Adam Gase Seems Like a Total Nutjob
Saw an excerpt floating around on Twitter today and decided to read the full article.
It’s a profile of New York Jets head coach Adam Gase, written by Dan Pompei at The Athletic. In the article, he talks about the meticulous detail Gase has exhibited throughout his football career, noting the numerous quirks and habits of the 41 year old. Interestingly, Gase happens to keeps computer files for “every day he has been a coach.”
Writes Pompei on that:
“…In each file is what he did that day and how it worked out. There also is a file for every opponent for every year. And then he has a master folder for each year, which keeps track of needed adjustments.”
Sounds pretty comprehensive, and that leads into this chunk of the story, which is now making the rounds on social media (hit the jump):
The file for Oct. 1, 2013, is particularly interesting. Every Tuesday when he was in Denver, Gase met with (Peyton) Manning at 2 p.m. Except this Tuesday, when (his wife) Jennifer was delivering Wyatt by caesarean section.
Gase told his wife to schedule the operation for 10 a.m. “So they pulled the baby out of me and said, ‘It’s a boy,’” Jennifer says. “They didn’t even put my organs back and sew me up before he’s like, ‘You good?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’m good.’” He said, ‘All right then, I’m out.’ They said, ‘You want to cut the umbilical cord?’ He said, ‘No, I’m good.’”
At 2 p.m., Manning was stunned to find Gase waiting for him in the meeting room.
Manning: “You’ve got to be kidding me. Didn’t your wife just have a baby two hours ago?”
Gase: “Yeah, but did you really think I was going to let you win this one?”
Wow, what a dedicated football coach!
Or maybe he’s an asshole for leaving his wife on the operating table and newborn baby in the hands of nurses.
Seems like rather detached behavior, but it’s also contradictory when juxtaposed against this passage from the same article:
On the night of July 3 of last year, Jeremiah Washburn, an assistant on Gase’s Miami staff, was riding his bike on Federal Highway in South Florida when he was run over by a truck. He was rushed to the hospital, where doctors told him he might lose his leg.
Gase found out and called Washburn’s wife, Susan. He stayed on the phone with her from 11 p.m. until 2 a.m. as Jeremiah underwent emergency surgery.
“The guy is something else,” says Washburn, whose leg was saved.
In the first period of a training camp practice in 2017, (Ryan) Tannehill took an awkward step and his knee gave out. He was taken for an MRI as the Dolphins finished practice.
As soon as practice ended, Gase left the team and rushed to be with Tannehill and his wife, Lauren, as Ryan had his MRI. “In all my career, I had never seen that before,” says Mike Tannenbaum, the Dolphins’ executive vice president of football operations at the time.
Tannehill, who tore his ACL that day, says Gase cared about him like a mother would.
That’s such a ‘football coach’ thing to do, which is to give half a shit about your family but go above and beyond for anybody involved in the program. It’s like all of these coaches have to be Nick Saban hardasses in order to be successful.
Time’s yours.