Jon Gruden Should Stay Away From Coaching

Former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Oakland Raiders Head Coach Jon Gruden announced this week that he intends to return to ESPN Monday Night Football as a color analyst next season and he will not seek any other job opportunities that would have him reappear on the sidelines in 2010.

“I love this game very much,” said Gruden, 46, who coached the Buccaneers to a 48-21 championship victory over the Raiders in Super Bowl XXXVII. “This job gives me the opportunity to see the game at a different angle, and I’ll be honest—I just fell in love with it. I want to get good at it. I really like the team I’m on at ESPN. They’re really trying to help me be good.”

Gruden, who at 40 was once the youngest coach to ever win a Super Bowl, attended Clay High School in South Bend and his father, Jim, served as an assistant to Dan Devine at the University of Notre Dame.

Gruden’s connections to the Irish made him a popular and seemingly viable candidate to replace embattled Notre Dame Head Coach Charlie Weis at the conclusion of this season.

Additionally, Gruden was born in Ohio and he was raised as an enormous Cleveland Browns fan.

The Browns currently have a putrid record of 1-8 and their general, Eric Mangini, is one of the most loathed coaches today in professional sports.

Inevitably, many onlookers also predicted that Gruden would be an ideal fit to seize Mangini’s job once he is officially terminated.

“Look, I went into this with an open mind,” said Gruden, who was a backup quarterback in college at the University of Dayton.

“They’ve told me they want me to stay around, and it’s nice to be wanted. I was in Oakland for four years, then got traded away from there. I was in Tampa for seven years and got fired. That’s a little bit of an open wound, to be honest. So, it’s nice to be wanted. I’ve got a great crew. I love working with Ron Jaworski and Mike Tirico. They’re teaching me a lot about this business.”

Gruden acknowledged that he believes he will be a coach again someday.

“I’m 46 years old. I probably will coach again,” said Gruden. I miss the opportunity to coach players, to help them get better. I really miss the competition. But, I don’t miss the agony.”

Gruden likely also doesn’t miss being a workaholic who was essentially an absentee husband and father when he was employed in the NFL.

Gruden mentioned that he has been able to see every one of his son’s high school football games this year.

“This is going to give me a chance to get my act together in some other ways,” said Gruden. “My boys are at the age where they need a father to be around a little bit more.”

Jon Gruden was an excellent head coach in the NFL and he will be again in the future if he so desires.

Gruden’s tireless and exhaustive work ethic made him the success he became.

However, that same work ethic apparently sapped him of life’s true pleasures.

As the adage goes, “Work to live. But, don’t live to work.”

Gruden was a man who lived to work and that is not the way that any human being should go through their existence on this earth.

People need to do what they love.

Jon Gruden absolutely made the correct decision to stay in the booth and off of the sidelines.

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