He grabs a white one-inch, three-ring binder from his desk and places it on a table. A sheet of printer paper is neatly tucked into the sleeve on the front. Typed in bold font are the words, ‘The Plan.’

Doug Marrone opens the binder and slowly flips through the colored charts and text. The Plan, Marrone believes, will save Syracuse football.

Inside are the first 44 years of his life. The values he learned growing up in a Bronx neighborhood nestled in the shadow of the Throgs Neck Bridge. Those grueling Dick MacPherson summertime practices in the Carrier Dome, when Marrone wasn’t sure if he had another breath left in him. The methodical move up the coaching ladder, from watering fields at Cortland to being an offensive coordinator in the NFL, where those around him believe Marrone was destined for a head-coaching job.

He checks his watch. He has killed another hour talking about himself and in the typical Doug Marrone 14-hour workday, that’s way too much.

As the hulking ex-lineman sits back in his chair while sipping a Diet Coke, he closes The Plan.

‘I’m a lucky man,’ says Marrone, the 28th head coach in Syracuse University football history.

He stands up. ‘One turn the wrong way and…’

***

And maybe he would have been an NFL head coach because of The Plan.

As offensive coordinator for the New Orleans Saints, Marrone said he was interviewed by Russell Reynolds Associates, an executive search firm. The NFL runs a program with the firm that targets ‘high-potential assistant coaches’ who could someday be head coaches, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said in an e-mail. The hour-long interview is taped and sent to all 32 NFL teams to help in future searches. Around 10 assistants are chosen for the program every year, Aiello said.

‘Certainly, he was on the radar with a lot of teams in our league,’ Saints head coach Sean Payton said. ‘His star is shining bright.’

In New Orleans, Marrone’s unit twice led the NFL in total yardage. Payton, an offensive whiz, called all of the plays, but said Marrone’s leadership and willingness to develop young players were invaluable to the offense.

‘He had leadership skills that made him more than a position coach,’ Payton said. ‘You could see he had the ability to coordinate and be a head coach someday.’

Before the NFL, when Marrone became the tight ends and tackles coach at the University of Tennessee in 2001, he decided he was ready to be a head coach. He was 37 years old and had been coaching for nine years – six at Georgia Tech and Georgia combined.

He left Tennessee for the New York Jets in 2002, having been cold-called about the offensive line job. He took the job, believing it put him in a better position to become the head coach at Syracuse.

And that’s when The Plan started to move from Marrone’s brain to scraps of paper.

Marrone woke up early in the morning to do work before going into work. He jotted down what he would do in certain situations if he were a head coach. When he interviewed for the Syracuse job, he carried three binders full of his principles.

Bill Polian, the Indianapolis Colts general manager, told Syracuse Director of Athletics Daryl Gross that if he didn’t hire Marrone, someone else would make him a head coach very soon.

With the Saints, Marrone was nearing the top of his profession.

‘After the coordinator position, it really went to two things,’ Marrone said. ‘Become a head coach in the NFL or become the head coach at Syracuse. And that was it. Not become a head coach in college. Head coaching job in the NFL or head coaching job at Syracuse.’

And if he had waited longer in the NFL, would he have been a head coach there?

‘Yes. Absolutely,’ he responds without flinching.

A long pause.

But he wanted Syracuse over that?

‘I wanted this job. I wanted this job. There’s no doubt in my mind.’

It’s admirable. It’s loyal. It even has a storybook-like quality to it. Even those around Marrone at various steps of his life corroborate the desire to return to Syracuse over anything else.

‘It’s not about the prestige of being a pro-coach,’ former Jets head coach Herman Edwards said. ‘It was more about his passion for that university.’

‘There are no perfect jobs,’ Payton said. ‘There’s a reason that job is open. There’s a reason that they are going through a coaching change. It’s no different in our league. I think he’s the perfect fit for that place, though.’

Yes, there is a reason to question Marrone’s ability to rebuild here. Syracuse hasn’t had a winning season since 2001, the last time the program won a bowl game. Greg Robinson’s disastrous four-year run plunged the program into the depths of national irrelevance. Even the glory years of McNabb are like ancient history, let alone the unbeaten Sugar Bowl season of 1987 and the legends of Brown, Davis and Little.

Regional competition has never been stronger, with the recent emergence of Connecticut and Rutgers to join traditional Eastern powers like Penn State, West Virginia and Boston College.

But that’s all noted in The Plan, Marrone says. To him, picking Syracuse over the NFL was what he was supposed to do. Had to do.

No question.

‘People that look at those decisions really don’t understand them,’ Marrone said. ‘That’s not to be disrespectful. You’re going to live your life the way you want to live it. You want to be able to go back and say, ‘I made this decision. This is what I wanted.’ And when you do things like that, things are going to work. You’re going to make them work.

‘When you do something because someone else thinks it’s good, or it may have more publicity or glamour or status, those things usually don’t work out because you did not do what was in your heart.’

***

Doug Marrone believes he owes Syracuse University something. It’s more than simple pride for his alma mater. It’s how he was raised.

‘I grew up where you never wanted to owe someone something,’ Marrone said. ‘My dad taught me that when I was young. Never take anything for free. Never take anything for granted. I feel so indebted to the university. What can I do? What can I do? I’m always looking for things I can do for this university.’

It’s why he came back. Again.

Marrone left campus in 1986 for the NFL. After a successful collegiate career as a three-year starter at right tackle, Marrone blew off classes and began training for the NFL during his final semester at SU. ‘My decision,’ he said. ‘A poor decision on my part.’

Back then, The Plan was to play professionally. He took classes after not making the Los Angeles Raiders, who drafted him in the sixth round of the 1986 NFL draft. Then he enrolled at Broward Community College while with the Miami Dolphins in 1987. When his NFL career -five games in two seasons – ended, Marrone returned to campus and finished his degree requirements during summer school.

He graduated in 1991. Incessant nagging from Dick MacPherson and some of his professors convinced him. Outside of meeting his wife and having his three children, Marrone called graduating his ‘greatest accomplishment.’

‘I might not have been the most well-adjusted student because of my background,’ Marrone said. ‘I hate to blame it on anyone else. I could have done a better job.’

Marrone said he did just enough to get by at Lehman High School. In college, that wasn’t enough. The players were stronger and faster. The classes were harder.

But the kid from the Bronx loved the campus atmosphere. Back in February, once the sleepless nights of recruiting were over, Marrone ate lunch one day at Shaw Dining Hall because he wanted to be around students again.

‘Even though he though he was cocky in high school, he learned to appreciate his skills and recognize you have to pay the price to be successful,’ MacPherson said. ‘I think that’s what Syracuse did for him.’

The Orangemen enjoyed modest success during Marrone’s years, the beginning of MacPherson’s tenure as head coach. In 1985, Marrone’s senior season, Syracuse lost to Maryland in the Cherry Bowl to finish 7-5. It was Syracuse’s first bowl game in six years. Two seasons later, the Orangemen were 11-0-1 and tied Auburn in the Sugar Bowl.

Bob Brotzki, Syracuse’s new director of player development and a former teammate of Marrone’s, couldn’t help but notice the parallels between the mid-1980s and now. In both cases, a new coach is replacing a wildly unsuccessful predecessor.

The two picked each other’s brain during the last month to correctly remember the policies MacPherson implemented while at Syracuse. The Plan is Marrone’s brainchild, no doubt, but it has plenty of influences. MacPherson might be the biggest.

‘It’s all part of what we’ve been successful with before,’ Marrone said. ‘I believe that there is a formula of how to win here at Syracuse.’

MacPherson gushes about Marrone. He takes little credit for influencing his plans. But the evidence is overwhelming. Why go back to red and green practice jerseys? Well, Coach Mac did it that way. Players must wear collared shirts when speaking to the media and can’t grow facial hair. Just like when Coach Mac was in charge. Will there be a regimented strength and conditioning program? You bet. Marrone remembers that well.

‘His years there, evidently, have put an indelible mark on his soul,’ said Boots Donnelly, Marrone’s father-in-law and former head coach at Middle Tennessee State.

Marrone embraces this. He preaches it. Syracuse shaped him.

‘I can never repay this school for what it’s done for me,’ Marrone said. ‘Everything in my life. I would not have the perfect person I have for my wife. I wouldn’t have three beautiful children. I wouldn’t have all of this if it weren’t for this university.

‘So no matter how successful I become here, I can never repay this university. It just can’t happen.’

***

One day during the second week of spring practice, Marrone, as he occasionally does, broke away with the offensive tackles for individual drills. He paired the tackles up and watched intently as they hit one another. After almost every repetition, Marrone grabbed a player.

‘Get pissed off and kick his ass,’ Marrone shouted to junior Tucker Baumbach.

And minutes later, when nothing changed: ‘Don’t over evaluate it. He wants to kick your ass and you want to kick his ass.’

Junior tackle Jonathan Meldrum said the linemen have never had the hands-on approach of Marrone here at Syracuse. And when Marrone needs to be heard, Meldrum said, he makes sure everyone hears him clearly.

‘Coach Marrone is a very…I wouldn’t say intimidating man, but he has a great presence about him,’ Meldrum said. ‘When he’s around, he just grabs your attention. There’s no messing around. Whenever he talks, he grabs every part of you.’

It’s an intentional byproduct of The Plan. Doug Marrone knows what he wants. He knows how he wants to do it. And he knows what to say to make it happen.

If one thing is clear in the 17 weeks Marrone has spent as the head coach, he is the CEO of the Syracuse football program. Players, coaches and staff all answer to Marrone and no one else. His booming voice and giant stature, multiple players said, have helped him achieve a commanding presence.

‘The first word that comes to mind is discipline,’ junior center Jim McKenzie said. ‘Coach Marrone and his staff, they believe in doing what’s right, doing it at the right time, the right way.’

‘You feel the spirit that he has for the school,’ junior tailback Delone Carter said. ‘It’s so hard not to buy in, so we’re all in with him.’

Daryl Gross had spoken to Marrone on the phone before, but didn’t meet him face-to-face until when Syracuse flew Marrone from New Orleans to Cincinnati. Syracuse, under Greg Robinson, was there to finish a 3-9 season with a loss to the Bearcats on Nov. 29. Gross and Marrone met in a conference room at the Cincinnati airport. The athletic director left wide-eyed.

‘He really was detailed,’ said Gross, Syracuse’s athletic director. ‘He had a plan that he had been developing for years. Even when he was in the pros, how he stayed connected to the high school coaches with in mind, the possibility – only the possibility – that he would have an opportunity to coach at Syracuse. He geared all of the things he was doing for that one possibility.’

He may have spent years building The Plan, but someone still must execute it. Marrone’s personality is a radical change from Greg Robinson’s laid-back, Californian persona. Delone Carter said the initial meeting was tense, but eventually, he and the other players could relax. Marrone was approachable. Demanding, but approachable.

Eight players, six on scholarship, have left the team since spring practice started.

But that’s to be expected.

‘Doug is very organized,’ said Donnelly, his father-in-law. ‘He doesn’t leave much to chance.’

***

When Marrone was with the New York Jets, the team’s facilities were still located on Long Island, which meant a 40-mile bus ride to East Rutherford, N.J., for the games at Giants Stadium.

Every time, the bus drove past Marrone’s childhood home on Harding Avenue in the Bronx.

Every time, the bus drove past the grassy area between the exit ramp and the street that Marrone played football on as a kid.

Every time, Marrone thought the same thing to himself.

‘If you would have told me I would be coaching for the New York Jets when I was 9 or 10, there’s no way,’ he said. ‘I had no…no way I would have ever thought that. It just always brings you back to…I don’t know if you can explain it. It’s just hard. This is unbelievable. My life, everything I have, it’s been unbelievable. It really has.’

Sometimes he experiences that rush here in Syracuse. But not as much. He had more focus when he was here as a student. And he has something to fall back on.

Those three binders brought to the interview with Gross were whittled down to the white one-inch, three-ring binder. The Plan.

Marrone doesn’t do much besides football. He says he is in his office at Manley Field House around 4 a.m. every day. He tries to leave by 6 p.m., but that normally turns into 8 or 8:30 p.m.

This is how he functions, Marrone said. The Plan requires his full attention.

When Marrone goes to Tennessee with his wife and three children to visit his in-laws, he doesn’t talk a great deal outside of football, Boots Donnelly said. He might take the kids down to the lake. He might play some golf.

‘He’s very calculated in his thoughts,’ Donnelly said. ‘He’s very deliberate in what he says.’

Each coach that Marrone worked with could not understate Marrone’s vision. In high school, he game planned with his coach, Carmine Colasanto, who could not remember a lineman ever doing that. George O’Leary, who gave Marrone his first Division-I job at Georgia Tech, said Marrone ‘knew what he wanted to do with himself.’

‘He’s been lucky,’ Sean Payton said. ‘And to his credit, he’s worked with some real good coaches. His pedigree is outstanding. I think he’s going to lean on that.’

Again, that word: Luck.

What’s that Doug Marrone said?

‘I’m a lucky man. One step the wrong way and…’

Doug Marrone didn’t step the wrong way then. And he can’t now.

‘I have to do a good job,’ Marrone said. ‘It’s easy for me because it’s what I believe.’

Now you see. It’s all part of The Plan.

magelb@syr.edu

 

Published on April 13, 2009 at 12:00 pm