After Backpedaling, Ex-Ram Finds a Future in Football : College: LeRoy Irvin was a gas station owner and boxing promoter. Now he’s a volunteer coach at CS Northridge.

During his 11 years as a defensive back in the NFL, LeRoy Irvin prepared for the day he no longer would cover the likes of Jerry Rice.

He became a mortgage banker, a gas station owner and a boxing promoter.

Irvin, a five-time All-Pro with the Rams, was determined to maintain a high standard of living but, he said, he continually lost money on the ventures and on a variety of investments.

All the while, friends told him his future was in coaching, but it was not easy for Irvin to give up his six-figure dreams for the relatively low pay coaching provides.

Yet, with $5 in a pocket that used to carry $500, Irvin took a train last week from his home in Fullerton to Union Station and boarded a bus to the San Fernando Valley, where he is four weeks into his first coaching job: full-time volunteer assistant at Cal State Northridge.

Irvin, 34, said he has come to terms with a lower standard of living--at least for now. More importantly, he is finding that teaching college players the intricacies of the bump and run is enjoyable.

“I left practice last night so wound up I didn’t want to eat and I didn’t want to sleep,” he said. “I was up until 1:30 a.m., and as soon as I get back to the stadium I will be pumped up again.

“You don’t know how happy I am coaching these guys. Most ex-athletes wouldn’t do this, but I know eventually I’ll get paid. I’m paying my dues.”

Despite having spent 10 seasons with the Rams and one with the Detroit Lions, Irvin does not have much savings because he squandered his money.

“I can’t afford to do it, but I have to do it,” said Irvin, who retired from football in 1990. “I can make the sacrifice for this year.”

Part of Irvin’s willingness to sacrifice is because, even on a voluntary basis, college coaching jobs are difficult to find.

In November, he said, he sent his resume to nearly every college football program in the country. He followed up with phone calls, but no one expressed interest.

“Some of them didn’t have openings, and I didn’t have any experience and the secondary is an important position,” Irvin said. “I guess they thought I was a good player but I hadn’t proven myself as a coach.”

Another factor could have been his 30-day suspension in 1989 for violating the NFL’s substance-abuse policy.

“There are clandestine forces out there,” Irvin said. “But it doesn’t really matter what they think. I know now I’m as clean as anyone. I just like people to respect me for who I am. If that was the reason why (they wouldn’t hire me), say it.”

At the time of his suspension, Irvin would not specify which drug he abused and he still won’t, although in an interview last week he made references to reducing his alcohol consumption.

“I made a lot of mistakes. I admit it,” Irvin said. “Who hasn’t? I guess I pay day after day for those mistakes but I don’t look at it as a battle. I have a beer now and then, but I don’t go to those same places or hang around those people. I’m not at the Red Onion until 2 a.m. on dollar drink night anymore.”

Irvin’s image took a beating two years earlier when he practiced halfheartedly, demanded to be traded and was suspended one game for “conduct detrimental to the team.”

He also bounced two checks in Phoenix while promoting professional boxing matches and he has associated with convicted felon Harold Smith.

Irvin defends his friendship with Smith--who embezzled $21.3 million from Wells Fargo--even though it cost Irvin his promoter’s license in California and Nevada.

He does not hold a grudge against Smith, nor does he want to, which is why he is grateful to Northridge Coach Bob Burt. Not only did Burt hire Irvin, he also did not ask about his past.

“He said: ‘Here’s your chance, take it,’ ” Irvin said. “I’m not gonna screw up for Coach Burt because he’s the guy who gave me a chance.”

Irvin contacted Burt on the advice of former Ram defensive back Lucious Smith, who played for Cal State Fullerton when Burt was Fullerton’s defensive coordinator. It was Smith who helped convince Irvin that life after football would require an adjustment.

“When you’re a player, you have places to go, people to see,” Irvin said. “Everybody is calling you, TV stations, newspapers, banquets, golf tournaments. Now, I’m calling them.

“Lucious really prepared me for this life. He made me realize when I stopped playing that those doors would be shut and that my finances would drastically change.”

After retiring, Irvin completed courses at the Columbia School of Broadcasting and the Roy Englebrecht Sportscasting Camp of America. However, his broadcasting career was limited to one college football game and four high school events last fall.

“I couldn’t get a shot and I was willing to do it for free,” Irvin said. “I started my own video production company figuring if I couldn’t get a job I’d make my own, but that didn’t really work, either.”

For the past eight months, Irvin said he sat at home doing nothing. He coached his son LeRoy III’s baseball and basketball teams and spent time with his other children, Charles, 10, and Sarah, 7.

Irvin is trying to make amends for the past.

“When I’d be doing wrong I’d come home and see them sleeping and it was a downer all the way,” Irvin said. “I want to be a responsible parent and provide for them in the future. I have a purpose now whereas before I was dabbling into this and that.”

Life is changing for the Irvin family.

Roxanne, LeRoy’s wife, is working outside the home for the first time in their marriage. The Irvins are planning to sell their home, a 3,600-square foot dwelling on three-quarters of an acre.

“That neighborhood is not my neighborhood anymore,” LeRoy said.

Irvin’s new neighborhood is in the Cal State Northridge defensive backfield, where he flits from one side of the field to the other showing cornerbacks and safeties the intricacies of secondary play.

Irvin views his coaching as relaying messages passed down to him from former Ram teammates Rod Perry and Pat Thomas and former assistant Steve Shafer. He is a godsend for a Northridge secondary that was guided last season by defensive coordinator Mark Banker.

“Banker had to teach everybody,” safety Kevin Carmichael said. “Now, with a larger coaching staff, we get individual attention.”

For the first time, the Matadors are learning bump-and-run coverage.

“Coach Irvin goes into a lot of detail,” cornerback Vincent Johnson said. “There are a lot of things he’s teaching from a professional viewpoint.”

Irvin showed that he means business when he designed a conditioning program that “made us feel like wimps,” in Carmichael’s words.

But Irvin has not lost his sense of humor. “You can joke with him,” Johnson said. “He tells us: ‘If you don’t look good, you can’t play good.’ ”

No salary buys the respect Irvin’s seven defensive backs have for him. As he is apparently learning, some jobs pay better than others.