CHRIS BACKLEY/Daily Bruin Staff Offensive coordinator
Kelly Skipper is busy at work. Skipper approaches
his work with a perfectionist attitude.
By Hannah Gordon
Daily Bruin Reporter
[email protected]
The clock is moving. Seconds silently slip away as the digital
numbers change seamlessly on the big board overlooking the Rose
Bowl. It is November but in seasonless Pasadena, the air is only
cool, crisp. The breeze clears the sky for a soft view of the
lavender mountains in the sunset. The kind of weather football was
made for.
But while the mountains stand oblivious to time, the clock is
still moving. UCLA offensive coordinator Kelly Skipper has
decisions to make.
0:43 is ticking away on fourth-and-five. 0:02. The kicker takes
the field.
A collective breath as the ball flies. Wide and short.
Exhale.
The disbelief remains even as the silence disintegrates. The
whole bowl seems to growl like an upset stomach as the fans file
out.
Can Skipper hear it up there in the box?
The board stares back indifferently.
0:00.
Oregon 21. UCLA 20.
Tomorrow his team will be skewered in the papers. Columnists
will derail him and his colleagues for poor clock management.
Monday morning quarterbacks will say they would have called the
plays differently.
For a perfectionist like Skipper, this is hard to take.
Of course, had the fifty-yarder flown through the uprights, this
would be a different story.
“That’s how small the margin of error is,”
Skipper says sitting in his office six months later. Knowing the
margin of error both in the game and in a football career is
slim.
“Pro football is so stereotyped,” his father, Jim
Skipper, running backs coach with the Carolina Panthers, said in
reference to Kelly’s size.
“You’ve got to fit certain dimensions and if
you’re not in that measurement, they don’t want
you,” the elder Skipper says.
As the only African-American offensive coordinator currently in
the Pac-10, Kelly Skipper does not exactly “fit the
measurements” now either.
But the coach has never been concerned with other people’s
standards, and he accepts the expectation of perfection as normal.
Discussing teaching methods, he picks up the marker and starts
drawing on the dry erase board.
“As a coach you gotta find out what’s the easiest
way for that kid to learn. Put them on the board. Make them draw up
plays. See if they really understand it.” He laughs as his
hand flies about, sketching a base offense and defense for the
57,864th time in his life.
“I want them to explain it back to me exactly the way I
told “˜em.” His voice is gruff but animated, seeming to
belong to a man older than 35. It is as though he speaks in italics
emphasizing certain words in every sentence.
While Skipper has the voice of an older man, he moves like a kid
in need of ritalin. His chair rolls around as he pushes off the
desk with his feet, then off the boxes against the wall with the
soles of his shoes in the air like a child playing in his
dad’s swivel chair.
In fact, Skipper has followed his dad into the family business.
Prior to his job with the Panthers, Jim Skipper coached in college,
the USFL, the XFL, and other NFL teams. His younger brother Tim is
a defensive coordinator for Western New Mexico State and even his
youngest brother Courtney is contemplating coaching.
The family business does not come without its costs. Skipper
moved more times than he can remember as his dad changed jobs.
“The thing about all the moving is I’ve been around
a lot of football and met a lot of people. Being around the game it
just rubbed off. I wasn’t planning on being a coach. It just
happened that way. It came natural,” Skipper says.
His coaches saw it in him first. His father never pushed him to
play football, but Skipper was recruited as a running back by
Fresno State out of high school. During his four years for the
Bulldogs, then-head coach Jim Sweeney and then-running backs coach
Robert Turner saw “it was just there.”
“A coach is a teacher. He needs to understand the game.
Pay attention to detail. Be a perfectionist. That was Kelly,”
says Turner, currently the running backs coach with the Denver
Broncos.
So when Sweeney offered him a position as a graduate assistant,
Skipper knew his coach was right.
While most 20-year-olds had “stars in their eyes”
about being first round draft picks, Skipper was realistic. He
overcame his size by being a student of the game which paid off in
All Big-West honors his senior year.
“He worked his butt off. He knew his assignments. He
wasn’t going to make mistakes,” Turner says.
The road to his current position started with those first two
years as a graduate assistant. Fresno State promoted him to running
backs coach in 1991. In 1997, having coached seven all conference
running backs, Skipper got the job at UCLA. At the time, he did not
expect to become a coordinator any time soon. But when
then-coordinator Al Borges left for Cal following the 2001 season,
Skipper was promoted.
“I just want to do the best job I can do. That’s all
I can ask of myself,” he says.
Most coaches refrain from discussing race, and those who do,
like former Arkansas basketball coach Nolan Richardson, are
chastised.
“You don’t like to put a racial thing on it,”
his father says, “But there is also a reality. Race is always
gonna be a politically touchy issue.”
With the departure of Tyrone Willingham for Notre Dame, there
are currently no African-American head coaches in the Pac-10 and
only three among the 117 Division I football programs. So while
head coaches are always under scrutiny, the margin of error for
African-American coaches is as small as the Oregon game.
Despite the type of scrutiny that follows games like the one
against Oregon, Skipper wants to be a head coach.
“I didn’t look at it that way,” he
laughs.”But as you bring it up there is (a hierarchy). I was
very grateful to Coach Toledo for giving me this opportunity. He
had faith in me and that’s all I needed — an
opportunity.”
His former coaches can see that chance coming.
“He’s a natural,” Turner says. “I can
see him being a head coach.”
The selection of head coaches is always the subject of intense
media attention and the “wrong” selection can be a huge
embarrassment to the university, as in the case of Notre Dame
selecting George O’Leary prior to Willingham.
Because the athletic department must satisfy the boosters,
alumni, media, and general public, athletic directors are reluctant
to take risks. As a result, athletic departments look for already
established coaches, thus reinforcing the status quo.
“Eventually things will change,” Skipper’s
father says. “Athletics is nothing but a reflection of
society. It is a question of perception by the alumni, the general
public, the media.”
Skipper will continue to gamble on cool November evenings.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes all you need is an
opportunity.