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Working Through All The Pain

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By SCOTT CARTER | The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 31, 2007

Updated: 12/30/2007 11:11 pm

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - In the months since he received that dreadful call at work on a late Sunday afternoon in August, Mickey Andrews has plowed forward the only way he knows how.

There's no game plan to follow when you lose your only son, the boy you watched grow into a man and have two boys and a daughter of his own. The only way Andrews knew how to cope was to wake up the morning after his boy's funeral, turn to his wife, and tell her he had to find some normalcy after three days of surreal pain.

Before going to bed on the night they buried their son, Ronnie, Diane turned to Mickey and asked him for one more day. She needed one more day to talk, to love, to hold hands and figure out what to do next.

But Mickey, so old-school that he never hired an agent or believed in self-promotion during his career, needed to return to his Doak Campbell Stadium office and to his job as FSU's defensive coordinator, a position he has held since 1984.

"Diane, I can't give you one more day," Andrews told her. "I've got to go back."

If you know Andrews the way USF defensive coordinator Wally Burnham does, the story doesn't surprise you one bit. Burnham and Andrews were roommates at the University of Alabama in the early 1960s and former colleagues at FSU. Burnham says he could have saved Diane the trouble of asking Mickey to stay home an extra day.

On the drive back to Tampa after attending Ronnie's funeral on Aug. 22, Burnham told his wife, Barbara, that his old friend wouldn't stay away long.

"I guarantee you Mickey will be back at work in the next two days," Burnham recalls telling his wife. "I knew he would go back. He felt like that was what he needed to do."

Support From Others

Shortly after 41-year-old Ronnie Andrews was discovered dead outside his parents' home on that late August afternoon, life changed forever for Diane and Mickey, a couple who relies heavily on their faith and friends.

The day after Ronnie died, the family received a call from former Bucs coach Tony Dungy, whose son James committed suicide two years earlier and knew what Mickey and Diane were going through.

"It meant everything to us because of the advice he gave us," Diane said of the call. "The advice that he gave us was that Mickey and I must stick together. Eighty-four percent of the couples that go through this do not survive marriages. Tony Dungy's advice was probably the best we had."

Once life settled down and Mickey turned his attention to life without his son, he picked up a copy of Dungy's book, "Quiet Strength," and began reading.

"I'm just about finished with it," Mickey said Friday at the Opryland Hotel, where FSU is staying for today's Music City Bowl showdown with Kentucky. "I read a little every night before I go to bed."

Andrews' quick return to work didn't last long. After FSU's loss at Clemson in the season opener, he developed a severe case of pneumonia that forced him to stay home and rest when FSU hosted Alabama-Birmingham. Diane knew that Mickey, who she met when she was still in high school, was truly sick when he woke up one morning and told her to call the doctor.

"I think God knew I had to have him, and they only way I was going to get him was if he made him sick," Diane said with a hearty laugh.

Andrews lost a significant amount of weight during his illness, but he returned to the team and coached from a skybox in FSU's victory at Colorado on Sept. 15. He slowly began to return to normal, but for those closest to Andrews - his family and his players - they can see a change in him during the most tumultuous year of his life.

"You can see he has mellowed a little bit, but he is still Mickey Andrews, and that means he wants the best out of you," FSU senior safety Roger Williams said. "He makes you a better person, not just on the field, but off the field. A lot of people think you don't have to work for things, but he makes you work for what you get."

'He Never Missed A Thing'

FSU coach Bobby Bowden is glad his longtime associate plans to continue coaching following a year that tested Andrews in ways he had never been tested, on the field as well as off the field.

"If you didn't know he lost a son, by the way he worked, you would never know it," Bowden said. "He never missed a thing."

If Andrews seems the same coach, those around him say he's a different man. Diane says he is more reflective, that he speaks a little softer and is more likely to say "I love you" than he used to be.

"I think he is the same coach. I don't think he is the same person," she said.

As the Andrews family tries to put the pieces of their life back together, they spend a lot of time with Ronnie's two sons, 13-year-old Dillon and 10-year-old Chase. During FSU's trip to Nashville, they got to see Ronnie's young daughter, Kourtnie, who lives about two hours from Nashville.

At home, Diane planted a dogwood tree in the yard in honor of Ronnie, who Mickey taught to keep a yard like no other house in the neighborhood. They still get letters nearly every day from well-wishers. Diane reads every one of them, storing them in two large mailbags.

One of the most touching moments of the past few months for her came during a conversation with a woman during FSU's road trip to Colorado. The woman had lost a son in Iraq recently.

Diane tears up at what the woman told her: "Nothing worse can happen to you and me, because the worst has already happened, to lose a child."

So much has changed over the past few months. But Mickey vows to continue coaching, saying he wants "to be a part of the staff that helps us gets back to where we were. It will happen at some point."

Meanwhile, he'll keep plowing ahead, hoping each day brings a little more normalcy than the one before.

"Nothing that can happen replaces the pain and the hurt and the sorrow you go through, but it makes you feel mighty good when you know people care about you to go an extra mile," he said. "That's part of the healing process."

Reporter Scott Carter can be reached at (850) 294-3088 or scarter@tampatrib.com.

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