Sports: Living for every moment

Living for every moment

Jon Gruden knew what he wanted early, spends every free second making the most of it.

By BRUCE LOWITT, Times Staff Writer

Jon Gruden's philosophy in two words: Live life.

As in Bon Jovi's It's My Life. He would play it often -- and sing along at the top of his lungs -- on the 26-mile drive from home to his Oakland Raiders office.

It's my life.

It's now or never.

I ain't gonna live forever.

I just want to live while I'm alive.

In an interview last month, the new coach of the Bucs said he would drill that into his players. "Get something out of today! Get something out of tomorrow!" Gruden said. "Don't just wait around. It's over. Gone!

"Go out in a cemetery. See those bricks there? Those bricks have been lying there for 100 years. In 100 years, you're going to be underneath that brick. So get your a-- going! Get going. Come on! Do something!"

That home-to-work drive would begin in the dark. Same for the return trip. At his office by 4:30 a.m., out 16 hours later. He'd work more if there were more hours in the day to devote to football.

The problem: Football conflicts with the other most important thing in his life, Cindy and their three young sons, Jon II, Michael and Jayson. "Sometimes I get real guilty," he said. "I feel like I'm neglecting the most important responsibility I have."

Cindy doesn't see it quite that way. "People ask, "What about Jon seeing the kids?' It's not an issue. He loves that environment and we don't dwell on not seeing him. ... When he's here, it's quality time."

Under Gruden, the Raiders regained that long-ago reputation as a team of players who flopped elsewhere but found themselves, literally and figuratively, in Oakland. Players such as 36-year-old Rich Gannon, who divided his first 11 seasons among the Vikings, Redskins and Chiefs, mostly as a backup, before emerging as a Pro Bowl starter with the Raiders. "There isn't a better play-caller in the league right now," Gannon said. Gruden, 38, is the third in his family to coach a Tampa Bay team. His brother Jay, coach of the Arena Football League's Orlando Predators (and, like Jon, his league's youngest coach), quarterbacked the Tampa Bay Storm to four Arena championships from 1991-96. His father, Jim, a 49ers scout, was a Bucs assistant under John McKay and still lives in Tampa.

"I grew up a coach's son," Jon said. "I sat in running back meetings with my Dad. I knew what I wanted to do since I was 9. I learned then that if you're an expert at something, you can usually get a job. I wanted to be a quarterback coach even then."

He never wore that title, but before he took the Raiders job in 1998 he was a 49ers offensive assistant, Packers wide receivers coach and Eagles offensive coordinator.

If you've seen him on the sideline, face locked in a grimace, you probably have likened him to a devilish Dennis the Menace, maybe Calvin, comic-strip kids who don't understand the word "no." Or, possibly, Chucky, the doll with a penchant for slicing and dicing in the Child's Play movies.

No one seems to know just how the "Chucky" business began. Not even Gruden. "All I know is there's some comparison between me and some horror character," Gruden said, smiling.

He is not a patient man, but broadcaster John Madden, a former Raiders coach, calls that an attribute. "You have to be impatient," Madden said. "Anyone that has patience in coaching won't be successful or isn't going to be around long. ... Usually, losing comes with patience."

Players who don't toe Gruden's line will hear about it immediately and emphatically. He has been caught on television yelling at Gannon and being yelled at by placekicker Sebastian Janikowski.

But the players feed off that. "Coach Gruden gets fired up like no coach I've ever seen," Raiders tight end Roland Williams said. "Other guys had told me before I got here, but it's something to see his Chucky-ness in a game and in practice. The expressions on his face are priceless. He's a high-intensity guy and I love him."

High intensity is nothing new to Gruden. When he was the University of Dayton quarterback from 1982 to 1985, he waited tables at a Bennigan's restaurant part of the time. When a beered-up patron got mouthy with the waitresses, Gruden suggested he calm down. He didn't, "so I followed him into the parking lot and wound up punching him," he said. "The girls kind of liked that."

-- Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report, which used information from the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times.