Episode 3: Ron McBride

I think where we want to start, though, is look, there are people that they have jobs, and then there are people who dedicate their lives to a calling.

And football was clearly your calling.

You've spent most of your life in the game.

What was the deeper purpose that kept you going through all of those years? And what was it about football that attracted you to this?

Well, I started off, you know, most of the people in San Jose at that time that I played with in college all became teachers and coaches, right? And so I started off on the Eastside City School District.

And at that time, all the high schools were new.

And so I basically opened up Piedmont Hills High School as the head baseball coach and assistant football coach.

And that's really how I got started.

And then a lot of coaches in the league at that time were guys I played with in college.

And I know that early in your coaching career, you got connected with Coach Tomey.

Of course, you were coaching with him in his time at Arizona before you came over to Utah.

What was that relationship like with Coach Dick Tomey, and how did that inform what you did when you came into Utah as a head coach?

Dick Tomey was a big influence, obviously.

First of all, he was a great recruiter.

He understood how to build programs.

And he was just kind of part of it because I had worked for several really good coaches along the way.

And Dwayne Howard was kind of the guy I started out with when I first went from high school to junior college.

I was with him for 13 years, basically.

We took the job at Utah, I forget what, and I came to Utah as an assistant coach with him.

and then later on you know I was hired by Dick Tomey in Arizona before I became the head coach at Utah and Dick Tomey was a big huge influence on my life as far as and he was a real Tomey was a real players coach really, really very sound in his recruiting philosophies.

A good teacher, you know, just just, you know, he really had himself together on all aspects.