Auburn's Tuberville faces school where he got his college start

11/3/2006 2:30 AM

By JOHN ZENOR
AP Sports Writer

AUBURN, Ala. (AP) -Tommy Tuberville was a small-town Arkansas high school coach living in a house trailer when Larry Lacewell showed up on a recruiting visit.

The Arkansas State coach came to Hermitage recruiting a player, and discovered Tuberville instead.

``He said, 'How can I get into college coaching?''' Lacewell recalled this week. ``I said, 'You'll probably have to go the route we've all gone. You're probably going to have to be a student assistant. And you probably won't make any money.'

``I said, 'Pull that trailer up to Jonesboro this spring and we'll see what we can do.' I figured that was the last I'd hear about it.''

Instead, Tuberville showed up on campus ready to work back in 1980. And he has fondly recalled those days this week, since he'll lead No. 6 Auburn (8-1) against Arkansas State (5-3) on Saturday.

He also looked back on a career crossroads.

Tuberville was offered the Indians' head coaching job in January 1993 while working as an assistant at Miami.

``I came pretty close,'' Tuberville said. ``I talked to the president, the athletic director and was offered the job. Things were going pretty good at Miami and I did the right thing.''

He went back to Miami and decided to stick around after talking to head coach Dennis Erickson. It worked out just fine. He was elevated to the powerhouse Hurricanes' defensive coordinator, then held the same job at Texas A&M for a year.

By that time, he was on the fast track. Tuberville was hired as Mississippi's head coach in 1995, as Auburn's in 1999, and now his team is among the contenders for a BCS bowl and perhaps a national title shot.

But if he had taken that job at Arkansas State, he might be worrying about the SBC - Sun Belt Conference - instead of the BCS these days.

``I can remember like it was yesterday driving to Jonesboro to talk with Larry about taking a job there, getting my first start in college football,'' said Tuberville, an Arkansas native who played at Southern Arkansas.

``Actually I was a volunteer, I wasn't even a graduate assistant. That's how low on the pole I was.''

If he had any doubts about his priorities as a young coach, Tuberville got a quick lesson from Lacewell about what he was in for. He was no longer a high school coach working fairly normal hours, but a seven-days-a-week, entry-level college coach.

``I'll never forget the first day. He told me: 'Listen, I want you to learn every position. We're here. You don't have any money. You're not going to have time to do anything else so you might as well learn as much football as you can,''' Tuberville said. ``And that's what I did. I worked with defensive tackles, defensive ends, linebackers, secondary.

``He was a front-runner in technique football on defense. That's all we did. We taught technique and fundamentals. I was very fortunate that I started my career there.''

He was finally hired as a full-time assistant after two seasons, topping out, Lacewell said, at about $13,000. These days, that's a few days work for Tuberville, who now makes about $2.2 million a year.

The Indians had lost nine games the year before Tuberville's arrival and made the Division I-AA playoffs his final season.

``They were getting ready to fire me,'' said Lacewell, who went on to become the Dallas Cowboys' scouting director. ``We were an awfully young coaching staff. I was the oldest by far. We turned it around and got it going largely because of guys like Tommy, who were paid very little and got to work at 6:30 in the morning and stayed until 10 at night

``We were able to turn it around, and Tommy was a big part of that.''

Lacewell remembers walking into Tuberville's trailer while waiting for that recruit to get done with basketball practice. He saw a film projector and a bunch of books, including one on Alabama's Bear Bryant.

That was a good sign for Lacewell who, like Bryant, is from Fordyce, Ark. He started his coaching career at Alabama in 1959.

Tuberville also made a favorable impression upon his arrival at Arkansas State.

``He showed up and didn't act like a kid,'' Lacewell said. ``He acted like a coach. He was well organized. He studied football. He became a real good recruiter for me.''

What else does he remember about Tuberville?

``He was a sharp guy,'' Lacewell said. ``He dressed sharper than most country boys, and he was more country than me.''