Zook looks past tumult, tries to build a winner

GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA - So, just how much can one man take?

In the span of one year, Florida coach Ron Zook lost his father to cancer, saw his mother get diagnosed with the same disease and nearly had his foot severed in a nasty boating accident.

Then, there was football.

As earnest, hardworking a man as you'll ever find, Zook was criticized, sometimes ridiculed, during Florida's 8-5 season, its worst in 13 years.

All that added up to 12 of the toughest, most emotionally taxing months of the 49-year-old coach's life. His philosophy for handling so much upheaval, both in his professional and personal life, is simple.

``I'm blessed because the way I was brought up, you worry about the things you can control and you don't worry about the other stuff,'' he said.

The Gators, almost universally, are predicted to struggle this season. For the first time since 1990, Steve Spurrier's first season, they begin the year unranked in The Associated Press Top 25.

With no proven quarterback sophomore Ingle Martin will fight for the job with three freshmen, Chris Leak, Justin Midgett and redshirt Gavin Dickey and with only nine starters returning, some think a 6-6 record would be good. Florida hasn't finished with a losing record since 1979, when the Gators went 0-10-1.

It would be easy for the coach to ask for time and patience. Zook, however, doesn't want to go that route.

``I think we're a better football team right now than we were at this point last season,'' he said.

It's optimism personified from a man who feeds off the pleasure of proving people wrong.

``It's basically because he was born an underdog,'' said his brother, Bob, who is four years older than Ron. ``We all used to take advantage of him. It was like, 'I'm going to do you a favor. I'm going to beat the crap out of you.' I had plenty of help cousins and neighbors. We'd double team him, and try to tell him how much fun it was while he had blood running out of the side of his mouth.''

The underdog mentality fueled a fire that landed him a spot as a walk-on defensive back at Miami (Ohio). Nobody worked harder. The same was true during a coaching career that began modestly at Orville High School in Ohio, then wound its way through six colleges as an assistant before stopping at Florida, where he was infamously demoted from defensive coordinator to special teams coach by Spurrier. After Florida, Zook spent six seasons as an NFL assistant.

Then, came the dream job head coach of the Gators the one he calls ``the No. 1 job in America, bar none.''

In his first game as coach of the team he'd always dreamed of leading, Zook ran onto the field and pointed toward his father, Pete, who was battling cancer, yet made it to The Swamp to watch his son fulfill his dream.

Four weeks later, Pete Zook passed away. Zook took a few days off, but didn't make a big deal about it. His dad, Zook insisted, would have wanted him to keep working. A few days after the death, the coach, still mourning, ran out the tunnel and pointed skyward. Shortly after that, he found out his mother had cancer.

``The biggest problem I have with my mom is she tries to keep things from me,'' said Zook, a meticulous planner with an almost maniacal attention to detail. ``That makes me mad. I'm better off knowing. Just tell me and I'll deal with it. Don't hide stuff. It was the same thing in the beginning with my dad.''

Working at a frenetic pace this is a man who visited 71 Florida high schools and gave 12 speeches to booster clubs in the month of May Zook didn't let the trauma with his folks stop him.

Nor did his ski-boat accident this summer derail his plans.

In an incident he deems ``embarrassing, more than anything,'' Zook's foot got caught under the propeller of a ski boat. Multiple ligaments were torn and bones broken. His foot was nearly severed. Within five days of his surgery, he was back on the road recruiting ignoring the pain, as usual.

``The first thing I said to him is, 'Your luck has finally changed,''' Bob Zook said. ``When you look at what happened compared to what could have been he was just a few inches from death. It could have hit him in the head. To me, as bad as it was, that's a sign your luck has changed. I hope that's an indication of what's going to happen this season.''

If it is, then maybe things won't be so bad in 2003. Maybe the Gators will compete with Miami in their second game and avoid so many of the bad breaks and bad decisions that seemed to follow Zook around during his first year.

Part of the trouble was his own doing. Zook, a special teams expert, oversaw terrible special teams. And there was no excuse for the boneheaded call that ended the Outback Bowl.

Part of the problem, however, was what any coach following Spurrier would have endured: Simply, it's hard to follow a legend.

A year separated from his ultra-successful stint as head coach, Spurrier admitted what Zook had hinted at but could never just say last year.

``We did leave the cupboard somewhat bare,'' Spurrier said recently.

Zook had a successful recruiting class this year. His boss and friend, athletic director Jeremy Foley, is determined to give the coach a chance to prove himself with his own players, and on his own terms.

``He deserves longer than two years,'' Foley said.

Even with that decision made, Zook will not rest easy.

He knows the fans, spoiled after a dozen years of Spurrier success, demand more. He knows the media has spared him no insult.

He also knows that his life doesn't begin and end with football; he has been through worse over the last 12 months.

``All my life I've always had to prove myself, and that's fine,'' Zook said. ``You've just got to figure out ways to get it done.''