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Jim McElwain??? Long shot... maybe not.

Paytonlives

Moderator
Staff member
Was released from his Florida contract on Oct 29, 2017... Don't think its possible, but his roots are firmly planted in Missoula and Flathead Lake.

http://www.montanasports.com/2017/10/29/missoula-native-jim-mcelwain-parts-ways-with-florida-gators/


Story from 2015
http://floridagators.com/news/2015/9/5/31165.aspx

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The trips home were easy that first decade of his coaching career.

Jim McElwain could hop in his car, leave the campus of Eastern Washington University and head straight for Interstate 90. Soon, he would be driving east across the Idaho panhandle, eventually crossing into western Montana, where he grew up in Missoula and starred in football and basketball at Sentinel High.

But home, the place he spent carefree summers and reveled in the freedom of youth, is an hour north of Missoula.

McElwain's father, Frank, purchased a cabin there in 1965 and his ashes are now buried in the scenic mountains looking down on the site. The baby of Marjorie and Frank McElwain's five kids – Jimmy the youngest by several years – McElwain spent more and more time there as he got older.

Home has a name: Flathead Lake.

“That's the place we always go back to,'' said Karen McElwain, Jim's wife of nearly 27 years. “It's where he brought me when we started dating.”

Since leaving his alma mater Eastern Washington after the 1994 season, McElwain's path back to Flathead Lake has taken many different routes.

The first stop after EWU was Montana State, located still within an afternoon's drive of home but from a different direction. Then Louisville, Michigan State, Oakland of the NFL, Fresno State, Alabama and Colorado State, where in the summer of 2012 when the McElwains made their annual July pilgrimage home, McElwain was a head coach for the first time.

He took over the Rams after a successful four-year run as Alabama's offensive coordinator that included a pair of national championships, vaulting McElwain onto the most-wanted list of head coaching candidates.

Gators defensive coordinator Geoff Collins, McElwain's first hire at UF after he was introduced as the 25th head coach in school history nine months ago, was the Crimson Tide's director of player personnel in 2007 when head coach Nick Saban began searching for a new offensive coordinator.

Jim McElwain in the family boat back in Montana on Flathead Lake. (Photo courtesy of Karen McElwain)

Collins knew of McElwain but had never met him. Still, when Saban asked Collins and Jeff Purinton, Alabama's associate athletics director of football media relations, to put together a file of potential candidates, they included McElwain.

“I kind of knew what Coach Saban was looking for schematically, résumé-wise, so I just looked at all the top offenses in the country and anyone who fit that blueprint,'' Collins said. “Coach Mac kind of checked all the boxes.”

McElwain got the job and his career, one spent primarily in the shadows for more than 20 years, skyrocketed toward the top.

At the Southeastern Conference spring meetings, Saban was asked about McElwain's quick rise to take over what is considered one of the country's top jobs.

“First of all, he's a real quality person. Players really respect and like him. He's a really good teacher,'' Saban told reporters. “He's innovative in terms of things that he does that create problems, and I think he has the best interest of the player in mind – and the game. He's the kind of guy that is always trying to learn.”

McElwain will run onto Florida Field on Saturday night in his Gators debut against New Mexico State.

*****

To really know and understand McElwain, whose quirky sense of humor and folksy nature seems to have won over Florida fans since he arrived, you must learn more about Flathead Lake.

McElwain has mentioned it many times since coming to Gainesville, the farthest his coaching career has taken him from his beloved piece of paradise.

“It's the only place my kids have been every year of their lives,'' he said

The largest natural lake in the Western United States, almost 30 miles long and 15 miles across at its widest point, surfaced again during his first “Gator Talk” radio show on Thursday night when a fan informed McElwain he had spent three months over the summer in Bigfork, Mont., located on the northern tip of Flathead Lake.

McElwain took the reference and ran with it.

Gators coach Jim McElwain made the round at tailgates outside Legion Field his first month on the job. (Photo: Tim Casey)

“I'm jealous,'' McElwain said. “I spent a lot of time on that lake growing up.”

So did Mark Bray, who has known McElwain since the two were in kindergarten.

Bray and McElwain were teammates at Sentinel High, where both played quarterback.

“He was the starting quarterback, I was the hop-a-long,'' Bray said. “He was a good player. A lot of confidence.”

Bray and McElwain became really close friends in high school and their families would often spend time together at Flathead Lake, located in the shadows of Glacier National Park. Bray has a cabin there near McElwain's and each summer, it's like old times.

“I think the lake is the one spot he can get away,'' Bray said. “I'll have some of my friends up at the lake and Jim will come over and they'll say, 'no way would I have thought he was a big-time football coach.' It's just because he is so down to earth and laid-back and makes everyone feel comfortable.

“He's always been like that.”

Bob Vick first met McElwain when he married one of McElwain's three sisters, Marsha, 15 years older than her little brother.

By the time McElwain played basketball and football at Sentinel High, Vick was an assistant football coach for the Spartans and Frank McElwain, Jim's father, was the school district's athletic director. Vick also served as McElwain's algebra teacher.

The fact McElwain has kept such close ties to home despite moving all across the country with his own family does not surprise Vick, who lived overseas for many years with Marsha as McElwain built his coaching career.

“He's really good about [staying in contact],'' Vick said. “He has always been, and his wife Karen is the same way. They collect friends. It's just amazing to me. Karen has been the perfect coach's wife for him.”

*****

McElwain initially had a scholarship offer to play at hometown University of Montana but when head coach Gene Carlson was let go after the 1979 season and replaced by Larry Donovan, the offer vanished.

McElwain ended up at EWU to play for Dick Zornes at the recommendation of a former Montana assistant who had been hired by Zornes.

“He wasn't quite big enough and his arm was just OK,'' Zornes told the Florida-Times Union recently. “He put the ball in the right places because he was smart enough and knew the offense. But he was not going to play much.”

I unearthed 1979-80 yearbook photos of #Gators @CoachMcElwain, who played FB & MBK at Sentinel High in Missoula, MT. pic.twitter.com/LOwKGjb8K9

— Landon Watnick (@LandonWatnick) September 2, 2015
McElwain played sparingly before Zornes convinced him to become a player-coach and assist teaching the receivers. Zornes then hired McElwain as a graduate assistant after his playing eligibility was over.

McElwain's decision to enter coaching surprised no one who knew him.

“I was his go-to tight end,'' said Tim Bradbury, McElwain's teammate and roommate in college. “You could tell from freshman year that he was always coaching. Sometimes as a player, you really didn't like him telling you what to do, but he was always coaching when he was on the field.

“Coach Z took him underneath his arm. He was a player but he was carrying a clipboard. It was a natural progression for him.”

The decision to go to EWU altered the direction of McElwain's future in more ways than one. While in college, he met Karen, a Washington native who served as a bat girl for the Eagles' baseball team. McElwain was friends with several baseball players and they hung out in the same group of friends.

Her senior year, Karen was in a golf class that Jim taught as part of his graduate studies.

“He was my instructor,” she said. “That's not how we met, but I did take a class from him. And I got an A.”

At first they were just friends, McElwain the guy in the group not afraid to get on the dance floor and do the Western swing with the girls. Over time a romance blossomed. It didn't hurt that Jim enjoys cooking as much as Karen.

On one of their first dates, a double date with another couple at Jim's house, the future Florida football coach won his future wife over with a special dish.

“He made me spaghetti and stuffed mushrooms for an appetizer,'' Karen said. “I just loved how he treated individuals. We dated for about four years before we got married.”

*****

After a three-year stint at Colorado State, McElwain took over a Florida program that has fallen on difficult times in recent years.

The Gators are just 37-26 over the past five seasons and hit bottom in 2013 when they finished 4-8 – their first losing record since McElwain was a senior in high school – hampered by numerous injuries, quarterback struggles and an offense ranked among the nation's worst.

Jake McGee

He arrived with a specific plan of rejuvenating the program. In his brief time at UF, McElwain has implemented a new approach to strength and conditioning, helped finalize plans for the team's new indoor practice facility, hired a veteran coaching staff, and got the players to buy into what he is selling.

“You can tell he cares,'' said tight end Jake McGee. “You need to like your coach regardless, but when you can tell he genuinely cares about you and wants the best for you, it's a lot easier. Anything that has been an actual issue for us, he's gone and made it better.”

There are likely many speed bumps ahead with an inexperienced offensive line, quarterback concerns and an offense short on playmakers, but the culture change is well underway.

The next step is for that change to show up on the field.

“We're light years from where we were in the past,'' senior linebacker Antonio Morrison said of a weight-room strategy built with football specific movements in mind. “Guys actually like lifting. We're going into the weight room ready to go. And McElwain, the changes he's brought to this program -- look at this facility right here. We never had that. Everything is going in the right direction. Florida is going to be back on top soon.”

McElwain's reputation as an excellent teacher has not gone unnoticed by the players. Nor has his ability to connect instantly with people the way those back in Montana talk about.

“I like how he explains why. Why we do certain stuff. Why we practice the way we do,'' center Cam Dillard said. “I like that a lot about Coach Mac. He really gets us going. It helps you understand. He's just a fun guy. He's really what you see is what you get. He likes to laugh and have a good time, but when times get serious, he buckles down and it's time to go.”

McElwain said this week he is ready to tackle the challenge of turning around the Gators. If some look at it as a pressure cooker full of potential pitfalls, he takes the opposite approach.

This is exciting, the reason he got into coaching.

“The day you don't get butterflies is probably the day to get out of this,'' he said. “It's fun. I don't look at it as nervousness as much as the thrill of another year. We're just in the infancy of what we're doing here and what we're building.”

*****

Ben Hill Griffin Stadium is more than 2,500 miles from Missoula and Flathead Lake in Montana.

As McElwain coaches his first game at Florida on Saturday night, they will be watching back home. McElwain might be a Floridian these days, but he is 100 percent made in Montana.

“He's a down-to-earth kid, a Montana guy at heart,'' Bray said.

What is a Montana guy?

Gators coach Jim McElwain's wife, Karen, left, and the couple's three kids at his introductory press conference in December. (Photo: Tim Casey)

“I like to say, if we make eye contact with anybody anywhere, we always say hi,'' said Bray, who once moved in with the McElwains in Washington during a transitional period when his family was relocating from Alaska. “We don't know them, but we always say hi. That's just the way it is. He grew up pretty humble. Most of us did. We know our roots. He's made it big time and it doesn't change him.

“I see him in interviews and I just sit and smile and laugh. He says what he wants. That's him. He's not going to change.”

Bradbury, his college roommate, now lives in Charlotte, N.C. He plans to visit the McElwains sometime soon, probably after the season when things quiet down.

Bradbury never imagined his old buddy would one day be head coach at a school like Florida, but now that he is, Bradbury understands.

“Knowing Jim, and how important relationships are to him, I can see how this happened,'' he said. “He has had some success, he's paid his dues. He can relate to people from all walks of life because he is genuine. There's a lot of luck and a lot of sweat involved to get where he is.”

Before this story ends, let's go back to Flathead Lake.

McElwain's three kids, daughters Hanna and Elizabeth and son Jerret, all came home this weekend to visit their parents for the big game.

The oldest, Hanna now works and lives in Phoenix. Elizabeth and Jarret are students at the University of Alabama. Karen is hosting this weekend what she calls a “house bowl” for family and friends.

She will host a different kind of party in July back at their place on Flathead Lake.

Hanna is getting married there, the place her parents spent their honeymoon. Hanna once attended four high schools in four years as her dad moved around the country coaching football.

As she prepared to travel to Gainesville on Friday, she chuckled at telling her friends she was going home for the weekend since she has never lived in Florida.

Home has a name: Flathead Lake.

“We were all over the place but that is our one spot we call home,'' Hanna said. “That is one of those happy places where my dad gets to be my dad and gets to hang out and be who he is and go back to his roots. That's pretty special.”
 
It's definitely a long shot. It is asking an awful lot for him to go from Florida all the way to the University of Montana.

And who knows how he sees his hometown. Some people never grow out of hating it, no matter if it's as kickass as Missoula is. No doubt we'd welcome back a Big Sky kid, but the question is if he wants to come back here. I'm all for it. There is only one slam dunk hire that would be better than MacElwain, and that is the "Legend of the Fall."

The fact that the Grizzlies could make one of three slam dunk hires (if the money is just right), all because of the roots its planted, says a lot about us. We don't operate like any old FBS school. We carry ourselves like a blueblood, and we have every right to.
 
Jim got crossways with the Florida Administration right off the bat with some facilities upgrade demands Not sure we need that here.
Jim's undocumented reports of "death threats'' toward himself, his family, and team members, left everyone scratching their heads.
 
The one nice thing about hiring Jimmy would be that he wouldn't hesitate to tell people to pound sand if they got in his face about losing a game, or threatened to withhold their donations, or whatever. That would be refreshing. :)
 
maroonandsilver said:
Jim got crossways with the Florida Administration right off the bat with some facilities upgrade demands Not sure we need that here.
Jim's undocumented reports of "death threats'' toward himself, his family, and team members, left everyone scratching their heads.

Lol....looking at the way the coaches here in lil ol Montana were treated, and looking at the way players are roasted when they so much as drop a fucking pass, i have NO DOUBT McElwain and his players received death threats.

That said, he’s going to end up at ASU, Texas Tech, or some other school making $2-$3 million...
 
Jim was only offered a walk-on spot to UofM from his Sentinel Sr. season.....
He was the ALL-STATE QB, he has no love for the Griz
He'd work for EWU or MSU for Free before taking a piddling paycheck from the Griz


C_gBuS9XUAAX9J4.jpg
 
AZGrizFan said:
maroonandsilver said:
Jim got crossways with the Florida Administration right off the bat with some facilities upgrade demands Not sure we need that here.
Jim's undocumented reports of "death threats'' toward himself, his family, and team members, left everyone scratching their heads.
Lol....looking at the way the coaches here in lil ol Montana were treated, and looking at the way players are roasted when they so much as drop a f***[*] pass, i have NO DOUBT McElwain and his players received death threats.

That said, he’s going to end up at ASU, Texas Tech, or some other school making $2-$3 million...
If half of what the local media (newspapers as well as blogs and forums) is true, McElwain really was a disaster for Florida: players in trouble (some of them big trouble, apparently), could not recruit effectively against all those other Florida schools, pissed off boosters as well as the press, etc. etc. So even though he won ball games (22-12 at UF before he was fired), that was not enough. Of course, he was "only" 1-1 in bowls and his team lost both times they played Florida State.

Another possible strike against him ( according to an article in USA Today): he was roommates with Colin Cowherd when they were both at Eastern Washington.
 
Some of you people need to cut back on the high test. At least change the bong water. It's affecting your brain waves. Mac's never coming to the griz to coach. EVER!
 
IdaGriz01 said:
AZGrizFan said:
maroonandsilver said:
Jim got crossways with the Florida Administration right off the bat with some facilities upgrade demands Not sure we need that here.
Jim's undocumented reports of "death threats'' toward himself, his family, and team members, left everyone scratching their heads.
Lol....looking at the way the coaches here in lil ol Montana were treated, and looking at the way players are roasted when they so much as drop a f***[*] pass, i have NO DOUBT McElwain and his players received death threats.

That said, he’s going to end up at ASU, Texas Tech, or some other school making $2-$3 million...
If half of what the local media (newspapers as well as blogs and forums) is true, McElwain really was a disaster for Florida: players in trouble (some of them big trouble, apparently), could not recruit effectively against all those other Florida schools, pissed off boosters as well as the press, etc. etc. So even though he won ball games (22-12 at UF before he was fired), that was not enough. Of course, he was "only" 1-1 in bowls and his team lost both times they played Florida State.

Another possible strike against him ( according to an article in USA Today): he was roommates with Colin Cowherd when they were both at Eastern Washington.

Oh shit, I forget about the players committing fraud. That was a hilarious story. And he did lose the biggest game you can't lose as a Florida coach twice.
 
Stop_HammerTime69 said:
IdaGriz01 said:
... If half of what the local media (newspapers as well as blogs and forums) is true, McElwain really was a disaster for Florida: players in trouble (some of them big trouble, apparently), could not recruit effectively against all those other Florida schools, pissed off boosters as well as the press, etc. etc. So even though he won ball games (22-12 at UF before he was fired), that was not enough. Of course, he was "only" 1-1 in bowls and his team lost both times they played Florida State.

Another possible strike against him ( according to an article in USA Today): he was roommates with Colin Cowherd when they were both at Eastern Washington.

Oh shit, I forget about the players committing fraud. That was a hilarious story. And he did lose the biggest game you can't lose as a Florida coach twice.
Bingo!
(Does this story sound familiar? ;) )
 
IdaGriz01 said:
Stop_HammerTime69 said:
IdaGriz01 said:
... If half of what the local media (newspapers as well as blogs and forums) is true, McElwain really was a disaster for Florida: players in trouble (some of them big trouble, apparently), could not recruit effectively against all those other Florida schools, pissed off boosters as well as the press, etc. etc. So even though he won ball games (22-12 at UF before he was fired), that was not enough. Of course, he was "only" 1-1 in bowls and his team lost both times they played Florida State.

Another possible strike against him ( according to an article in USA Today): he was roommates with Colin Cowherd when they were both at Eastern Washington.

Oh shit, I forget about the players committing fraud. That was a hilarious story. And he did lose the biggest game you can't lose as a Florida coach twice.
Bingo!
(Does this story sound familiar? ;) )

Uhhh... I'm not sure. I can't think of a team that just fired their coach for that exact reason, FBS or FCS. :lol:
 
Bear Axed said:
Jim was only offered a walk-on spot to UofM from his Sentinel Sr. season.....
He was the ALL-STATE QB, he has no love for the Griz
He'd work for EWU or MSU for Free before taking a piddling paycheck from the Griz


C_gBuS9XUAAX9J4.jpg

Classic!!!! Bear Axed your talent never goes unnoticed
 
Bear Axed said:
Jim was only offered a walk-on spot to UofM from his Sentinel Sr. season.....
He was the ALL-STATE QB, he has no love for the Griz
He'd work for EWU or MSU for Free before taking a piddling paycheck from the Griz


C_gBuS9XUAAX9J4.jpg

This is gold


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