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For The O'Briens, It's All In The Family

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By JOEY JOHNSTON, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 7, 2007

TAMPA - Sickles High junior quarterback Cullen O'Brien likes the new offensive coordinator.

'He's demanding, but fair,' O'Brien said. 'He wants us to do things perfectly. He has a lot of experience in football.'

O'Brien knows all about him, actually.

It's his grandfather.

The man he has always called Poppy.

'But on the field,' O'Brien said, smiling, 'he's Coach.'

'I treat Cullen like just another player,' said Dick O'Brien, 69, who has returned to the Hillsborough County high-school football scene for his 44th consecutive season of coaching. 'That's how it has to be.'

The Sickles Gryphons (1-0) host the Lennard Longhorns tonight in another attempt to distance themselves from last season's 0-10 record. But even before the latest staff addition, the Gryphons already operated like a family business.

Pat O'Brien, the quarterback's father, is the Sickles head coach. The Sickles football training staff includes Carla O'Brien, the quarterback's mother.

Now, make room for Poppy.

Dick O'Brien began his career at Robinson in 1963, coaching for a program that reached the championship game in Florida's first state football playoffs. He went to King, back to Robinson, to Clearwater Central Catholic, then over to Hillsborough, where he left after the 1992 season to achieve a lifelong dream, coaching in college.

He worked on Phil Fulmer's Tennessee staff for three seasons, then shifted to Western Carolina, near the property where his family had built a home.

Along the way, he found religion. Dick O'Brien, raised a Catholic, has become an ordained bishop in the Church of God, a denomination with more than 8 million members worldwide. He answered a call that he said changed his life - 'I'm a totally different person than the one I used to be, totally different,' he said - and established his own parish on top of a North Carolina mountain.

A few summers ago, he hinted at returning to Florida for the fall seasons, so he could watch Cullen's high-school football career.

Pat O'Brien: 'We'd love to have you. But if you're coming, I'm putting you to work.'

It's a job he knows well.

He Still Has The Fire

Dick O'Brien, on loan from his church, might be a step or two slower. Sometimes, he's a bit more mellow and reflective. But he still dispenses his own brand of tough love. He still pushes players to their limits. He still demands excellence from the quarterback.

Especially the quarterback.

His grandson.

'Dad had been telling me, 'You know, Pat, I have become much more of a compassionate coach,' ' Pat O'Brien said. 'I'll see him at practice in his most intense moments, his most fiery moments and I'll wander by. 'Compassionate? Really? Compassionate, huh?'

'My father is coaching Cullen the same way he coached me.'

Yes, for Dick O'Brien this is nothing new.

At CCC, he coached both of his sons. When shifting to Hillsborough in 1980, Pat transferred to play for his father, winning the Guy Toph Award in his only season as Terriers quarterback.

'When my father coached me, I couldn't make mistakes,' said Pat O'Brien, who served as his father's offensive coordinator at Hillsborough from 1987-91, then, with King High, collected his first head-coaching victory against his father's Terriers.

'I had to be better - a lot better - than anybody else. That's how I was treated. And I think I got respect because of that. My teammates saw what I was going through. Now Cullen has his father - and his grandfather - working with him. You can't make everyone happy, and I know people say things when the coach's son is the quarterback. If you're always guided by doing what's best for the team, who cares what people say?'

Adding a problematic - or comedic - layer to the proceedings, the three generations of O'Brien's now live under one roof.

Dick and Heidi O'Brien occupy the in-laws suite. At dinner, Dick and Cullen are generally talking football, going over strategy, reviewing an opponent's defense, looking ahead to the next practice.

For some players, it might be 24-7 suffocation.

Not for Cullen.

'It's a huge advantage,' he said. 'I know I'm getting great coaching. My attitude is, 'Bring it on!' There's some pressure, but what quarterback doesn't have pressure? And if you can operate in those conditions, you get stronger.'

Said Gryphons senior running back Josh Mendez: 'Cullen handles his role really well. It might look like kind of a weird situation, but nobody is playing any favorites here. Cullen has to earn everything he gets. We all do. He Dick O'Brien is tough, but he knows what he wants.'

Mostly, the elder O'Brien wants Sickles to become a winner.

Old-School Sensibility

That has been his way of life from the days when he became the University of Tampa's leading rusher and scorer while playing for Marcelino Huerta and Fred Pancoast. He's still feisty and competitive, just like you'd expect from someone who served behind the Iron Curtain with the Special Forces.

He brings an old-school sensibility to the new wave of players.

'He can get loud and he'll get your attention,' Mendez said. 'But he knows what he's talking about.'

Nobody knows that better than Cullen O'Brien.

'My father has done a lot in football, and so has my grandfather,' said Cullen, who attended games during the first season of Sickles football, when he was 6 years old. 'I don't think about living up to the family name.

'I'm not looking to rack up a bunch of stats. I just want to move the ball down the field, make the right decisions, get some wins. Just be efficient. I just want to be a football player.'

And Dick O'Brien - still - wants to be a football coach. At Western Carolina, he retired three times, only to be convinced to return, by three different regimes of Catamounts head coaches.

'You can't run from who you are,' said the elder O'Brien. 'I don't think the desire and fire to win will ever leave me. I hope it doesn't.

'When you coach in an atmosphere like this, you stay young. When you stop, I think that's when you start to age. I can't imagine not being involved in football. And having family all around just makes it sweeter. We're all together again.'

Playing together. Staying together. The O'Brien Way.

Reporter Joey Johnston can be reached at (813) 259-7353 or jjohnston@tampatrib.com.

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