Time away from football showed Gene Chizik how he wanted to return
Dan Wolken, USA TODAY Sports 4:02 a.m. EDT September 3, 2015
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — There are scars on Gene Chizik’s career that will never completely go away, circumstances he can’t reverse, feelings that lingered for a long time about the way Auburn dumped him two years after delivering the school’s first national championship in more than a half-century.
But when Chizik makes his return to coaching Thursday night as North Carolina’s defensive coordinator in a nationally televised game against South Carolina, he will do so as a man empowered to be the one thing that was so hard for him to pull off as a head coach: Himself.
The aloof, dispassionate caricature that Chizik struggled to escape during turbulent times at Auburn has been replaced by a version unafraid to share his personality and thankful to go back to his roots as one of the finest defensive minds in college football.
“I look back on things, and there’s parts of this profession that I did not enjoy when I should have,” Chizik said. “I look back on that and feel like I’m going to enjoy whatever I’m doing (now) because I don’t have to do it. This is my choice, and I won’t choose to be miserable. I just want it to be different.”
READ MORE…. http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...defensive-coordinator-returns–coach/71598520/
Our defense was night & day--better than last year's!
Dan Wolken, USA TODAY Sports 4:02 a.m. EDT September 3, 2015CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — There are scars on Gene Chizik’s career that will never completely go away, circumstances he can’t reverse, feelings that lingered for a long time about the way Auburn dumped him two years after delivering the school’s first national championship in more than a half-century.
But when Chizik makes his return to coaching Thursday night as North Carolina’s defensive coordinator in a nationally televised game against South Carolina, he will do so as a man empowered to be the one thing that was so hard for him to pull off as a head coach: Himself.
The aloof, dispassionate caricature that Chizik struggled to escape during turbulent times at Auburn has been replaced by a version unafraid to share his personality and thankful to go back to his roots as one of the finest defensive minds in college football.
“I look back on things, and there’s parts of this profession that I did not enjoy when I should have,” Chizik said. “I look back on that and feel like I’m going to enjoy whatever I’m doing (now) because I don’t have to do it. This is my choice, and I won’t choose to be miserable. I just want it to be different.”
READ MORE…. http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...defensive-coordinator-returns–coach/71598520/
Our defense was night & day--better than last year's!
