Dave Reardon: Ex-Govs coach finally gets Fame he deserves
Aug. 13—A long-deserving Farrington guy got into the Pro Football Hall of Fame last week.
No, not Jesse Sapolu. But maybe, someday, he and his four Super Bowl rings will be deemed worthy of enshrinement.
This Governor served just a one-year term, and it wasn't that great if you go by his coaching record of 1-5-1 in 1952. Punahou didn't do that well, either, when he was on the staff there the year prior, going 3-4.
A Buffanblu quarterback who played for Coryell at Wenatchee Valley College in Washington a couple of years later had no complaints.
"His whole idea was to make the game exciting and entertaining," Harry Pacarro said in 2010, when Don Coryell died at age 85. "It was 50 years ago and he was throwing the football all the time. People liked watching that.
"He was a helluva coach and really reached out to his players."
Coryell's wide-open style was reflected in Pacarro's long coaching career, especially in basketball, where his Farrington teams went by the motto of "run and gun and have fun."
After his two years in Hawaii, Coryell climbed the ranks from preps to small colleges, bigger colleges and then the NFL ... airing it out every step of the way — well, except one year at USC, where he helped John McKay install the power-I formation, famous for its student-body-left and student-body-right sweeps.
But his revolutionary passing attack with the San Diego Chargers — piloted by quarterback Dan Fouts — got him into the Hall, finally.
Starting at 48 — an age where many pro coaches these days have been hired and fired two or three times — Coryell coached 14 NFL seasons (the first five with the then-St. Louis Cardinals).
Before he was fired after a 1-7 start in 1986, he became the first head coach with 100 wins in professional and college football. His teams led the NFL in passing six straight seasons and won five division titles.
"He influenced so many coaches to change their way of thinking about, not only playing offense, but playing defense to stop the passing game," Fouts said. "His influence reached both sides of the ball."
Before Air Coryell, there was Airborne Coryell. He was an Army paratrooper in World War II. We know this because another former sky soldier, Jim Hackleman, was sports editor of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and interviewed Coryell when he was hired from San Diego State to coach the Cardinals in '73.
How did Coryell end up in Hawaii in the 1950s? He told Hackleman he was in on a secret long before many others.
"I wanted to get into coaching, and coaches I talked to in Washington (where he played college football) advised me to go to Hawaii," he told Hackleman. "They told me Hawaii had the best high school football in the country and that it would be a great place for me to learn ... and they were right. It was an invaluable experience for a kid."
When Coryell was hired to be head coach at Farrington, the Governors were still in the Interscholastic League of Honolulu, and would be for two more decades.
"I'll have a team of my own in one of the best high school leagues in the country," he said at the time.
But the next year, he was out of the country, head coach at the University of British Columbia.
Coryell's longest stint was at San Diego State, where his teams went 104-19-2 — including 55-1-1 from 1965 to 1970.
Retired Punahou coach and athletic director Doug Bennett — then a high school quarterback at Escondido High in California — was recruited by Coryell for his first San Diego State team, in 1961.
"He said you guys (Bennett and his teammate Doug Agatep) have got the last two scholarships," Bennett said.
Bennett, who also had offers from Washington and Arizona State, chose Whittier College instead. He wanted to play both football and baseball, and Whittier was recruiting him harder than any of the D-I schools.
He did not know yet that Coryell had recently been the Poets' head football coach for three years, or that his replacement, John Godfrey, and Coryell were close.
"They were friends in Hawaii and coached together at Punahou and Farrington," Bennett said.
Coryell and Bennett stayed in touch.
"When he came to Hawaii he borrowed my car," Bennett said.
It's common courtesy to return a loaned vehicle with a full tank of gas. A good friend also includes a full liter bottle of vodka on the backseat, like Coryell did.
So, Bennett might be a little biased when he says Coryell's induction to the Hall of Fame was long overdue.
Maybe it took this long because none of his teams made it to the Super Bowl. But the ones that do now have his DNA all over their game plans.
"Look what the big guys are doing in the passing game now," Bennett said. "They'd run it 90 percent of the time if they could."
Many, if not most, will certainly disagree with this foursome. Pardon the provincialism, but my Mount Passmore of coaches who most influenced football's transition to the airways would all have island ties: Mouse Davis, June Jones, Bill Walsh (the 49ers' popularity here counts as a Hawaii connection) ... and that guy whose Farrington team won just one game, Don Coryell.
