Oklahoma State's new offensive coordinator, Mike Yurcich, is a virtual puzzle to fans

Source: Tulsa World, Okla.迷你倉價錢Aug. 25--STILLWATER -- New Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich reached in his desk and pulled out a playbook.It's not "the" playbook.It's a playbill from a March 23, 2006, performance of "Brigadoon" at the Erie Playhouse in Erie, Pa.Once upon a time, Yurcich was a small-college coach on a first date with someone he hoped to impress. He wanted to show he was cultured, so he decided on a theater trip.Ask Yurcich if he enjoyed -- or endured -- the play and he laughs."I enjoyed the company," he said. "How about that?"Yurcich has not been to many plays since -- maybe one and he's not sure about the title.But if you want to know if "Brigadoon" had a happy ending, the big-picture answer is yes. The former Julie Nemergut is Mrs. Mike Yurcich -- and the mother of their two sons.Didn't know any of that? Of course, not. Who knows anything about the 37-year-old newbie in charge of OSU's offense? He was an out-of-the-blue hire from Shippensburg (Pa.) University, which might as well be Jupiter to the folks in Stillwater.So, meet Mike Yurcich, one puzzle piece at a time ...Freaky coincidenceYurcich taped OSU games and watched them long before joining the staff because he loved how the Cowboys played, according to Julie.She said it drove her bonkers when Mike watched plays 11 or 12 times each.Is that really necessary? Mike's response: "There are 11 guys and I need to watch what each of them does."Mike said his teams ran a high-tempo spread offense like OSU. "So it was easy to adapt anything I saw on TV to what we were doing."Impulse buyYurcich's salary at Shippensburg was $52,000. He's making $400,000 in his first year at OSU. He had the means to splurge on a pleasure purchase. His "big" buy was an outdoor grill.Yurcich said he prefers to save money. He's the same guy who put 199,000 miles on a 1994 Toyota Corolla and, until recently, was using an "ancient" flip phone.The Corolla got retired when children came along. Julie shuttled kids around in a used Toyota Highlander. Mike "took one for the team" and inherited Julie's Pontiac Sunfire. "He could barely get in that car," she said.Wife pursuitMike met Julie when they were at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania. Initial attempts at small talk got short answers, which complicated his pursuit.Tough gal to catch? Sure. Julie was an all-America cross country and track and field athlete.Mike developed a competitive streak as a kid (he had to keep pace with older siblings) and now he competes with his bride. When he and Julie play Wiffle Ball in the yard, here comes the heat.But Mike can't outrun his wife. She stopped running while pregnant -- and noticed that he seemed to be running a lot. Was he in training?Post-pregnancy, she said she wanted to go for a run. Mike wanted to come along."From his first step, I knew what his intentions were," she said. "It wasn't like, 'Let's go for a nice jog and spend time together.' "He outpaced her that day -- and hasn't done it since. Does it drive him batty? "I got that one," he said. "That's all I will say there."Playing with big boysBecause Mike coached at a Division II program the past two years, it's natural to wonder if he is ready for a step up in class. When has he not been ready for that?Mike played on a fifth-grade football team when he was in the third grade, according to his father, Chuck. The fifth-grade team needed bodies. Mike became the quarterback and stayed at that position all the way through college.Mike does not come from a QB family. His paternal grandparents hailed from Yugoslavia and didn't want their offspring playing a violent American game. So, Chuck played other sports, but not football.Little linebackersMike and Julie's sons are Jack (who turns 3 next month) and Clay (1 1/2).Jack shares a name with Julie's dad -- and a Hall of Fame linebacker who played for the Pittsburgh Steelers."Even though I am a Cleveland Browns fan, I do have much appreciation for the way Jack Lambert played the game," Mike said."And I figured a name like Jack might cancel out that soft quarterback gene I have."Clay? Mike grew fond of the name after hearing an announcer mention Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews, whose dad played for the beloved Browns.This is homeMike grew up in a two-story home at 151 Lake Edge Drive in Euclid, Ohio (it's part of the greater Cleveland metro area). Drive past the end of the block and you're in Lake Erie.Mike used to playfully terrorize his mother, Patricia, by jumping out of hiding places to scare her. Fright was followed by laughter.After a plumbing issue resulted in a hole between floors, Mike went upstairs and used a straw to fire projectiles at mom in the kitchen. Where's that coming from? Finally, he got busted.If OSU needs a coach to spy on an opponent, Mike has experience. He used to ride his bike all over town. When sister Christine was old enough to date, he covertly followed so he could report his findings to Mom and Dad."She never knew how we were getting the information," Dad said.The French Fry KidWhile in grade school, Mike picked up a label -- two if you count the nun who used to grab him by an ear and call him a "bold little boy."At lunchtime, students could eat at school or go home. Mike called a cheeseburger audible. He ducked into Stevenson's Bar and Grille across the street and was there so often that a mailman referred to him as the "French Fry Kid.""There were no kids that went in there -- just adults," Mike's dad said, adding that the language in there probably wasn't the best.Said Christine: "Really, Mike just wanted to see what was going on and chat with some of the locals. I was never allowed to go into Stevenson's, but somehow Mike got away with it and did it often."Stevenson's, a gloriously greasy spoon since 1920, is on the verge of extinction. Mike got perhaps his last cheeseburger there during an offseason visit. "I had to get my summer fix in," he said.What kid does this?Christine said her brother enjoyed spending time with the "cool guys" in grade school. And, by that, she meant that he had conversations about tools and sports with the janitor, Mr. Ross.Mike said he visited Ross "so I could get out of phonics class or whatever it was."Ross was a family friend who alerted the Yurciches when Mike began showing up at the boiler room for chats. Everybody was OK with the arrangement (I don't mind if you don't mind) and Mike told funny stories when repeating their talks at home.Want fries with that?While in college, Mike worked as a mover and as a landscaper and bagged ice (cool job, he says).The summer before his senior year at California University in Pennsylvania, he was a waiter at a restaurant (Scooter's) and got do-better talks from the manager."The more I screwed up, the more tips I would get," he said. "One time I spilled a glass of water on somebody and that was the biggest tip I ever got."One day he showed up and Scooter's was out of business.Before that came a big break. Coin迷你倉identally, a cook was the son of Kevin Donley, an ex-California University head coach who was starting a program at the University of Saint Francis in Indiana. Call my dad, urged the cook.Mike came to Cal U. with the intent of someday becoming a graduate assistant for Donley. Mike made the phone call and launched his coaching career with Donley at the new program.MultitaskingThis was the gig at Saint Francis: Mike attended classes, coached running backs, coached pitchers for the baseball team and was in charge of the athletic fields."I burned a lot of fields trying to fertilize the right way," he said, adding that he still apologizes to the soccer coach for "torching" a field.There's also a story about forgetting to turn off the baseball sprinklers. Despite it all, he cherishes a busy-but-fun period in his life.A prayer to rememberPeople close to Mike call him an "entertainer" -- a gift-of-gab guy who can tell a bad joke and still make it funny.Donley said Mike's personality "lit up the room" in staff meetings. The young coach had the ability to add humor to situations, thus keeping players and coaches loose.This is a story that still merits laughter: Once per season, a bishop at the Catholic school said a pregame prayer. A game was about to start and somebody needed to locate the bishop, ASAP.Mike found the bishop and ushered him to the locker room. When other coaches strolled in and talked loudly about how they couldn't find the bishop, legend has it that Mike shushed them by saying, "Shut up, the blankety-blank bishop is praying." The bishop wasn't offended.About that first dateMike spotted Julie when they were at Edinboro, where she coached after exhausting her track eligibility. She said he was 30 minutes late for the first date and she was hesitant to go on a second date.A post-college running career was all she cared about and she wasn't looking for a boyfriend. A roommate convinced her that she should go out and have fun.Date No. 2 was an arena football game.A cook-at-home dinner date included Mike strumming on a guitar given to him by his parents. Allegedly, Tom Petty's "Free Falling" went into free fall that night, which proves that even an entertainer has limits.Julie said the guitar-playing was "terrible." Mike's rebuttal? "You know what? I'm as good as I practice."Interpret it to mean that never-ending football chores and family time leave little opportunity for guitar practice. But he makes time to watch "Breaking Bad.""That was mostly an offseason deal," he said. "But if there's an hour in the evening on a Thursday or Friday night where I can get away, I'll throw on that show. That's for sure."Daddy went walkingThe entertainer sings his sons to sleep."We sing this one song and it puts my oldest one right to bed usually," he said.The song is Neil Young's "Daddy Went Walking." Mike's musical tastes are all over the map, but a dream concert experience ("It might be about worth gold to me") would be to get a backstage pass for a Young show.Significant rainbowMike proposed to Julie on a beach. It was unexpected. When he dropped to a knee, Julie had two questions: 1, What are you doing? 2, Did you talk to my dad about this?A double rainbow appeared on their wedding day. Mike's mother died nine years ago, before her little boy became someone's husband. A wedding guest saw the rainbow and made a powerful connection: That's your mom's way of saying she is here.Making a sacrificeJulie got out of the coaching biz after becoming a mother. She didn't want to shortchange either "job," so she chose to be 100 percent mom.While Julie was coaching at Edinboro, she said Mike turned down opportunities to move up in the football world. When she quit, he was free to look for a new job. Two days later, he was hired at Shippensburg, where he caught the eye of Mike Gundy."I thought he would be a great offensive coordinator at any level anywhere if he got a shot," Donley said. "And Mike Gundy must be a pretty sharp guy to pick up on this kid, finding him out in eastern Pennsylvania and going to the Division II ranks."Galaxy far, far awayThere's a video floating around on YouTube which shows Yurcich using "Star Wars" Legos to re-enact a play. Did OSU hire someone who is into Jedi mind tricks?"I think I watched the first 'Star Wars' when I was a kid," Mike said. "I really haven't kept up to date. They have made a bunch (of movies), haven't they? I've got to go back and review a little bit more before I give my next Star Wars clinic."Truth? Yurcich was helping a Shippensburg student with an assignment. The student, Christopher Field, is more of a Lego enthusiast than a "Star Wars" enthusiast. Field said Yurcich did an outstanding job, except that he referred to one character as Darth Vader when it was actually a ninja.The right careerMike's father is an engineer. He said dads want kids to be like Dad in some way.Christine wasn't interested in math or science. She works in the day-care industry. Middle child Chuck, a firefighter, shares Dad's first name, but not his profession. Youngest son Mike was a last-gasp candidate to be an engineer like pops. He chose X's and O's.Guess what? Dad sees a son who is dedicated to a profession and couldn't be prouder: "He's doing it because it's the love of his life."The other love of Mike's life was surprised and flattered this week when she learned he keeps a "Brigadoon" playbill in his desk.Mike YurcichHometown: Euclid, Ohio.Age: 37 (turns 38 in November)Family: wife, Julie; sons, Jack and ClayPlaying career: Was a high school and college quarterback, launching his college career at Mount Union College and finishing it at California University in Pennsylvania.Career pathSaint Francis (Ind.) 1999-2002: Running backs coach 1999, quarterbacks coach and JV coach 2000-01, offensive coordinator and JV coach 2002Indiana 2003-04: Offensive graduate assistantEdinboro 2005-10: Quarterbacks and receivers coach 2005, offensive coordinator 2006-10Shippensburg 2011-12: Offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coachOklahoma State: Offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coachTough acts to followMike Yurcich will begin his first season as Oklahoma State's offensive coordinator when the Cowboys play their season opener Aug. 31 against Mississippi State in Houston. Here's how offenses guided by Yurcich's predecessors ranked in national statistics.Rush Pass Total ScoringTodd Monken (2012) 21 7 4 3Todd Monken (2011) 58 2 3 2Dana Holgorsen (2010) 36 2 3 3--Mike Gundy (2009) 22 99 70 56--Mike Gundy (2008) 8 38 6 9Larry Fedora (2007) 8 45 7 22Larry Fedora (2006) 7 54 16 7Larry Fedora (2005) 48 98 92 96--Head coach Mike Gundy doubled as playcaller for two seasons.OSU season openerVs. Mississippi State (in Houston)2:30 p.m. Aug. 31TV: ABC/ESPN2Radio: KFAQ am1170Jimmie Tramel 918 581-8389jimmie.tramel@tulsaworld.comCopyright: ___ (c)2013 Tulsa World (Tulsa, Okla.) Visit Tulsa World (Tulsa, Okla.) at .tulsaworld.com Distributed by MCT Information Services新蒲崗迷你倉