It's About Time

The Minnesota Vikings are in the best coaching hands since Bud Grant was last on the sidelines. Mike Zimmer was hired on January 15. I've been smiling ever since. I first became aware of Zimmer in the early 2000s. He was the defensive coordinator of the Dallas Cowboys at the time. With the regularity at which NFL head coaches are fired I figured that Zimmer would get one of those head coaching gigs in a couple of years. It's crazy to think that it took more than a decade for it to finally happen.

Vince Lombardi once wondered if he'd ever get his shot as the head coach of a team. He had been an NFL assistant coach for five years before the Green Bay Packers hired him to turn their franchise around. He had coached for about fifteen years before he made it to the NFL. He had a twenty year coaching wait before the Packers changed his life. That's a long wait. Longer than most. It's pretty short compared to Mike Zimmer's wait.

Mike Zimmer's first football coaching job was as a defensive assistant at the University of Missouri in 1979. Thirty-five years later he finally got his head coaching shot. It's stunning that a football coach as clearly talented as Zimmer had to wait longer than ten years for that shot. Eric Mangini was hired and fired twice in a five year period during which Zimmer was passed over or not considered at all. Maybe the New York Jets and Cleveland Browns should have given Mike Zimmer a thought. I'm so glad that they didn't. Actually, I'm really glad and very thankful that many NFL teams were either blind or stupid over the last fifteen years. The Vikings hired three head coaches in the years that I thought that Zimmer should have been hired by some team. They blindly hired from within twice and conducted something that barely qualified as a coaching search once. I think that qualifies the Vikings as both blind and stupid. I'm glad that they got smart the fourth time that they needed a coach.

I'm can barely contain my excitement over having Mike Zimmer as the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings. I still have mixed emotions over the whole thing. Zimmer deserved his own team so long ago. He shouldn't have had to wait. He's interviewed for several jobs over the last few years. It's been said that he interviews poorly. I've heard him speak on several occasions. Maybe he's not the greatest public speaker but his passion for football and coaching football is obvious. I wanted to charge out of my easy-chair to play football for this man. He shouldn't have had to deal with so many rejections. So many disappointments. Too many coaching posers have been offered head coaching jobs and lost those same jobs before Zimmer got his due. It makes no sense but I'm so glad that I'm put in a position to puzzle over this injustice. I was reminded again of Zimmer's long wait this past weekend. On Saturday, he was speaking at the NFL's career-development symposium. He spoke of his head coaching wait. He spoke of the rejections. His most recent rejection was this past January. He was headed to his second interview with the Vikings when he heard that he was passed over again. It was likely the Tennessee Titans that hired someone else this time. He was almost ready to accept his fate as a career assistant. "I almost didn't go, yeah, I was so disappointed." Zimmer was close to not going to that second interview with Minnesota. That thought sent a chill through me. "It was like, 'Why even do this?' It was to that point. I figured I was getting too old. I thought, 'Forget this.'" Fortunately, others, friends and/or family, talked him into continuing his head coaching pursuit. I have mixed emotions because here is a football coach that is so deserving of a head coaching job yet never gets one. I am so glad that he was told "no" because all of those rejections led him to the Vikings job. He shouldn't have had to wait but I am so glad that he had to wait. I hope that Mike Zimmer can approach the success that Vince Lombardi had after his long, but shorter, wait.