Gruden well aware of the issues that keep him from smiling

ALAMEDA, Calif.—He still wears the visor. He rarely wears a smile. When Jon Gruden was asking the questions in his role as an ESPN football commentator he was described in one story as “jolly.”

  Which he had a reason to be, as the network’s highest paid employee, earning a reported $6.5 million for analyzing the game he loves and knows so well, becoming a celebrity.

  But now, back coaching, back with the Raiders, he’s compelled to provide answers that are difficult in certain situations. Such as when two days ago, during his weekly media session, he was queried about the domestic abuse allegations against tackle Trent Brown. Answers are painful.

    “We’re aware of it,” was Gruden’s response to a question about the lawsuit suit filed against Brown, “and we’re looking into it. I’m not going to say anything else other than we’re aware of it.”

   The rest of us are aware Jon Gruden willingly accepted this job, if coaching of any sport at any level can be called a job. An occupation, maybe, a way of life, but not exactly an “is it time to go home yet?”  sort of job.

    People who coach surely want to be paid well—Gruden’s getting $10 million a year from the Raiders—but something other than money drives them

   They want to succeed. They want to help others succeed.  They are supremely confident, believing they have the skill and will power to facilitate change, for those they coach.

  Chris Washburn was a problem as a basketball player at North Carolina State, but he was 6-foot-10, a dream within a nightmare. Washburn was taken No. 3 overall in the 1986 NBA draft by the Warriors, and lived down to expectations, so angering George Karl, the coach who selected Washburn despite the player’s reputation, Karl tore doors off Washburn’s security cabinet in the locker room.

  Asked why, despite all the advice, he drafted Washburn, Karl said, “He has such ability. I thought I could make him better, get him to reach his potential. Thought I could coach him.” 

   There’s always a challenge, always something to prove perhaps as much to oneself as to others.

 Gruden was in his 30s, ebullient, wise-cracking, when in 1998 he was hired by the Raiders to become an NFL head coach for the first time. His football smarts were apparent. His father was a coach. So was Jon’s puckish sense of humor. Asked by a writer for an interview he wondered—probably chuckling silently—“Why would anyone care what I say?”

What Raiders owner Al Davis cared was Gruden not only didn’t get any championships, he was glib, photogenic, becoming the face of the franchise, an unpardonable—albeit unintentional--sin.

 Al was known for firing employees. Gruden however, wasn’t dismissed, he was traded, to Tampa Bay in February 2002 after going 10-6 with the Raiders and losing the infamous “Tuck Rule” playoff game the end of the 2001 season.

  The following year Gruden coached the Bucs to a Super Bowl win (over the Raiders) and in time at ESPN, with Monday Night Football and the Gruden quarterback camp, became a media hero.

  Enough?  Not really. He heard the echoes, saw the visions. “I never wanted to leave the Raiders,” Gruden told us when after an absence of some 16 years he reappeared.

  Then he said, “I haven’t changed much at all since 1998.”  On the contrary. He has changed, maybe because the people in the game have changed. Gruden began with the Khalil Mack holdout a season past. This season it was Antonio Brown, fortunately released in time, and now Trent Brown and Richie Incognito.

  It’s always someone in pro football and always something. But the Raiders keep going and their head coach implied at least this was what he wanted the chance to complete what he started way back when the world was young and there was a time to smile.