Posted: Tuesday, July 28, 2015 10:44 pm | Updated: 11:25 pm, Tue Jul 28, 2015.
Ken Rogers
Alabama sports reporter
- Posted on Jul 28, 2015
by Ken Rogers
Heās known the highest of highs ā playing and coaching on a national championship team and winning a Southeastern Conference championship as a head coach ā and the lowest of lows. Heās been fired, suffered through a winless season and pressured to resign amid scandal.
There probably isnāt an emotion in the game that DuBose hasnāt experienced. But one feeling follows him always, one that will accompany him to the podium Saturday night as he is inducted into the Wiregrass Sports Hall of Fame: āIāve been blessed.ā
āFor me, at the end of my career, it becomes a personal relationship with my family and with my Lord,ā DuBose said this week in a telephone interview. āThrough it all, my family has stuck with me and the Lord has stuck with me. Just again, the love that my family has demonstrated through the years and the Lord has been patient with me to get us to this point.
āIāve said this before: I wouldnāt want to necessarily go back and do it all the same way again, but I wouldnāt take nothing for it now.ā
DuBose could be going into this Hall of Fame as a player and as a coach. He was an outstanding athlete at Opp High School and played for the legendary Paul āBearā Bryant at Alabama from 1971-1974.
Actually, he played for Bryant the last three years. But that first year, 1971, he played on the freshman team, which was coached by Clem Gryska. Job 1 for those coaches was to make certain the football players, uh, wanted to be there. So freshman linebacker Mike DuBose was moved to center on the first day of practice. His new position coach was Danny Ford.
It wasnāt fun ā and it wasnāt supposed to be. But that year taught him lessons DuBose would draw on throughout his professional career.
āI think the thing about it that means so much to me, again, coach Bryant was going to make sure that you were a team player first,ā DuBose said. āI think thatās what he was trying to teach me in every aspect of it.ā
It took some time, however, for that message to sink in. It was a completely different era in college football, starting with no scholarship limitations.
āIt was just so difficult. We had so many players,ā DuBose said. āI think sometimes coach Bryant may have signed you to not play against you. He didnāt sign you necessarily to play for him, but he didnāt have to play against you. He didnāt mind running some of you off from time to time.
āIt was a very difficult, demanding year. You went out an hour early for freshman practice, then the varsity came out and youād practice against them, then you stayed out and practiced another hour, hour and a half.ā
DuBose may have been miserable, but he survived.
āThere were days that you wanted to quit,ā he admitted. āBut two things ā my father wouldnāt let me quit; and afterwards, I realized what coach Bryant was teaching me was just simply how to persevere.
āOur world teaches us that quitting is OK. Quitting is not OK. If you finish what you start you learn to persevere, you learn to overcome. Thatās the greatest lesson that I think Iāve learned throughout the process as a player. And itās obviously helped me as an assistant coach and as a head coach.ā
DuBose credits Bryant not just for being a great football coach, but for providing those lessons that werenāt as apparent at the time they were introduced.
āI think he tried to teach you more about life through the game of football than he tried to teach you about football,ā DuBose said.
He sees the parallels of confronting adversity on the football field and overcoming it in life.
āBecause adversityās going to hit you,ā DuBose said. āIt doesnāt matter who you are, you donāt know when itās coming sometimes, but itās coming.
āIāve been so blessed to have great high school coaches and college coaches who taught those life lessons to me. Hopefully, Iāve been able to instill it in some other young men along my path as a coach.ā
Bobby Smith, one of Bryantās first quarterbacks at the University of Alabama, was DuBoseās head football coach at Opp. Bruce Watkins and Ken Devers were influential assistants, he added.
āIāve made this statement before: Iāve never had a bad coach and never had a bad teacher,ā DuBose said. āIāve been a bad player sometimes. Iāve been a bad student sometimes. But Iāve never ā ever ā had a bad football coach or a bad coach of any type or a bad teacher of any type. Iāve been blessed.ā
The coach, now 62, said he was āshockedā to learn of his induction into the Wiregrass Sports Hall of Fame.
āIām just tremendously honored to even be considered for it and to be selected with this class is a tremendous, tremendous honor for me and my family and for the young men that I played with and coached with,ā he said.
āIāve just been around so many outstanding people throughout my career both as players and as coaches and administrators, support people. Nobody accomplishes anything worthwhile without the help of others and Iāve had so many people who helped me along the way.ā
This will be his 39th year in coaching in the past 41 autumns. After two years in his second stint at Luverne High School, including a 2013 appearance in the Class 2A championship game, he opted to come home. This fall he will be an assistant coach at his alma mater, Opp High School.
āIām helping them, but I donāt know how much Iām helping them,ā DuBose said with a chuckle. āItās my school. Itās home to me. The city of Opp, the people of Opp have done so much for me over the years.
āSo many people here in this city have given of their time and their energies and their resources to help me and many other young people. Itās an opportunity to maybe give something back.ā
Believe it or not, he said he still feels that excitement of the coming season at this time of year.
āI get nervous. I do. I get butterflies,ā he said. āAt the end of it all, I love the game of football. It has been so good to me and my family. ā¦ Itās one of the last frontiers for our society and teaching young men how to be responsible fathers and leaders in the community.
āI love the players. The game is about the players. You win football games with football players making plays. So itās just a great, great game.ā
http://www.dothaneagle.com/sports/a...cle_19d0b0d6-35a4-11e5-8769-773ebadc72c3.html
