Teaching a Team to Value Family Ties : College football: USC’s new defensive coordinator, Keith Burns, offers players life lessons.

Not long ago, Keith Burns, the USC football team’s new defensive coordinator, was asked to speak at a high school football awards banquet.

He didn’t talk about USC’s Cotton Bowl date with Texas Tech.

Or about standout wide receiver Keyshawn Johnson, who was also there to speak.

Or on how he planned to retool USC’s defense.

And he didn’t use the occasion as a recruiting opportunity--not even with two dozen high school prospects sitting before him.

Instead, Burns, 34, talked about mothers and fathers, pegging his message to his own father, who died 12 years ago.

“I had just finished my senior football season at Arkansas when my dad died,” Burns told the players, then expanded on his talk to a reporter afterward.

“And I still feel good today about the fact that when he died, I felt like there wasn’t anything more I could have done to have made my relationship with him any better.

“My dad was my best friend as well as my father. I remember sitting on the front porch with him and sometimes talking until 2 a.m., about sports, girls, cars . . . we talked about anything.

“My mom and dad never missed a game I played at Arkansas, despite the fact they lived in Dallas. They traveled to the road games, too.

“He worked for Bell Helicopters in Dallas for 35 years, and was a foreman in his last years. One time, he got a cough that didn’t go away. The doctors found titanium dust in his lungs.

“He was a big, strong healthy guy, never sick in his life. And when he was bedridden the last couple of months, it was hard on him.

“One day, my brother and I were playing a very competitive game of checkers in his hospital room and dad suggested a move to me he felt I should make. I didn’t, and I lost.

“He whispered to me, ‘Never get to the point in your life where you can’t take advice.’ He died four hours later.”

Talking directly to the high school players, Burns said:

“Do yourself a favor sometime today and ask yourself if you’ve done everything you possibly can to make things as good as they can be between you and your mom and dad, because they can be gone from your life very quickly.”

That’s Keith Burns, Mr. Family, who, days after receiving the biggest promotion of his coaching career, had this to say:

“Wow, what a day tomorrow is going to be. I’ve got several recruits coming in . . . and Little League basketball tryouts start in Monrovia.”

Burns and his wife, Yvonne, live in Arcadia, with their sons, K.C., 7, and Tanner, 5.

For Burns, the difficulty of balancing football coaches’ hours with home life just got more difficult. His family, he said, is his “home team.”

“Coaches work such long hours, we’re away from home so much, the little time I’m with my family becomes very important to me,” he said.

“Little things a lot of parents might take for granted, like decorating a Christmas tree, is a big deal at our house.

“Everyone is assigned a limb to decorate. Even picking out the tree is a big deal, it’s a team operation. So are our outdoor cookouts, when my two boys both have their assignments.

“Seems like the best conversations I have with my boys are during those cookouts.”

Burns is among the most vocal of USC’s 13-member coaching staff, possibly ranking just behind offensive line coach Mike Barry and new defensive line coach Rod Marinelli.

He was finishing his second season as coach of the Trojans’ safeties when John Robinson promoted him earlier this month to replace Don Lindsey, who had been dismissed Nov. 30.

In a coincidental twist, Lindsey was the defensive coordinator at Arkansas when Burns was a starter in his junior and senior seasons.

“Keith will do a great job, he’s an awesome coach,” said Lindsey, just days after his firing.

Burns’ orders from Robinson are to field a more aggressive defense next year, somewhere between the high-risk defense used by Washington State and Lindsey’s low-risk, bend-but-don’t-break system.

Both Robinson and Lindsey were unhappy at the ease with which some opponents, particularly UCLA, ran against USC.

“The thing that disturbs me most was the way they could run the ball on us,” said Robinson, moments after UCLA’s surprising 31-19 victory Nov. 19.

Burns says no major changes will be made for Monday’s Cotton Bowl game against Texas Tech, but that the 1995 Trojans will have a new look.

“Our defense next year will take more risks than we did this year, but not to the extent Washington State did,” he said. “Washington State goes over the edge. We won’t.

“Our toughest job will be replacing our senior linebackers (Brian Williams, Jeff Kopp, Donn Cunnigan and Errol Small). But guys like Errick Herrin and Scott Fields will be back, and I’m excited about that.”