heard of. I’ve been pretty lucky in that I’ve always been able to find a job,” Moss said. “I’ve always been able to do what I’ve wanted to do since high school, and that’s be a coach.”

Not one to let any moss grow under his coaching shoes, he has held--at last count--21 coaching jobs since 1949.

“Not many guys stay in this business as long as I do. I don’t know of another profession besides football where there are as many talented guys who don’t have jobs,” he said.

Moss, 59, has been a head coach, an assistant, an offensive coordinator, a defensive coordinator, and sometimes, in pro football’s minor leagues, his own coordinator. His coaching resume is so long and includes so many stops it easily could have been compiled by Rand McNally.

His city itinerary criss-crosses the country: Tulsa, Okla; Champaign, Ill.; Tallahassee, Fla.; Huntington, W.Va.; Chicago; Green Bay (twice); Miami; Charleston, W.Va. (twice); San Antonio; Orlando (four times); Buffalo; Seattle; Baton Rouge, La; Madison, Wis.; Lexington, Ky., and Montreal and Ottawa in Canada.

In Orlando, where he has owned a home for the last 20 years, Moss has had four jobs with three pro teams and a college, Central Florida.

Does Moss ever wish he had been a lawyer or a bank vice-president rather than a preferred customer of United Van Lines?

“I have had opportunities, in administration, to settle down in a job,” he said. “But I know guys that have gotten out of a coaching, perhaps do something they aren’t prepared for, and a year later they’re back looking for a coaching job. They’re at coaching conventions, looking for any job they can find. I really enjoy coaching. I like what I’m doing.”

A former Green Bay Packers quarterback, Moss thought he had settled into security when he was named head coach and athletic director at Florida State in 1959. A year later he accepted a five-year contract and the then-astronomical sum of $60,000 a year to coach the Montreal Alouettes of the Canadian Football League. The job lasted only a year.

“It would be nice for every coach to have what Don Shula has at Miami, a steady job where you know you’re going to have the opportunity to win every year,” Moss said. “I never quite got there. I really think that if I had stayed at Florida State, I still might be there today, because they were just on the verge of becoming a power. I regret leaving there.”

In the mid 1960s, Moss was the most successful coach in the Continental Football League, which dreamed of major league status and a network TV contract after hiring former baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler as its president. Instead, the league drowned in a sea of red ink, as did two later leagues that also sought big-time status, the World Football League and the United States Football League.

Moss coached in those leagues, too. He also was an NFL assistant in Green Bay, Chicago and Buffalo and a head coach in the World Football League. He was in two Canadian leagues and, for one winless season, he was at scandal-ridden Marshall.

The brother of former Detroit Tiger Manager Les Moss, he has earned a reputation for being one of football’s most knowledgeable offensive minds.

“I’ve coached with, under and against all of the big names--Bear Bryant, Shula, George Allen. I think I’ve learned some football during that time,” Moss said. “I think I know as much football as anybody. One thing I’ve always done is stay up with the game. I’ve not tried to get by on what I was coaching 10 years ago.

“There’s something else I’ve learned. Now matter how much you know, no matter how much you can teach your players, you’ve got to have the players to win. You can coach all you want, if you don’t have the players, you won’t win.”