O’Leary’s Second Job Upsets Vikings’ Owner

George O’Leary, defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings, embarked Tuesday on the first full day of his new life.

His double life.

O’Leary, who was hired Monday to coach Central Florida, giving him another chance at college football two years after Notre Dame forced him to resign for lying on his resume, will maintain his duties with the Vikings until the end of their season, which could include a playoff run. He has acknowledged pulling double duty will be a round-the-clock challenge.

Even so, Viking owner Red McCombs is not happy about the timing of the hiring.

“I damn sure wish it hadn’t happened until the season was over,” McCombs said Tuesday. “He’s under contract with us and he’s obligated to us. Right now, everyone’s saying the right things. We’ll just see how it works out. The bottom line is, we don’t know.”

Asked if he’ll be keeping a close eye on O’Leary, McCombs said: “You’d better believe it.”

O’Leary said he plans to begin recruiting players when his responsibilities with the Vikings are over, but no sooner.

“I will finish my commitment to the Vikings, which is I think what you should do,” he said. “We have a shot at the playoffs. I will do everything possible to make sure we get there, but this is my job right now, and I will work on this job too. There are 24 hours in a day, and I guess I’ll be using most of them.”

Viking Coach Mike Tice, who played under O’Leary in high school, gave his old coach a second chance after the resume debacle. O’Leary, who went 52-33 as coach of Georgia Tech from 1994 through 2001, had lied about earning a master’s degree and receiving three letters playing football at New Hampshire. He resigned from Notre Dame less than a week after taking the job in 2001.

Led by their big-play defense, the Vikings (8-5) surged to a 6-0 start this season before losing five of their next six games. Teams started to run on the Vikings, and Minnesota created fewer and fewer turnovers. The team showed hints of a reversal last Sunday with a 34-7 victory over Seattle, though, and the Vikings can clinch a playoff berth Sunday with a victory over Chicago and a Green Bay loss at San Diego.

The normally affable Tice was abrupt Monday when asked in his weekly news conference about O’Leary taking the UCF job. He bristled when asked how O’Leary will divide his time now.

“His time will be here and finishing what he has to do here,” Tice said. “That’s it. It may be a legitimate question; it doesn’t mean I have to answer it. OK? I’m worried about beating Chicago. George is worried about beating Chicago. That’s all that really matters.”

McCombs has been through this drill before. In 1998, the year he bought the team, the Vikings went 15-1 and scored an NFL-record 556 points, triggering a bidding war between Cleveland and Baltimore for the services of offensive coordinator Brian Billick. Hours after the Vikings’ stunning home loss to Atlanta in the NFC championship game, Billick began negotiations to become head coach of either the Ravens or Browns. He wound up in Baltimore, drawing the ire of some people in Minnesota who thought he was too distracted by his job hunt to give his all to the Vikings.

“It was obvious with Billick going to Baltimore that he had to have spent a lot of time concentrating on his new assignment,” McCombs said. “I’m not saying that affected our game one way or another. I’m just saying that if somebody offered me another job, I couldn’t concentrate completely on selling cars.”

McCombs offered another analogy: “If you’re married to a girl and have another one stashed, I think you’d be thinking a lot about that other one.... Not that I’ve ever done that.”

Several Viking players say they are sorry to be losing O’Leary as a coach but are happy that he gets the chance to be a college head coach again. They say they have no doubt he will be able to concentrate on the task at hand.

“It’s a great opportunity, and more power to him,” safety Brian Russell said. “He’s with us for the rest of the season. So, knowing Coach O’Leary, that’s not going to take away from the way he prepares.”