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New York Times
3 days ago
- Lifestyle
- New York Times
Quarterback Dads give college football coaches nightmares like never before, but there's hope
Be like Jay Underwood, Quarterback Dads. The father of Michigan super freshman Bryce Underwood is one of the good ones. There are good ones despite the constant barrage of headlines about Quarterback Dads gone wild — Carl Williams (Caleb's dad) torching his son's employer publicly, Nic Iamaleava (Nico's dad) bungling a good situation at Tennessee, Deion Sanders (Shedeur's dad) doing whatever he did to contribute to a fringe NFL first-round talent going in the fifth round, and so on. Advertisement Those are three success stories at the glamor position of American sports, of course, which means some parental credit must be due. But some of the behaviors match that of countless Quarterback Dads whose sons' names aren't known, whose misdirected ambition and absence of perspective make them college football outlaws of sorts. 'Quarterback Dad' is generally not a compliment among the college coaches I talked to for this piece, some of whom have stopped recruiting quarterbacks who checked every box except: Can we tolerate his dad? 'We're picking the dad almost as much as we're picking the quarterback,' said a Power 4 head coach, who was granted anonymity, like others in this story, so he could speak freely on the subject. 'Every person in this business has horror stories.' The explosion of money in the game in the past few years has made things only more toxic. But I'm here to tell you there's hope. There's hope, in part because, at some point, college athletics will become less chaotic. That's probably going to require collective bargaining at some point. But it will happen, and it means player movement will slow down and compensation will be fairly determined by professionals. Less chaos in college football should mean less chaos among its various factions. Also, at least there's awareness of the Quarterback Dad dynamic. We're talking about it. People are trying to make things better, including the guy who wrote the actual book on Quarterback Dads, the guy who presents Jay Underwood as a 'how-to' of sorts for those with pigskin-slinging children. Donovan Dooley is a prominent quarterbacks coach who counts Bryce Underwood among his clients, has worked with the family for years and noted in that 2022 book (written with sportswriter Teddy Greenstein and aptly titled 'Quarterback Dads: Wild Tales from the Field') that Jay had previously been 'the classic Quarterback Dad, in every maddening sense.' Advertisement This included Jay's proclamation, when Bryce was closer to elementary school than graduation, that he could 'be the LeBron James of football.' Invoking the (arguable) GOAT of another sport is a classic sign of the Not-In-Touch-With-Reality Dad, and Jay's admitted overzealousness in critiquing his son screamed Helicopter Dad. These are two of the 12 types of problematic Quarterback Dads detailed by Dooley (he lists three good types). It all changed when Jay, with Dooley's help, realized how strained his relationship with his son was getting. To save it, he needed to revert to being just a dad and take the pressure off his son. 'Total turnaround,' Dooley, whose Quarterback University is based in Detroit, said last week. 'Now, Jay stays in the background a lot. Hell, I don't even know if some of the staff at Michigan know him. It's usually not that way when your son is a prime guy like this, but he sits back and lets Bryce do his thing.' To that point, Underwood could not be reached to speak on the topic. This is the kind of reform Dooley seeks to foster. Not that he's seen enough of it. The urge to help goes back to his Detroit childhood as a future high school and college quarterback, dealing with a father he described as 'crazy as hell' when it came to pushing him in football. The book inspired an outpouring of letters and emails, Dooley said, from fathers who apologized for their behavior and from both mothers and fathers who thanked him for forcing moments of clarity with his storytelling. But Greenstein and Dooley wrote it in the early days of the dirtiest phrase in college football coaching: 'NIL and the transfer portal.' For folks in that profession, NIL, the transfer portal and the Quarterback Dad make up the unofficial unholy trinity of the sport. 'It's heightened the anxiety around everything,' Dooley said of Quarterback Dads now having seven-figure paydays as incentive and free movement as leverage. 'I mean, you've got dads, not long after kids get out of the womb, kids that are 5 years old, coming up with logos and slogans for social media to get attention. You've got dads talking dollar amount with coaches before they ever talk football or academics.' Advertisement How bad is it for some? One Power 4 coach contacted for an interview on Quarterback Dads replied: 'Nah. I'm staying away from that.' A Group of 5 head coach said he loved the topic and that it should be made into a documentary, but was fearful of telling any specific stories because 'if it ever got back to me, I'd never get a quarterback again, ever.' He did explain the difference between dealing with problematic Quarterback Dads now and five years ago. 'A dad texts, 'Why aren't we doing more quick game with my son? Why so much dropback game?' S— like that,' the coach said. 'Back before the portal, you text back something like, 'Man, let's sit down after the season and talk about this if you feel that way.' Now? You pick up the phone immediately and talk through it. You explain why you're doing what you're doing, in detail.' This isn't necessarily all bad, the coach said, because 'we really should be giving our kids more 'whys' in today's game and we should be thinking about it collaboratively.' It's just harder to be collaborative with someone who, unlike the quarterback in question, doesn't play the game and doesn't know the concepts or what it takes to execute them. This can be the mark of The 'We' Dad in Dooley's book (the dad who thinks he's also part of the team), The Stat-Hungry Dad or The Really-Not-In-Touch-With-Reality Dad. Or all three. 'Some of them, the wild, wild ones, are all 12,' Dooley said of categories that also include The Reminiscer, The Jealous Dad and The Braggin' Dad. 'Those are the ones who read the book and say, 'I'm none of those.' I'm like, 'Dude, you're all of those.' ' Dooley got to know the Iamaleavas on the recruiting circuit and considers Nic Iamaleava (who did not respond to a request for comment) a friend. He also considers him a cautionary tale. Advertisement As a Group of 5 assistant coach said about Nico Iamaleava's abrupt departure from Tennessee amid reported financial conflict: 'The kid's in a perfect offensive system for him, he's paid $2 million a year, even as a freshman to not play and redshirt, and you leave that for UCLA? That's not the kid, that's the people around him.' As an outspoken expert on the topic, Dooley has also become a resource for college coaches in the past few years. This is not unlike college coaches who give frank assessments of their former players' personalities for interested NFL personnel people. In this case, coaches hit up Dooley on what he's observed and/or heard about various Quarterback Dads. 'I'm never going to say anything too negative,' Dooley said. 'My code word is, 'Yeah, that dad is wired a little different.' That's my polite way of saying, 'S—, be ready for everything you don't want.'' What they want is what we all should want, which is for parents to not make life more difficult for their children by mangling experiences that should be positive and enriching. If you're like me and you've spent a lot of years as a parent around a lot of different sports, you've seen some ridiculous behavior from alleged adults. Economics, both in terms of the cost of higher education and the rewards possible for the tiny fraction of a fraction of elite athletes, dictates some of this. It does not excuse completely missing the point of what both sports and parents are supposed to be. 'Sport is sacred,' Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea said. 'It's sacred because it's a vessel of self-discovery. You learn to belong to yourself, so you can belong to something bigger. Sport is a place of belonging and community where you can gather a large body of people around one mission. That's special, that's sacred, but sports culture is sick right now. Advertisement 'And you can experience that at any level of competition. There are a lot of parents who are focused on the performance of a child rather than the development of a child.' This is not new. I'll keep unnamed the Quarterback Dad who used to call me frequently about 20 years ago, once assuring me the very bad team I covered had as much talent as Pete Carroll's national champion USC Trojans and was poorly coached — that was very untrue, and he was very inebriated. The late Marv Marinovich remains the standard of Quarterback Dad dysfunction, as first revealed in the 1988 Sports Illustrated story 'Bred to be a Superstar' by Doug Looney about Marv's QB son, Todd Marinovich. Marv used Eastern Bloc training methods to build him into a passing machine and essentially hijacked his childhood. Todd was a star recruit prohibited from eating fast food, a USC quarterback arrested for cocaine possession, a failed pro and now a dad speaking out on the right way to nurture kids in sports. Plenty of Quarterback Dads care about that. Some of them fall into Dooley's good categories — The Helpful Dad, The Hands-Off Dad, The Coach Dad. Archie Manning, who has said the 1988 SI story on Marinovich spooked him into taking special care with his boys, falls into all three. So does Dave Henigan, said Memphis coach Ryan Silverfield. Henigan is the head coach at Ryan High School in Denton, Texas. His son Seth just wrapped up four years of starting for the Tigers. Opportunities to leave and make more money emerged. Conversations about fair compensation happened, as they should. Development, relationships and happiness prevailed. Seth threw for more than 14,000 yards, and now he's with the Jacksonville Jaguars as an undrafted free agent. 'Stability should matter,' Silverfield said. 'And transparency. A huge part of this whole thing is both sides being transparent with each other.' Advertisement Sometimes that still results in a change in environment, and sometimes that's the right choice. I wanted to interview one of the most impressive Quarterback Dads I've encountered for this story, in part because I can see how his son's movement — a fourth school in four years starting this fall — could give a completely false impression of their outlook. Mike Wright, now at East Carolina, just wants a chance to play after coming up short at Northwestern, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt. Big Mike Wright just wanted to support his son. Tragically, Big Mike passed away recently at age 49. 'He was an example of a dad who always functioned in support of his son, not his football player, you know what I mean?' Lea said. 'My father never played football, but he loved his kids,' Mike Wright said of an engineer who tutored athletes while a student at the University of Tennessee. 'Whatever we loved to do, we made it his passion.' I did a story on the Wrights, a delightful family of six, in 2022 before Wright embarked on his starting opportunity at Vanderbilt. I went back through the notes last week and found some Big Mike Wright quotes that didn't make the story. He said: 'I tell my kids, 'Put your phones down, don't listen to the noise, don't listen to the chatter. Have fun and play football and don't stress out too much.' ' He said: 'Your life is an interview and everyone around you is the interview panel. So first of all, stay humble.' He said: 'Even in high school, Mike went through adversity and it wasn't easy. At one point, I texted his coach and said, 'I really appreciate you, because you're making him earn everything.'' Hey, Quarterback Dads: Be like Big Mike. (Top photo of Nico and Nic Iamaleava: Donald Page / Getty Images)
Associated Press
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Bears QB Caleb Williams addresses controversy from book excerpt
LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams sought to quiet the controversy about how he hadn't wanted to come to his current team prior to the 2024 draft. Williams admitted an ESPN story about an upcoming book by Seth Wickersham on quarterbacks was true in that he did like the idea of going to the Minnesota Vikings initially, but this was prior to his first visit to Chicago. Then, Williams said, he wanted to be with the Bears. 'Yeah, I had a good visit at the other place — Minnesota, with (coach) Kevin O'Connell,' Williams said. 'Good staff and all of that obviously. He just won the coach of the year award and things like that. Obviously, good staff and things like that. 'But something that keeps getting lost, something that keeps getting, I think, not being addressed the way it needs to be is the fact that I went on that visit first, came here and then after I came here, I went back home and talked to my dad.' His comment to his father, Carl Williams, was he wanted to play for the Bears and become the quarterback who leads them out of a history of struggling quarterbacks. 'This whole storm that happened, it wasn't something that we wanted to have happen at this point,' Williams said during a news conference Wednesday during the Bears OTAs. 'We're focused on the present, we're focused on now, we're focused on trying to get this ship moving in the right direction. And I think so far that's what we've been doing. 'But for this to come out it's been a distraction.' The book, 'American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback,' looks at many QBs but Williams' part details how he and his father thought about the possibility of finding a way to circumvent the NFL draft in 2024 to avoid coming to Chicago. Williams labeled any of the early discussion as mere thoughts, not action. 'Those are thoughts that go throughout your head in those situations,' Williams said. 'All of those are thoughts. And then after I came on my visit here, it was a deliberate answer and deliberate and determined answer that I had is that I wanted to come here.' The Bears quarterback saw most of what had been written as ancient history, but did label one aspect of an ESPN story on the book as false or misinterpreted. It was a claim he didn't know how to watch film and the Bears staff under former coach Matt Eberflus failed to help him. 'So that was a funny one that came out, that in context, in how that was trying to be portrayed, didn't get portrayed that way,' Williams said. 'It wasn't that I didn't know how to watch film, it was trying to figure on the best ways and more efficient ways.' Williams expects new coach Ben Johnson will make a difference in his film watching. 'He's been in this offense for six years,' Williams said. 'He's really been on top of it and we're really only trying to catch up, I'm only trying to catch up to him and be on top of the details as much as possible.' Williams said his father's input was valued and always is, but in the case of the book he probably went too far or wasn't entirely clear with some comments made. 'Definitely a grown man, I shut him down quite a lot just because in season and out of season, it's something you have to do,' Williams said. 'He cares so much about me and my future and we have been along this journey so long together, all he wants is the best for me. 'So if anything happens and he's super hot-headed and it's more of like 'All right, go ahead and go away. Go reset.' Things like that. Love him to death and things like that, super fortunate to have him. We have talked about it. Understanding that there's a right place and a right time and there are times that there is not.' The book is scheduled to be released Sept. 9, a day after the Bears open the season against the Vikings in a home Monday night game to be televised by ESPN. ___ AP NFL:
New York Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Bears QB Caleb Williams insists ‘I wanted to come here' in response to book details
Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams acknowledged on Wednesday that he had a good pre-draft meeting with the Minnesota Vikings last year and that he and his family discussed 'ideas' about avoiding starting his NFL career in Chicago. But he said things changed after meeting with the Bears. 'After I came on my visit here, it was a … deliberate and determined answer that I wanted to come here,' Williams said. 'I wanted to be here. I love being here.' Advertisement Williams was responding to information detailed earlier this month by ESPN's Seth Wickersham in a new book about quarterbacks, publishing in September. 'Chicago is the place quarterbacks go to die,' Williams' father, Carl, said in the book. 'This whole storm that happened, it wasn't something that we wanted to happen at this point,' Williams said. 'We're focused on the present, we're focused on the now.' He said the Wickersham book has 'been a distraction,' so he wanted to address it on Wednesday. Williams said he wanted the 'challenge' of turning the Bears around and quarterbacking a team that has never had a 4,000-yard passer, echoing his new head coach, Ben Johnson. With Williams being the clear-cut top pick coming out of USC, Carl told several agents in 2024 he didn't want his son to play for the Bears, who had the No. 1 pick, according to Wickersham's book. Williams said his dad is a smart man and he loves him, but he doesn't speak for Caleb. 'I shut him down quite a bit,' Williams said with a smile.
New York Times
22-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Caleb Williams didn't talk, but Ben Johnson talks about writing a new Bears story
LAKE FOREST, Ill. — Ben Johnson has a pretty good alibi about why he's not responsible for all the issues Carl and Caleb Williams had with the Chicago Bears before and after they drafted him. 'I wasn't here last year, so I can't speak too much in terms of what it was like before he got here and when he got here last year,' Johnson said in part of his opening statement after Wednesday's OTA practice at Halas Hall. Advertisement He could've added: 'Why do you think they're paying me $13 million a year?' Johnson, the new Bears coach dealing with stories about the past, began his statement by noting, with a slight smile, 'It's come to my attention that the quarterback has been out in the media over the last week.' It was a nice touch. But it would have been better if Williams had actually spoken too. The quarterback wasn't one of a handful of players who addressed reporters, despite being the only one we really needed to hear from. This smacks of the classic PR strategy of avoidance, which always works in a market like Chicago for a team like the Bears. The questions will still be there when Williams talks in two weeks. Last week, Williams found himself the main character in the NFL after ESPN writer Seth Wickersham dropped an excerpt from his forthcoming book, 'American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback.' In that story on ESPN's website, it was revealed that, as rumored in the past, Williams and his father, Carl, desperately wanted to avoid the Bears, who had the No. 1 pick, and even tried to look at ways to circumvent the NFL Draft process. A lot of this stuff had been hinted at or rumored in various mediums over the past year, but it was jarring for some to see it in print. It certainly made for good sports-talk fodder, and I hope it sells books in Chicago for Wickersham, one of the best football writers of this era. A pertinent nugget from the story was that Carl Williams told Wickersham that his son wasn't getting much guidance in the film room last season. 'No one tells me what to watch,' Williams told his dad, according to the story. 'I just turn it on.' It's important to remember that was Carl telling Wickersham what his son was feeling. That's valuable information, but while parents are great sources, I'd love to hear more clarity on that detail from Caleb himself. That is, of course, why Williams should have just talked Wednesday. We're going to write about him either way, but it makes sense to get his version out there and put the issues to rest. Advertisement But as for not wanting to play for the Bears, do you blame them? Williams and his father should be commended for being well informed about the Bears' past and present issues. This has been a perennially unsuccessful organization for a variety of reasons, and developing quarterbacks is at the top of the list. Williams didn't need to read our 2021 series on the sad history of Bears quarterbacks to decide this was a sketchy proposition. All he needed to do was look at the young careers of Mitch Trubisky and Justin Fields. Trubisky is a career backup, and Fields is getting this third chance with the New York Jets, the kind of job you have before you start holding a clipboard. We knew Williams wasn't getting out of the draft and escaping the clutches of Bears general manager Ryan Poles, who had already traded the No. 1 pick the year before. Poles told him as much, according to Wickersham. The ESPN story also reveals that Williams told his father he could play for the Bears after visiting Halas Hall. Publicly, Williams has been an engaging, positive spokesperson for the team, from his upbeat, open manner with the media to the hundreds (if not thousands) of pictures he has posed for doing the bear claw gesture. He acted like this despite Poles, following Halas Hall precedent, completely botching Williams' rookie year with the kind of mismanagement that had become team protocol. Offensive coordinator Shane Waldron and head coach Matt Eberflus were fired in-season last year — a first for the organization — as the team lost 10 straight games. Maybe everything bad about the organization has finally changed. Poles and the Bears did something completely different this offseason by spending big bucks to land the top offensive coach on the market in Johnson, who then assembled an impressive-looking coaching staff. Poles gets the blame for his mistakes, so let's give him credit for fixing one of them. Advertisement Watching practice Wednesday illustrated everything we've heard about Johnson's coaching style. The practice was fast-paced and organized, two hours of practicing with a purpose. Former Bears receiver-turned-radio-host Tom Waddle was impressed with what he saw. 'It was crisp, it was fast-paced, the effort was there,' he said on his radio show. 'That's what this was supposed to look like.' Don't be fooled by 'Hard Knocks.' Waddle and other ex-players who watched practices over the past two years were not wowed by how the Bears worked out under the Eberflus regime. They thought it was soft and unfocused, and it shouldn't have surprised them how things turned out. On Wednesday, Johnson raised eyebrows, in a good way, with his upfront coaching style during the practice. He was known in Detroit for his fiery practice demeanor, and that hasn't changed now that he's the boss. One reporter described him as 'agitated' on the field, and Johnson laughed, saying that's his normal behavior. 'I'll work to get my body language under control,' he said. As for how he's coaching his quarterback, Johnson described his style as 'kind of a combination of everything that I've been around and I've come to learn and love and appreciate.' 'It starts with developing a rapport and a trust, and that's earned over time,' he said. 'You don't walk in Day 1 and expect that to be achieved. The more time we spend together, he understands that I have his best interests at heart, and vice versa. He's going to go out there and play as well as he possibly can, not just for himself or me, but for the whole team and the city, that's really what it comes down to. We're very much aligned in terms of what we want to get done, it just takes more time on task, in terms of getting on the same page with how we're going to do it.' Advertisement I don't think Caleb will be complaining to his father about not being coached hard enough. Williams wasn't perfect on Wednesday. He missed some throws. He held onto the ball too long. It was just a late-May workout. If you want to compare Williams to past Bears rookie quarterbacks, he was practically Aaron Rodgers last season. But his performance paled in comparison to the No. 2 overall pick Jayden Daniels, leading to skepticism about his future. With Johnson here now, Williams will find himself under even more scrutiny in his second season. He's got the receivers and the coaches and a mostly rebuilt offensive line. But, to be fair, there are still questions, most notably left tackle. Braxton Jones, the veteran, wasn't at the voluntary OTA practice. His spot was manned by second-year project Kiran Amegadjie during the 11-on-11 portion of Wednesday's practice, and second-round pick Ozzy Trapilo practiced with the third team. Everyone will be watching that position throughout the summer workouts and training camp. Coach Johnson is speaking with the media — Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) May 21, 2025 Back to the Wickersham story. In it, Carl Williams noted that Chicago is where 'quarterbacks go to die,' riffing on the classic Muhsin Muhammad line about receivers. I'm guessing he didn't mean it literally, but his son was sacked 68 times last year. Williams needs to work on getting rid of the ball quicker, but he also needs time to show why he was the No. 1 pick. Again, that's why they're paying Johnson $13 million, to make sure Williams not only lives but prospers. Johnson was asked directly about Carl Williams' quote and he smirked a little in his answer. 'I love it,' he said. 'I love it. I love the opportunity to come on in and change that narrative. That's where great stories are written. We're looking to write a new chapter here, the 2025 Chicago Bears, and looking forward to the future.' If it happens, that would certainly be a bestseller in Chicago.
Associated Press
21-05-2025
- Sport
- Associated Press
Bears coach praises Caleb Williams while QB stays quiet in wake of book excerpt
LAKE FOREST, Ill. (AP) — New Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson praised Caleb Williams while the quarterback remained mum Wednesday in the wake of a book excerpt detailing how the 2022 Heisman Trophy winner and his father wanted nothing to do with the founding NFL franchise leading up to last year's draft. The account of the Williamses' feelings about the Bears in 'American Kings: A Biography of the Quarterback' by author Seth Wickersham was reported by ESPN last week. Johnson said Caleb Williams gave no indication he would rather play elsewhere when they discussed it. 'I can't speak too much in terms of what it was like before he got here and when he got here last year, but from my four months on the job, he's been outstanding to work with and we just are focusing on getting a little better every day,' Johnson said. The Bears did not make Williams available to reporters following their workout. In the book, Wickersham describes how Williams and his father, Carl Williams, asked attorneys to find a workaround to the NFL's collective bargaining agreement, explored signing with the United Football League and considered publicly ripping Chicago and the Bears to create an untenable situation for the team. 'Chicago is the place quarterbacks go to die,' Carl Williams said ahead of the draft, according to the book. Johnson grinned when asked about that comment. 'I love it. I love it,' he said when asked about Carl Williams' comment. 'I love the opportunity to come on in and change that narrative. That's where great stories are written. So, we're looking to write a new chapter here — 2025 Chicago Bears — and looking forward to the future.' Wickersham reported Caleb Williams indicated to confidantes he didn't think he could work with then-offensive coordinator Shane Waldron. Bears general manager Ryan Poles told Williams, 'We're drafting you no matter what.' Williams resigned himself to being selected by Chicago with the No. 1 pick, and after a pre-draft visit to the team facility, he believed he could help lead a turnaround. Williams threw for 20 touchdowns, was intercepted six times and took a franchise-record and league-leading 68 sacks as a rookie. The Bears lost 10 straight and finished last in the NFC North at 5-12. They fired Waldron after nine games and let coach Matt Eberflus go after a loss at Detroit on Thanksgiving. 'I think every single day he's trying to get better,' safety Kevin Byard said. 'He's still a really good, talented young quarterback in this league and he's trying to get better every day, and that's all I see from him. Just working every single day, staying late, obviously meeting with Ben and all those guys. We're trying to right the ship.' Chicago landed the top coaching candidate on the market in January when Johnson agreed to take the job after spending three seasons as the Lions' offensive coordinator. Williams said at the time he was 'insanely excited' when he found out. The Bears also overhauled their offensive line in an effort to give their quarterback the protection he needs. The most notable move was a trade with Kansas City for two-time All-Pro guard Joe Thuney, who finalized a two-year, $35 million contract extension on Wednesday. 'You can just feel from every position group — from offense, defense, special teams — just the desire, the push to keep working, keep getting better, keep improving,' he said. Thuney likes what he's seeing from Williams. 'He works really hard,' he said. 'You can tell how much he cares about this sport, and he's always in here. Whenever I come in, I see him. He's been doing great, and so far so good.' ___ AP NFL:
