While with
the Seahawks, WSU Coug Dan Doornink studied at UW medical school — but he’s
‘fully a Cougar’
Originally
published December 26, 2018 at 7:00 am
Dan
Doornink went from eighth-string quarterback to running back at WSU before
ending up going to med school at UW while becoming a Seahawks fan favorite. Now
62, "Dr. Dan" is an internist in Yakima.
By Scott
Hanson
Seattle
Times staff
Dan
Doornink looks back and wonders how he did it.
After four
excellent seasons as a running back at Washington State (1974 to 1977),
Doornink spent eight years in the NFL, including the final seven with the
Seahawks while also going to medical school at the University of Washington.
It allowed
the Wapato native to accomplish two dreams: playing football at the top level
and following in the footsteps of his father, who was a family doctor in
Wapato.
Not that
it was easy for the man they call Dr. Dan, now 62 and an internist in Yakima.
“I was
competing against guys who didn’t have to study all the time,” Doornink said.
“It was hard and challenging and I didn’t get much sleep those years.”
Classes
began at 8 a.m., football practice was in the afternoon, then he would study
past midnight. That would repeat itself day after day.
But
Doornink had overcome bigger challenges — like finding a way onto the field as
a WSU freshman.
“I started
out as a quarterback for the first two weeks,” Doornink said. “Jack Thompson
(who went on to set NCAA passing records) and I were seventh-string quarterback
or eighth-string quarterback — sometimes I would be eighth and he would be
seventh. We never got our pants dirty for the first two weeks.”
But when a
bunch of running backs got hurt, Doornink was moved to running back because as
a quarterback, he knew all the plays.
“So I got
in there and ran over the first-team cornerback, a senior cornerback, and I
didn’t know you weren’t supposed to do that,” said Doornink. “A couple weeks
later, I was starting. In those days, it was unheard of to have freshmen
start.”
Doornink,
who could play both tailback and fullback at 6 feet 3 and 210 pounds, finished
his career second on WSU’s all-time rushing list with 1,739 yards and first
all-time in running-back receptions with 105 (and it is still fourth best).
Doornink
played for three coaches in his last three seasons — Jim Sweeney, Jackie
Sherrill and Warren Powers — and while he said it was difficult at the time
having to earn a spot each year, it proved to be a good thing.
“It was,
because I learned how to compete against other guys,” he said. “The other thing
I learned in college was how to catch balls. A lot of the running backs that
got drafted, they hadn’t caught 10 balls in their whole careers, and I caught a
lot of balls.”
That
experience proved invaluable in the NFL. He was drafted in the seventh round by
the New York Giants, and after one season there, was traded to the Seahawks. He
became a fan favorite in his seven seasons with the Seahawks, playing mostly as
a third-down back and catching passes for first downs time and time again.
“It was
great because in those days they would try to cover the running back with a
linebacker and there were no linebackers around who could cover a good running
back,” Doornink said. “Those were fun days.”
Doornink
finished his NFL career in 1985 with 1,836 rushing yards and 209 receptions.
Those numbers don’t include the biggest game of his career, when he rushed for
a career-high 126 yards in a playoff win over the Oakland Raiders in 1984.
He was
just six months from finishing his medical degree when he retired from the NFL.
His teammates called him “Doctor.” He even once diagnosed a teammate’s illness.
“One of
our offensive lineman was losing weight and nobody could figure out what it
was,” Doornink said. “I questioned him a lot, and I told him I thought he had
giardia (an intestinal disease), and lo and behold, he had giardia. So I gained
a lot of respect because I had figured out that he had giardia when there were
other doctors who couldn’t figure it out.”
The
football stadium at Wapato High School is named after him. Doornink settled in
Yakima and raised four children. Son Tyler followed in his father’s footsteps
and is a medical resident at UC Irvine.
Although
he went to medical school at UW, Doornink remains “fully a Cougar” and a
Seahawk.
“I never
wear purple and gold,” he said. “At the Doornink family reunion, we randomly
pick different colors, and this year we’ve got purple. I’ve decided to not even
wear it.”
::::::::::::::
From WSU
Sports Info
Women’s
Basketball WASHINGTON STATE (5-6) at Washington (7-5)
Seattle
Sun., Dec.
30 | 2 p.m.
Live Stats | WSUCougars.com
Watch | Pac-12 Network (Elise Woodward &
Layshia Clarendon)
Listen | WSU IMG Radio Network
OPENING
FIVE
>
Pac-12 play begins with rivalry week as the Cougars head to Seattle to take on
the Huskies. The Boeing Apple Cup Series matchup marks the 95th all-time
meeting between the two sides. Last year the two teams held home-court with the
Huskies winning 56-49 in Seattle in the last meeting.
> The
Cougars enter conference play at 5-6 after splitting their two games at the
Duel in the Desert prior the holiday break. In the last matchup, WSU dominated
Wichita State, 8559, thanks to a huge day behind the arc and 79 points from the
big-four.
>
Borislava Hristova, a Cheryl Miller Watch List nominee, sits third in the
Pac-12 in scoring at 21.8 ppg having scored double-figures in all 11 games
including two 30-point efforts.
>
Alexys Swedlund, posted a career effort against Wichita State in the last game
for WSU, scoring 27 points with 7 three-pointers, tied for the second-most in a
single game. Swedlund is 32 points shy of 1,000 career points.
> WSU's
big-four of Hristova, Molina, Swedlund, and Kostourkova are averaging 58.6 ppg
or 83% of the Cougars' scoring on the year.
GAME
INFORMATION - AT WASHINGTON
WSU tips
off Pac-12 play with rivalry week as the Cougars are in Seattle to take on
Washington in the first of two in the Boeing Apple Cup Series. The matchup
marks the 95th all-time between the two sides. Washington has controlled the
overall series at 73-21 overall including winning four of the last five. The
two teams split last season, each winning at home with the Huskies taking the
last contest in Seattle, 56-49. The Huskies enter the week 7-5 overall but
dropped their final two nonconference games before the break. The Cougars and
the Huskies share a common opponent in Boise State who beat UW, 73-69, right
before the holiday break. The Cougars dominated the Broncos, 95-71, to start
the month of December.
LAST TIME
OUT
The
Cougars split their final two games of nonconference at the Duel in the Desert,
falling to Kansas, 71-63, before defeating Wichita State, 85-59. Against the
Jayhawks, the Cougs fell behind early and could not recover while against the
Shockers WSU dominated behind the arc with 14 three-pointers to come away with
the win. Chanelle Molina earned
all-tournament honors for her play at the tournament, averaging 19.0 ppg, 6.0
rpb, 4.0 apg on 53% shooting.
NONCONFERENCE
AT A GLANCE
The
Cougars finished the nonconference schedule 5-6 overall including posting a 3-3
record at home. After a slow start WSU went 4-2 in the final six games heading
into Pac-12 play including picking up a big win over Boise State, 95-71. In
addition to a win over BSU, the Cougs grabbed yet another win over Nebraska,
defeating the Huskers in overtime to hand coach Ethridge her first win at WSU.
Both Boise State and Nebraska were tournament teams last season.
:::::::::::::::
James Williams
has a story to tell
Coug running
back learns football isn't his only talent
By DALE
GRUMMERT
Lewiston Tribune
Dec 26,
2018
SAN
ANTONIO - As practice broke up and players began drifting toward the locker
room at Benson Stadium here, Washington State running back James Williams
walked purposefully to the sideline and greeted a group of young visitors who'd
been watching the entire workout.
They were
members of the Ellison High football team of Killeen, Texas, and they had
traveled 160 miles to watch the Cougars conduct their first San Antonio
practice Monday, ahead of their Alamo Bowl date with Iowa State on Friday night
at the Alamodome.
Their
coach, Todd Wright, had received an invitation to the practice from his friend
Eric Mele, the WSU running-backs coach, who then arranged for Williams to have
a word with the eight or nine Ellison Screaming Eagles.
Williams
shook hands with the athletes and began telling his story: the rugged childhood
in Toledo, Ohio., the periods of homelessness in Burbank, Calif., the years of
being relegated to special education, simply because general education had
failed him.
The
details were fresh in Williams' mind, because he had furnished a longer version
of the same speech three weeks before at Deary High in rural Idaho, 35 miles
east of Washington State.
It played
well in both towns.
Williams,
a WSU junior who leads all college running backs in receptions for the second
straight year, is beginning to realize that youngsters of all ages, ethnic
backgrounds and levels of academic prowess can glean something from his
experience, unique though it be may.
If he
doesn't break through to them with his disarming sincerity, he does so with his
his sneaky bursts of streetwise wit. Cougars receiver Kyle Sweet, when asked of
his first impressions of Williams, said, "I remember thinking, 'This dude
is probably one of the funniest dudes I've met in my entire life.'"
Williams'
talents as a communicator first began to dawn on him last year when he paid
frequent visits to special-education classes at Camelot Elementary in Lewiston.
They were taught by his fiancee, Rye Hewett, 26, a former Lewiston High and
Lewis-Clark State tennis standout who's been a big part of Williams' life for
three years. They live in Lewiston with Hewett's 7-year-old daughter, Breezy.
"I
think he's a lot more comfortable now when he goes to talk to those kids,"
Hewett said by phone recently. "He knows how meaningful it is. I think he
can connect on so many levels - being homeless, how school is a struggle, just
a lot of different backgrounds. Whereas with a lot of other people, who just
take things for granted, I don't think it really sticks with those kinds of
kids. But he's relatable and personable, and that was something I was drawn to
when I met him."
Williams
speaks quickly during these sessions, improvising the whole way, with a fluid
combination of Ebonics and standard English. It's reminiscent of his elusive
moves on the football field, which helped produce a combined 1,112 yards and 16
touchdowns this season through rushing and pass-receiving.
In an
informal, no-microphone speech to members of the Deary High girls' and boys'
basketball teams at the school gym, he concisely noted what he called the irony
of being engaged to a special-ed teacher.
"Some
people, when I say I've got a teacher fiancee, they're like, 'Oh, she taught
you?' I'm like, 'No.'"
The last
word was uttered emphatically, and the kids laughed right on cue.
Williams
spoke for an hour, then fielded questions and signed autographs in the hallway
for another 40 minutes.
"We
have a small school - I was surprised to hear he was coming," said a
member of the Deary boys' team, sophomore point guard London Kirk. "His
talk really lifted our team up, and changed a lot of what we thought about how
everything worked. He's super nice. I feel like he cares about people, and
wants to change people's lives, like some people changed his."
That talk
was arranged by Deary boys' assistant coach Mike Morey, a longtime friend of
Hewett's mother, Renee.
"We've
had some struggles with some grades and some attitudes on our team," Morey
said. "I'd read a little about James, and I thought, what an opportunity.
I'll reach out to Renee, his future mother-in-law, and 'What are the chances of
having him come?' It was less than 15 minutes before he got back to me and
said, 'I'd love to do it.'"
In his
more condensed speech this week to a diverse bunch of young Texans, Williams
omitted many details of his Deary talk and inserted certain others,
acknowledging how close he'd come to being swallowed by the streets of Toledo.
"I'm
a product of my environment," he said. "So whoever I'm hanging out
with, that's what I'm going to be like. I was like that in Ohio. I was damn
near a Blood. In my city, that's literally how you survive."
That
wasn't his only problem. Athletically gifted and bursting with energy, Williams
was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a label he
would carry a long while, for better or worse. In any case, as Williams
describes it, teachers were so overwhelmed by chaos in the classroom that they
were ineffectual at best. He says he learned virtually nothing.
His
parents, James and Genise Williams, grew increasingly aware of these issues and
thought they could provide better opportunities for their three children out
West. So, eight years ago, they invested all their money in a drive to Southern
California, where, alas, their plans to reside temporarily with relatives fell
through.
So they
wound up living in their sport utility vehicle, "for probably seven months,"
the younger James Williams told the Deary kids. "We sat in a park. We kept
ourselves occupied - you'd never know we were homeless. We didn't act like it
at all. We were in the park playing basketball, or me and my brother would
throw a football around."
By fits
and starts, the family improved its situation and found permanent lodging. But
James, their eldest child, hampered by the Ohio experience, struggled to keep
up academically.
He was
placed in special education in the eighth grade and stayed there for years.
Embarrassed, he made a show of comparing class schedules with his friends at
the start of each term, knowing full well he shared no classes with them.
But in
some ways he thrived at Burbank High, which is academic-minded and ethnically
diverse, though Williams was one of just a handful of blacks. The school wasn't
known for producing NCAA Division I football athletes, but Williams looked like
he could become one.
The
attention he began drawing from Pac-12 coaches gave him extra incentive to master
his academic troubles. His social skills had never been questioned, and he now
used these to develop closer bonds with teachers, inviting them to give him the
one-on-one attention he seemed to need.
His final
semester of high school, it was a race to the finish. If he was to become
eligible to accept a scholarship offer from Washington State, he needed A's in
all his classes and a higher score on his college aptitude test. He managed
both, saying the latter was the more difficult. You can't reason with an SAT.
"I'm
not going to sit here and lie to you," Williams told the Deary athletes.
"School is hard. I don't like school. I still don't. I'm not going to sit
here and try to be a robot and say school is this and this and this. It's hard.
And there's no avoiding it."
Williams
seems to have mixed feelings about having been sidetracked into special
education. It didn't prepare him for the places he eventually wanted to go. But
he admits that his Ohio experience had left him unprepared for general
education.
His
fiancee, too, has complicated feelings about these subjects. Hewett said she
adored her work at Camelot but has since left the Lewiston school district and
is now working for Imagine Behavioral Services, where there's less paperwork
and more one-on-one work with children with disabilities.
When she
hears Williams' story, she wonders if teachers always took the right approach
with him.
"They
saw him as a football player, this athletic person - 'Oh, he just can't sit
still.'" she said. "Everybody learns differently. Education is not
just diagnosing kids with a certain category. Education should be available to
every kid, in the way they're able to learn. With James, he is someone who
needs a lot of repetition - look at him with football and reps. 'Practice makes
perfect.' And it does. He's really good at real-life scenarios, and I think
that's something that as a society - not just in Lewiston or Ohio or wherever -
people and teachers and special education really need to work on."
On the
field, Williams' progress this year has been indisputable. Cougars coach Mike
Leach gives some of the credit to his first-year position coach, Mele, who uses
video footage to try to persuade the running back, a master of the spin move
and always tempted to pop outside, to be more direct in his running when
necessary. He eventually saw the wisdom of the advice.
"He
started doing it that way, and he's punching touchdowns in," Mele said.
"He's running downhill and his pads look forward and he's running through
contact and that sort of thing. So it was one of those things - he had to see
some results. He saw them, and we kept feeding the fire with that stuff."
Williams'
father, now a personal trainer in Southern California, sees his son's
improvement on the field. In a recent phone interview, he said he hadn't yet
seen him in his new role as a public speaker. But he's not surprised.
"He's
overcome everything, he's stayed humble," the elder James Williams said.
"He's not letting what we went through define him. He could have been
bitter and standoffish, but he wasn't. He was open and he was fun. We got
really lucky with that. He was a really good kid."
Rye Hewett
said the Williamses "are probably one of the closest families I've ever
seen," and James makes frequent allusions to his father, mother and
siblings.
Have a
good support group, he told the Deary Mustangs. Play together. Be ready for
adversity. If you have naysayers, prove them wrong.
Three
weeks later, he delivered the same message to the Ellison Screaming Eagles.
:::::::::::::::::::
WSU
Football Coach Mike Leach a '70s hater? Not so fast
WSU coach
has a soft spot for some of that era's artists
By DALE
GRUMMERT of the Lewiston Trib Dec 26, 2018
SAN
ANTONIO - Seemingly every time his quarterback makes an allusion to the 1970s,
Washington State football coach Mike Leach takes the opportunity to disparage
that decade.
Or at
least one aspect of it - disco music.
The latest
example came Sunday, when Gardner Minshew donned an over-the-top Cougar-themed
leisure suit for the team's flight to San Antonio, where the Cougs face Iowa
State on Friday (6 p.m., ESPN) in the Alamo Bowl.
"I
grew up in the '70s and was glad when they ended, because the music improved,"
Leach said. "It took them about a decade, but it got better after
that."
But the
fact is, many of Leach's favorite musical acts either became popular in the
'70s or were going strong in that decade.
What
follows are a few of his faves, as listed during a recent multi-topic news
conference in Pullman, in seemingly no particular order. He led with the Doors,
for example, because he'd just heard them on the radio.
Leach's
accompanying comments on the acts were extracted hastily after the Cougars' practice
Tuesday at Benson Stadium in San Antonio.
Interestingly,
10 of the 13 acts are American, the exceptions being Bad Company and Jethro
Tull, who are English, and Neil Young, who is Canadian.
Leach's
mention of Texas A&M refers to his days as Texas Tech coach. And he alludes
to Wyoming because that's where he grew up.
The Doors
Years
active: 1965-73
Leach
says: "Dark, mysterious."
Lynyrd
Skynyrd
Years
active: 1960s-2010s
Leach
says: "It's a very Wyoming type of band, even though they probably never
went to Wyoming. Country rural high-school Southern."
Jimmy
Buffett
Years
active: 1960s-2010s
Leach
says: "Relaxed paradise."
Neil Young
Years
active: 1960s-2010s
Leach says:
"Music that talks to you."
Grateful
Dead
Years
active: 1960s-2010s
Leach
says: "Consistent, very consistent. There's no bad songs by the Dead. I
can't say that any of them are my favorite, but none of them are bad."
Bob Dylan
Years
active: 1960s-2010s
Leach
says: "Again, music that talks to you. You definitely listen to the
words."
Bad
Company
Years
active: 1970s-2010s
Leach
says: "Just good classic rock with energy."
Jethro
Tull
Years
active: 1960s-2010s
Leach
says: "More rare, harder to find. But again, rock with energy with a
unique approach. And the electric flute is outstanding."
The Eagles
Years
active: 1970s-2010s
Leach
says: "Eagles was an oasis during the 70s in the midst of disco. The
Eagles allowed people to persevere disco."
The
Marshall Tucker Band
Years
active: 1970s-2010s
Leach
says: "Outstanding. They were, throughout the state (Wyoming) when I grew
up there, an extremely popular band. One, they would tour and do concerts in
Wyoming. Even though they're from Virginia or something (actually South
Carolina), it was very western music, but still rock."
Radney
Foster
Years
active: 1990s-2000s
Leach
says: "Before we used to play A&M every year, we would play
"Texas Back in 1880," and it would inspire our entire team. And we
always played well against A Robert Earl Keen
Years
active: 1980s-2010s
Leach
says: "He would be like Bob Dylan for country music."
Toby Keith
Years
active: 1990s-2010s
Leach
says: "Good solid country, almost country rock. Toby Keith is just solid
energy and makes you feel good."
:::::
From
football to full-time father: Former WSU star Keith Millard embraces being
stay-at-home dad
Originally
published December 25, 2018 at 7:00 am Updated December 25, 2018 at 8:30 am
The former
Washington State star with the bad-boy reputation spent decades playing and
coaching but now finds “the responsibilities are endless" on the homefront
— and he is content.
By Scott
Hanson Seattle Times
Keith
Millard a stay-at-home dad?
It would
have been hard to picture two decades ago when Millard, the former Washington
State star with the bad-boy reputation, was terrorizing NFL offenses with
off-the-chart intensity as a defensive tackle for the Minnesota Vikings and was
the 1989 NFL defensive player of the year.
But after
decades of football, Millard, a father of six, has found happiness at home. Two
of his kids are still at home in Dublin, Calif., and he tends to them while
wife Paula works.
“The
responsibilities are endless,” said Millard, who has kids ranging from 13 to 31
and two young grandsons. “It’s a seven-day-a-week job. My wife is eight years
younger than me and is still finishing her career, so when I retired I took
over her duties. It was an adjustment for sure. I do everything that anyone
else would. I wash clothes, I cook and I try to do everything I can to keep
things normal and going as smoothly as possible.”
Millard,
56, wanted it to be different for his kids than it was for him, as one of nine
kids in a dysfunctional mixed family that was filled with tension.
He eventually
found an outlet in football.
“I didn’t
start playing football until my junior year of high school,” he said. “Nobody
in my family went to college, and I never imagined I would go to college. I
loved the sport, but my mom would not let me play as a kid.”
Millard
played tight end for Foothill High School in Pleasanton, Calif., as a junior,
showing good hands. He said he was 6 feet 4 and about 190 pounds, “and was always
pretty good at catching the ball, and worked my way to first team.”
But things
at home weren’t going well, and Millard moved in with a brother. A new football
coach was hired at Foothill, and he and Millard did not get along. A few games
into his senior season in 1979, Millard was kicked off the team.
“I had an
attitude and I definitely contributed to it,” Millard said. “I only played in
three or four games at the most my senior year, but they were really good and
stood out. But when recruiters came, the coach was bad-mouthing me.”
That could
have been the end of Millard’s football career. But one day a Washington State
football recruiter was at his school to look at another player. One of
Millard’s teachers, George Baljevich, intercepted the recruiter before he could
speak to the coach.
“He told
him my story and said, ‘You need to look at film of this guy,’ ” Millard said.
“They brought the film to coach (Jim) Walden and everything kind of took off
from there.”
Walden
wanted to visit with Millard’s family, so Millard made a call to his mom and
stepdad.
“I said.
‘I need to be in the house so they will think I have a normal family life,’”
Millard said, laughing at the recollection. “So when they came, it was a little
intense to say the least, but I think we pulled it off pretty well.”
Later,
Millard learned that Walden had been aware of his situation.
“His mom
remarried, and that did not go well with him,” said Walden, 80, who coached WSU
from 1978-86, and later became a longtime analyst on WSU football radio
broadcasts. “I am not going to get into all of that, but it was very
disconcerting with him and his new stepfather. … There was some anger, and it
took him some time to work through that.”
The move
to Pullman changed everything for Millard, and he credits Walden “for saving my
life.”
“It was
the opportunity of a lifetime and I was taking it seriously,” Millard said. “I
knew what I wanted to do, and I was going to do whatever it took to get there.
Thank God we had great leaders that set great examples. And coach Walden — I
can’t tell you enough about that guy.”
Still,
there were pitfalls. Millard got a reputation as a bad boy. He spent 17 weeks
in jail during the summer after his junior year for a case in which he was
convicted of simple assault in the fourth degree.
“His
reputation at Washington State far exceeds what he actually did,” Walden said.
“I think people sometimes have a tendency to embellish when kids get into
trouble. Keith was pretty full of himself. But he was never as much of a
problem for me as a lot of people thought he was. Actually, he was pretty fun
to coach. He had a little streak in him, but he was a good guy.”
Millard’s
football life change when he switched from tight end to defensive line as a
sophomore.
Millard
said, “I considered myself a pass-catching tight end,” but there was no need
for a pass-catching tight end at Washington State, which ran the run-heavy veer
offense.
At 215
pounds by then, Millard was built like a linebacker, but there was no need for
another linebacker. He would need to be a defensive lineman.
“I said,
‘I will do it,’” Millard said. “The spring of next year I was moved to
defensive line.”
He got
himself to about 240 pounds and for the next two years he terrorized offenses,
with two of the greatest seasons by a WSU defensive player.
As a
junior and senior, he combined for 39½ tackles for loss, fifth most in school
history, and had 21½ sacks, sixth in school history. He helped WSU to two
consecutive victories in the Apple Cup in 1982 and 1983, and won the Morris
Trophy as a senior in 1983 as the Pac-10’s top lineman.
Not bad
for a converted tight end.
“Right
away, some of the coaches said it was the best thing that ever happened to me,”
Millard said of making the switch. “They thought I had a good future at it.
That was encouraging, but I never thought more than that. Once I got into the
groove and found my niche … I don’t want to sound conceited, but I was pretty
much unstoppable at that point.”
To his
surprise, the pro scouts were paying attention. He was drafted in the first
round, No. 13 overall, by the Minnesota Vikings, and in the first round of the
United States Football League, where he began his pro career.
“My
thought process, even in my senior year, was all I wanted was a shot in the
league and I would take it from there,” he said. “I never thought in a million
years I would get drafted, let alone in the first round. That was a shock to
me.”
After
finishing second in the USFL in sacks with 12 in 1984, he joined the Vikings in
1985 and his career continued to ascend. He was up to 260 to 265 pounds, and
among the most feared players in the league. He had no trouble getting around
bigger players with his superior quickness and immense desire.
“I worked
hard, was focused, studied hard and was a student of the game,” said Millard,
who set the NFL record for sacks by a defensive tackle with 18 in 1989, and his
record lasted almost 30 years before the Rams’ Aaron Donald broke it Sunday. “I
was an absolute dedicated, hard-working, hungry, goal-oriented type of player.
“I just
wanted to keep going and see how far this thing was going to take me.”
It seemed
that would be the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But then, in the fourth game in
1990, he blew out his knee, including tearing his ACL, and underwent
reconstructive knee surgery. He was never the same.
Millard
missed the 1991 season, and then the Seahawks traded a second-round draft
choice for Millard in 1992, hoping he could regain the form that made him the
1989 NFL defensive player of the year.
He was
released after two games with Seattle, then suffered a broken hand with Green
Bay after signing with the Packers.
“It was
cool at first,” Millard said of joining the Seahawks. “But I think it was a mistake,
because, No. 1, I don’t think I was as ready as I thought I was. And No. 2, I
lived in Seattle in the offseason, and I had a lot of friends that were a
distraction to me. And my knee was still very problematic, trying to get
confidence on it. I was in the training room a lot, getting treatment on it. It
was very frustrating.
“Those
were some tough years for me, I’m telling you. Tough years, man, going from
being at the top of my game to the rug being pulled out. I had always come back
from injuries and I just couldn’t come back from this one. My thought process
in the past had been I will work through it. I will work harder than anybody
and do whatever it takes. But it was never right, and I could not do what I did
before. Not even close.”
Millard
was ready to retire but was talked into signing with the Philadelphia Eagles in
1994. He played but his heart was not in it, finishing with four sacks,
including a sack against the 49ers in his final game.
“I knew I
was done,” he said. “I never looked back.”
He figured
he was done with football, and headed to his ranch in Arizona. But one day, the
local high school football coach knocked on Millard’s door, wanting to know if
Millard would help out with the defense. He did, he enjoyed it and he excelled.
A coach
was born. Millard quickly worked through the ranks from college to the NFL,
getting a job as the defensive line coach with the Denver Broncos in 2001. That
was followed by stints as an assistant with the Oakland Raiders, the Tampa Bay
Buccaneers and Tennessee Titans, with an interruption to get the first of two
hip replacements at age 38.
His
growing family stayed in California during his final two NFL jobs, and when the
staff at Tennessee was fired in 2013, Paula had a talk with Keith.
“She said,
‘You really need to quit. You are getting old, your kids are getting older,
you’re missing a lot of time with your family. You need to stop,’ ” he said.
“So I did. I started getting back into my kids’ lives and feeling pretty good
about it.”
Coaching was
limited to helping with his kids’ teams.
“I help
where I can, to be with my kids,” he said.
In
addition to the hip replacements, Millard also has had a knee replacement and
now needs to get his neck fused. But he doesn’t let that cut into his duties at
home. It’s where he is staying, even if the football temptation never leaves
for good.
“There is
a huge adjustment from 14 hours every day and the pressure of the game that you
get used to, then go to nothing,” he said. “It took me a couple of years to get
used to it. Every year I think about getting back but reality kicks in. I can’t
do it anymore.”
Watching
from afar with great pride is Walden.
“He’s one
of my biggest accomplishments in a sense of I’m proud of what he became because
I know from where he came,” Walden said. “I know how hard the journey was. And
I know what a commitment he has made over the years to get where he is and to
make decisions that he’s making. I love how much he loves his family, raising
them, and how much he is enjoying them. It just makes me feel that’s what
coaching is all about. I am very proud of Keith Millard. Really, really proud.”
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