Lamb Hopes SDSU Defense Can Keep Wolves From the Door

Barry Lamb seemed quite deliberate as he looked for a place to sit outside the San Diego State University coaches’ offices Tuesday morning. He passed on two or three chairs and then found one to his liking.

“Trying to find a clean one,” he said.

I knew better. I knew he was making sure he found one that wasn’t wired for electricity . . . or heat.

Lamb, you see, is the football defensive coordinator at SDSU.

Understand that no one wants to be a defensive coordinator in San Diego, at least no one in his right mind. Anyone who would take such a job would manage the Yankees for George Steinbrenner, bust cocaine dealers in Colombia or marry Elizabeth Taylor. You might take such a job as an alternative to standing in line at a soup kitchen.

San Diego, through the 1980s, has been a graveyard for defensive coordinators.

If you tell someone hereabouts that you are a defensive coordinator, they will look at you as if you really ought to hurry that last cigarette on the way to the electric chair. You will get a consoling pat on the shoulder rather than a shake of the hand.

Who loves you, baby?

Real estate agents and moving companies will love and bug the heck out of you. They want you to remember them in a few months, weeks, days, hours or minutes, however long you manage to survive before you need their services.

Ron Lynn, of course, has changed some of that. He has done so well as the Chargers’ defensive coordinator that he is actually about to start his fourth season in the position. Another year or two and he’ll be able to take the “Occupant” sign off his office door.

Lynn has done with the Chargers what Lamb hopes to do with the Aztecs, which is to say accomplish what seemed impossible going in.

SDSU’s defense was one of the worst in the nation in 1988. It gave up 431.5 yards and 34.9 points per game. Opponents scored in the 50s three times, 40s once and 30s four times. And, in terms of points allowed, 1988 was an improvement --by a point--over 1987.

This is the chore and the challenge confronting Mr. Lamb, who left reasonable job security at the University of Idaho to take this most uncoveted of positions. He was set as defensive coordinator, and his wife, Karen Curtis, was set a few miles across the border as women’s volleyball coach at Washington State.

“We have two little boys, so Karen only wanted to coach for another year or maybe two,” he said, “but this opportunity came up, and things came to a head. I told her this was something I’d like to do, but if she didn’t want to do it, fine.”

And so it was that Karen Curtis gave up a program she had built from a three victories a year to 25 a year to give her husband a chance to do the same building job with the SDSU defense.

To get to this point, Lamb has served in various capacities at Oregon, Arizona State, UNLV and Idaho. None of his previous positions came with quite the same pressure as is attached to this one.

“Obviously,” he said, “it’s a lot more high profile here in terms of the level of football and the size of the community. We’re under the microscope here with a lot more people looking at us.”

This is not to mention the fact that being the defensive coordinator brings his role to a different level. What’s more, he is involved in an overall football program that must do well to get the entire athletic program off the gang plank to oblivion.

“We must be successful,” he said. “We feel that pressure. We need to get the thing going for the good of the whole university. We’re keenly aware of the bigger picture.”

Barry Lamb’s part of that big picture is a very important part. It may be the most important part.

Naturally, there is no magic potion for defensive success, no across-the-counter cure. There probably isn’t even an enlightened way of aligning a defense to make it better.

“No scheme in the world is worth a darn if the players don’t play hard,” Lamb said. “You have to start with the basics and be very, very demanding that things be done in the right way at the right tempo.”

When Lamb talks tempo, he is not talking fast versus slow as much as hard versus any other way.

It all starts Saturday at the Air Force against that despicably indefensible wishbone. As if that is not ridiculous enough for a defense in search of itself, the second game will be two weeks later at home against UCLA.

But Barry Lamb does not leave the impression that he and his boys are being led to slaughter.

He is fired up. You can see it in practice.

“I coach as hard as I want my players to play,” he said. “There’s nothing like enthusiasm. This is what I’ve chosen to do with my life, and I intend to enjoy it.”

And this is where life has led him. It may not be the most ideal place to be, but it may be the most ideal place to be a hero. Just ask Ron Lynn.