.png)
Nate Ulrich
Akron Beacon Journal
- Mike Vrabel shares memories of a back injury creating a
"pretty traumatic" experience and a proverbial fork in the road
during his Walsh Jesuit High School football days
- What is work like for members of the Tennessee Titans
who play for Vrabel? Two guys with Browns connections, Jack Conklin and
Joshua Dobbs, share insight about the NFL coach who was born in Akron
- Former Walsh coach Gerry Rardin and former NFL
defensive coordinator Dean Pees remember Vrabel as a player and how his
behavior back then foreshadowed a future in coaching
Mike
Vrabel jumped into a scuffle among Tennessee Titans players,
pushing and shoving to prove a point as the franchise's new head coach.
“He's
yelling at the same time, teaching them, 'You do this in the game, it's a
penalty!' And as he's doing it, he's knocking them around. He's right in the
middle of it,” said Gerry
Rardin, Vrabel's former Walsh Jesuit High School football coach.
“I'm thinking, 'Holy cow! He's not only
teaching the lesson, but he's teaching them the lesson physically.' That's just
the way he does it. He's going to be hands on. He's going to walk the walk.”
The
scene Rardin recalled from his visit to Titans organized
team activities in 2018 wasn't a rare instance of Vrabel mixing it up
with players as if he were still a famed New England Patriots defender, special
teamer and part-time tight end.
“I remember from the first day of OTAs him coming in and jacking offensive linemen,” said Browns right tackle Jack Conklin, a member of the Titans during Vrabel's first two seasons at the helm in Tennessee. “We're doing drills, and he's in there as the defender trying to give looks and in the middle of it all. I remember him getting bloody noses and him getting hit in the face.”
“No,
he'd just jump in there, flip his hat backwards and take a shot in the
face,” Conklin said. “But he didn't care. He'd tell you, 'Good.'”
This fall, Vrabel will bring
his intense brand of toughness to two halls of fames and a matchup with the
Browns.
The former NFL linebacker who's in his
sixth season as Titans coach will be inducted into the Summit
County Sports Hall of Fame on Oct. 3 and the Patriots Hall of Fame on Oct.
21.
“A lot
of great people from Northeast Ohio, a lot of great athletes, so it's pretty
cool,” Vrabel told the Beacon Journal by phone last month.
Before Vrabel is
honored, his Titans (1-1) will face the Browns (1-1) on Sunday in Cleveland.
Tennessee Titans coach
Mike Vrabel attended last Cleveland Browns game before the team moved to
Baltimore and became the Ravens
Vrabel's all-time
record against the Browns is 9-4, including 4-1 in Cleveland. As a player, he
went 6-3, including 2-1 at Cleveland Browns Stadium. As a coach, he's 3-1
versus the Browns, including 1-1 as Titans boss and 2-0 on Cleveland's
lakefront.
Unlike
some coaches who downplay the personal significance of a homecoming
game, Vrabel said clashing with the Browns is indeed special to him.
“Yeah, I
grew up a Browns fan,” Vrabel said. “My first NFL game with my dad was in the
Dawg Pound and was at Municipal Stadium for the last game [in 1995 before the
team moved to Baltimore].
“[Fans]
were taking the rows of chairs off and throwing them onto the field. ... I grew
up wearing the dog bones and all that other stuff, just because football was
popular and important where I grew up.”
Vrabel, 48, was born at Akron City Hospital and said he lived in Springfield Township until he moved in middle school to Stow with his parents, Chuck and Elaine.
At Walsh, Vrabel became a standout in
football, basketball and track and field — he threw shot put and discus — before
starring as a two-time All-America defensive end at Ohio State and playing 14
NFL seasons for the Pittsburgh Steelers (1997-2000), Patriots (2001-08) and
Kansas City Chiefs (2009-10).
How a back injury Mike
Vrabel suffered as a student at Walsh Jesuit High School threatened his
football career
The
journey wasn't always smooth. Vrabel encountered a proverbial fork in the road
the summer before his junior year of high school.
Excruciating
back pain sent Vrabel to two doctors who said his football career should have
ended. Determined to exhaust all options, Vrabel went to a third doctor, a back
specialist at the Cleveland Clinic, who concluded he could continue to play if
he wore a brace and rehabilitated the injury.
“I was
like, 'Thank God!' Finally, I went to enough doctors,” Vrabel said.
What was
the issue? Vrabel said he had suffered “stress fractures in the fourth and
fifth lumbar.” He conceded the experience was “pretty traumatic” until the back
specialist cleared him to play again.
“Then it
was like, 'OK. It's not going to be the end of the world. This is what we're
going to do — get fitted for a brace, go from there,'” Vrabel said. “The brace
was crazy. It was from my upper chest down below my waistline, so they kept me
literally straight up and down.”
As a Walsh junior, Vrabel played defensive
end, linebacker and tight end standing up. As a senior, he shed the brace and
returned to a three-point stance.
“It just
kind of shows the perseverance this guy has,” Rardin said. “I think a lot of
people could have given up at that time. But that [third] doctor gave him hope,
and he said, 'I'm taking it.' He ran with it.”
Vrabel's
version of how he initially detected the back problem provides a glimpse into
his ruthless sense of humor. The discovery occurred while he ran laps as
punishment for arriving late to two-a-day practices with some of his teammates.
“Did
Gerry tell you when he made me run around, made me run laps when I was like,
'My back's killing me?'” Vrabel said. “He was like, 'Keep running.'
“Then I
found out I had stress fractures, and poor Gerry wanted to, like, you know,
kill himself because he felt terrible. I always hold it over his head. I was
like, 'Remember when you tried to ruin my career by making me run for 40
minutes around the fields?'”
New England Patriots
coach Bill Belichick isn't immune to Mike Vrabel jokes
Vrabel
is almost always busting someone's chops. His players are frequent targets, and
even Bill Belichick is not safe, according to a tale Rardin said he has heard
about Vrabel unveiling an impersonation of Belichick during a Patriots practice
and drawing laughter from the stern coaching legend.
“It's
like cynical humor,” said Arizona Cardinals quarterback Joshua Dobbs, a
former member of the Browns who started two games for the Titans last
season. “He's going to throw some jabs, but he expects you to throw some jabs
back.”
With
Vrabel, Conklin said “you've got to be on your game” when it comes to trash
talk.
“He'll
either hit you with something you've got to improve on for practice and be all
in your face, or it's a joke,” Conklin added. “So you never know what you're
going to get, but you've always got to be on guard because he's just full
energy.”
Conklin can't help but chuckle about
Vrabel's wife, Jennifer, catching the youngest of the couple's two sons,
Carter, chewing tobacco and then punishing the family patriarch because his
habit had set the example.
“Vrabes
had to quit chewing tobacco,” Conklin said. “So he started smoking cigarettes
outside the [Titans] training room every morning — every morning.”
Rardin
accepted an invitation from Vrabel to hang out at Titans headquarters shortly
after the latter had secured his first head coaching job. Rardin observed
Vrabel's knack for being personable but simultaneously commanding respect.
“He
doesn't have to act like the hard ass every second, but everybody knows he is,”
Rardin said.
On
another serious note, Vrabel revealed the back discomfort caused by the stress
fractures he suffered in high school never vanished.
“It
bothered me throughout my career,” he said.
Mike Vrabel had the
traits of a perfect NFL defender, former New England Patriots assistant coach
Dean Pees says
Adversity
shaping Vrabel as a teenager in Summit County is fitting because of what the
area represents to many who hail from it.
“There's
an importance on, I think, some toughness and hard work,” Vrabel said.
Former Patriots assistant Dean Pees
said Vrabel “was a perfect defensive player” because he possessed loads of the
four ingredients Pees seeks in defenders: Physical toughness, mental toughness,
intelligence and work ethic.
Those traits allowed Vrabel to become a
three-time Super Bowl champion (2001, 2003, 2004 seasons) and a Pro Bowl and
first-team All-Pro selection (2007) with the Patriots after
he spent his first four professional seasons as a backup with the Steelers, who
drafted him in the third round (91st overall) out of Ohio State in 1997.
Vrabel started 140 of his 206 career
regular-season games and compiled 762 tackles with 57 sacks, 11 interceptions,
19 forced fumbles and nine fumble recoveries. He started 18 of his 20 playoff
games, registering 88 tackles with nine sacks, three forced fumbles and two
fumble recoveries.
As a tight end in goal-line situations,
Vrabel established himself as a go-to target of former Patriots quarterback Tom
Brady. In the regular season and postseason combined, Vrabel caught 12 passes —
all for touchdowns. Ten were with the Patriots (he had TD receptions in
back-to-back Super Bowl victories) and two others with the Chiefs.
“There is nobody that is better than
Mike Vrabel,” Pees said. “He was tough — physically tough — and he was mentally
tough. And the thing is, he was as hard a worker as I've ever seen. He's in the
top shelf of smartest players I have ever, ever coached.”
How Mike Vrabel
playing with Ohio State Buckeyes, New England Patriots, Pittsburgh Steelers,
Kansas City Chiefs translated to coaching
Pees has
a long history with Vrabel. After serving as the head coach at Kent State
University for six seasons, Pees entered the NFL in 2004 as a linebackers coach
with the Patriots and became their defensive coordinator two years later.
Pees
reunited with Vrabel by working for his former pupil as the Titans' defensive
coordinator from 2018-19. In the second of those two seasons, the Titans
advanced to the AFC Championship Game.
At the time, Vrabel was a second-year head
coach who had ascended from an Ohio State assistant (2011-13) to a Houston
Texans linebackers coach (2014-16) to the Texans' defensive coordinator (2017).
From Pees' vantage point, increased
power and pressure didn't affect Vrabel. Pees said he's seen other coaches
undergo personality changes with promotions.
“He's the same guy, and so, to me,
that's what makes head coaches successful,” Pees said. “They are who they are.
Belichick, [Steelers coach Mike] Tomlin, those guys are the same guys all the
time.”
The leadership abilities Vrabel
demonstrated as a player, Pees said, foreshadowed the coach he would become.
Pees explained Vrabel policed New England's
linebacking corps after a highly touted rookie repeatedly ignored a coaching
tip and acted as if “he had a little bit of an attitude” during position group
meetings.
“I'm
ready to go after this guy, and so bottom line is I start in on him,” Pees
said. “Vrabel stands up and says, 'Coach, don't worry about it. Go on with the
meeting. Teach us what you need to teach us. We'll take care of it.'
“I don't know what all the linebackers did,
but that kid was a different kid after that day. I know they didn't do anything
physically to him, but I think they told him, 'This is not how we're going to
do things here.' But that told you right there about Mike Vrabel's leadership.”
Rardin was stunned when former Ohio State
assistant Fred Pagac visited a Walsh practice before Vrabel's sophomore season
and predicted he would become an NFL player. The declaration didn't seem as
bold by the time Vrabel was named the Beacon Journal Player of the Year after
his senior season in 1992.
There
was another notable revelation during Vrabel's high school days. When Vrabel
would sit in Rardin's office with his feet atop a desk and discuss strategy for
an upcoming game, everyone knew he was coaching material. Rardin visited Ohio
State during Vrabel's freshman season and saw the same routine unfold in coach
John Cooper's office.
Vrabel's
parents were administrators at several local schools. His father played
basketball at Copley and the University of Akron before coaching hoops at
Norton.
“I was
always around the team,” Vrabel said. “I was an only child. I will always say
this: When you're an only child and your parents both work, you end up being
spoiled — you had nice things. But I also was taught what the value of hard
work was and also how important it was to be a part of a team.”
This is how Mike
Vrabel has fared while coaching the Tennessee Titans against his hometown
Cleveland Browns
As coach
of the Titans, Vrabel's record is 51-38, including 2-3 in the playoffs. He was voted the 2021 Associated
Press NFL Coach of the Year a season after the Browns' Kevin Stefanski received the same award.
The last time the Titans and Browns met, Cleveland prevailed 41-35 on Dec. 6,
2020, in Nashville.
The
previous season, the Titans had wrecked the head coaching debut of Freddie
Kitchens by rolling to a 43-13 win on Sept. 8, 2019, in Cleveland. The Browns
finished with 18 penalties for 182 yards and could have used a coach who would
blast them with the dangers of lacking discipline.
The Titans meet during the season for what
they call “mental Thursday,” Dobbs said. Vrabel calls out individuals
from every part of the depth chart and quizzes them about their
responsibilities on a given play.
Vrabel
holds players accountable and dishes out tough love, but he celebrates and
encourages them, too.
“He'll
be that guy in the middle of the circle hyping guys up, outside the locker room
congratulating guys or picking up guys for support after a tough loss, which is
very unique to see,” Dobbs said. “But I think it goes back to he's been in
those moments as a player.”
“Through
all of his antics and everything, I think that's just his way of showing that
he does care about you,” Conklin added. “He wants to get the most out of guys,
and he's going to push you. But in his heart, it's 'cause he cares about you
and he wants you to do well.”
Vrabel
also wants his players to talk about being “great” when they are in the Titans'
training facility, no matter how they're feeling in the moment.
“There's
something about speaking it into existence,” Conklin said.
Vrabel's greatness has granted him
entry this year into two halls of fame, including one in a community where he
was steeled for life in the NFL.
Here
is ticket information for the Summit County Sports Hall of Fame's upcoming
induction ceremony and banquet
The 65th
Summit County Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony and banquet will be held
Oct. 3 at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, 129 S. Union Street, in
Akron. A social/cocktail hour is scheduled to run from 5:30-6:30 p.m. The
program and dinner will start at 6:30 p.m.
Tickets
can be bought online at akronroundtable.org. Tickets for adults are
$55. Tickets for children 12 and younger are $25. Patron tickets, which include
dinner and the purchaser's name listed in the banquet program, are $80.
In addition to Vrabel, Jim Braccio, Andy
Daniels, Jessica Jenson Starcher, Mike Morrow, Sean Robbins, Stan Stammen, Mark
Steinkerchner and Mary Varga Stupczy will be inducted.
The Rev.
Ronald Fowler will receive the Andy Palich Memorial Service Award.
Glenda Buchanan will receive the Ed Kalail Volunteer Award.
For more
information or advertising opportunities, contact SCSHOF president Jeff Kurtz
at 330-329-3677 or SCSHOF vice president Glenda Buchanan at 330-687-1896.
More Summit County Sports Hall of Fame: Find bios on the entire Class of
2023
Nate Ulrich can be reached at nulrich@thebeaconjournal.com.
On Twitter: @ByNateUlrich.
