TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -Ken Whisenhunt believes in paying attention to detail, whether it’s in his smooth golf swing or in his meticulous transformation of an awful NFL franchise.
Honing in on those “little things” and staying consistent with everything and everybody were major tools in Whisenhunt’s exorcism of bad football in the desert.
Oh, and one more thing.
“He’s a tough guy,” safety Adrian Wilson said.
That combination fueled his nine-year journeyman career as a tight end with Atlanta, Washington and the New York Jets. It served him well in his rise through the coaching ranks, first with Vanderbilt, then to Baltimore, Cleveland, the Jets and finally as offensive coordinator of Super Bowl champ Pittsburgh three years ago.
His degree in civil engineering from Georgia Tech taught him problem solving, and he’s applied that knowledge to football.
” Whisenhunt said Friday in his last news conference before Sunday’s Super Bowl, “there are a lot of problems that you are going to have to solve.”
As a player and an assistant coach he took copious notes, jotting down the philosophies and ideas of the likes of Joe Gibbs, Dan Henning, and probably most of all, Bill Cowher.
“I told coach Cowher that I have notebooks with little tabs in there from when he spoke before the championship game, when he spoke before the Super Bowl, when he spoke at mini-camp meeting, all of those things,” Whisenhunt said. “I’d go back and look at those things and get ideas of where he was and what he was thinking about.”
Now Whisenhunt has performed the amazing feat of leading the Cardinals to a Super Bowl matchup Sunday against the Steelers, the team that passed him over as Cowher’s replacement two years ago.
Instead, Whisenhunt moved his wife and two teenage children to the Arizona sunshine, where he had been assured that this was a new, modernized Cardinal organization, playing in a fancy new stadium with an already talented roster.
“I didn’t look at it as far as history goes because I didn’t think it really had anything to do with what we were trying to get done,” he said.
ason in 22 years. This was a franchise that had forgotten how to win, if it really ever knew.
He set about bringing a bit of Pittsburgh to the Southwest.
Working for the Steelers, he said, “gave me an idea of what it took to be successful.”
“I believe we brought a lot of that with us from the standpoint of how we prepare, how we practice, what we expect of our players,” Whisenhunt said.
That consistency did not go unnoticed by Wilson, who has spent all eight of his NFL seasons with Arizona, the longest of any player on the team’s roster.
“He doesn’t waver in any decision that he makes,” Wilson said. “That’s all you can ask for as a player. When you have people who are on both sides of the fence, it’s hard to read them. It’s not hard to read coach Whisenhunt.”
Whisenhunt grew up in Augusta, Ga. As a teenager, he worked the scoreboard at the Masters and developed a lifelong love for golf. He shot an even-par 72 at Augusta National in 2007. His career low score is 65 and he has three holes-in-one, not including a tee shot that went in after he hit his first drive out of bounds.
He says that golf and football share the need for a consistent approach that is at the root of his coaching.
Kurt Warner would add honesty to Whisenhunt’s traits.
ason’s training camp, Whisenhunt assured him that there would be open competition at quarterback.
“It’s easy for a lot of people to say that,” Warner said.
It wasn’t Whisenhunt personally that made him wonder, Warner said, “but really because of past situations I’ve been in and knowing that in this business what’s said isn’t always the truth or isn’t always what’s going to happen.”
Warner, after all, had lost his job to young Marc Bulger in St. Louis and even younger Eli Manning with the New York Giants. His latest competition came from Matt Leinart, a Heisman Trophy winner and Arizona’s acknowledged “quarterback of the future.”
But Whisenhunt was true to his word, and just before the regular season began, Warner was named the starter.
The result, Warner said, is “a lot of respect and trust from my side to his just because the things that he’s said, he’s done.”
“The things that he’s told us as a team or individuals he’s backed up time and time again,” Warner said. “Those are the kinds of coaches you’d go to battle for, go through a wall for, because you know they’re going to do right by you.”
Whisenhunt brought Russ Grimm with him from Pittsburgh to Arizona as assistant head coach and offensive line coach. Grimm also got passed over in Pittsburgh for current Steelers coach Mike Tomlin.
“When Ken came in, I kind of knew what to expect,” Grimm said, “but the players found out what to expect. He’s consistent, as far as his approach to the game. He’s consistent in how he handles the players. Obviously that’s what you’re looking for to get those results. Did we think we’d get here this fast? I don’t know, but that’s what you work on every year to see how fast you can get there. That’s everybody’s goal.”
After high school, Whisenhunt was a walk-on at Georgia Tech. By the time he graduated, he was second on the school’s career list for reception yards and fourth in receptions.
The NFL was not impressed. The Atlanta Falcons chose him in the 12th round.
He played four seasons with Atlanta and two with the Redskins, where he was a teammate of Grimm’s. He finished his playing career in 1993 after three seasons with the Jets.
After two years as special teams-tight ends coach at Vanderbilt, Whisenhunt moved to the NFL where he was tight ends coach with Baltimore (1997-98), special teams coach with Cleveland (1999), and tight ends coach with the Jets (2000).
become rookie of the year, then in 2005, the Steelers advanced to the Super Bowl, where they beat Seattle.
Roethlisberger has been highly complimentary of Whisenhunt in the days leading up to this Super Bowl, refuting reports that the two didn’t get along.
“We are better than straight,” Roethlisberger said. “People think we haven’t talked and that we have this huge rift between us, but unless they’ve checked our phone records, people don’t know how much we’ve talked. We text message after games ‘Good Job.”’
Roethlisberger called Whisenhunt “a great mentor to me.”
“He really helped me a lot early on and helped me develop into who I’m becoming and who I am,” the Steelers quarterback said. “I owe him a lot. I really do. … I look forward to playing some golf with him, I just need to get my game better first.”
On the sidelines, Whisenhunt rarely shows emotion, except perhaps after a big play and certainly after his team won the NFC championship. He’s made a habit after every playoff victory of circling the stadium, giving high-fives to fans all along the way.
But that’s not to say he isn’t capable of letting his team have it. That’s exactly what happened after Arizona lost at New England 47-7 in the next-to-last game of the regular season. He hollered at them and threatened players with benching. He put the team in full pads and had them go at it.
He got their attention. They haven’t lost since.
Pittsburgh running back Willie Parker calls Whisenhunt “a great guy and it’s a big congratulations to him and what he did for that organization.”
“To be facing him is crazy,” Parker said. “But at the same time he’s done a great job over there and if we were not to win the Super Bowl, I would love for him to win it. There wouldn’t be any other guy.”
Whisenhunt repeatedly has denied that he has any hard feelings about not getting the Steelers’ job, that it’s any motivation for this game.
“I think coach Whis is past that right now,” Cardinals linebacker Karlos Dansby said. “He’s a very professional man and he’s past that. You see what we have here in Arizona and he’s soaking it up. He’s loving it.”
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