Temple University Athletics
Head coach Matt Rhule
Photo by: Mitchell Leff
Matt Rhule: Temple Made
12.17.12 | Football
by Kami Mattioli, Owlsports.com columnist
PHILADELPHIA -- On an otherwise dreary December day, a glimmer of promise illuminated a college campus as one of its own returned home.
Propelled by a hearty selection of cheers, former offensive coordinator Matt Rhule took the podium alongside athletic director Bill Bradshaw, flanked by his wife, Julie, and their eight-year-old son Bryant, to officially accept his appointment as the University's 26th head football coach.
He did so most appropriately: a year to the day after last year's team hoisted the Gildan New Mexico Bowl trophy on a sunny afternoon in Albuquerque, New Mexico -- a fact that Bradshaw pointed out in his introductory speech.
“Exactly one year ago today, on a beautiful day in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who was the only coach there who was also a coach in 2005, hoisting up the trophy for Temple's first bowl win in 32 years?” he asked the crowd.
“Matt Rhule. Talk about continuity.”
Rhule's storied allegiance to Temple University began back in 2006, when he joined Temple's staff alongside former head coach Al Golden. The two had both attended Penn State University, but had never actually met prior to Golden's taking the head coaching position at Temple.
With the program in shambles and a new coach at the helm, Rhule saw opportunity where most of his peers saw misery. So he and his wife and their son Bryant, a newborn at the time, embarked on an 11-hour drive to 10th and Diamond where he knocked on the door of the Edberg-Olsen complex and asked to speak to Golden.
“I told Al Golden I wanted to work with him, and I told him why,” he recalled. “I knew this was going to be a great place. I knew this was a place I wanted to be, and I knew he would win here.”
Thirty days later, Golden invited Rhule onto his staff as the defensive line coach.
It wasn't always pretty and glamorous, and it certainly wasn't easy, but Rhule helped turn around a Temple football program that had admitted defeat.
“It was five years, but it was five great years. Sometimes I think I can still feel the dirt underneath -- not just mine, but all of our -- fingernails,” he said.
As he stood on the podium before a handful of his former-turned-current players recalling some of the moments that molded his memory and shaped his career, they sat enraptured. They finally had a familiar face in their corner.
Midway through the press conference, he addressed them face-to-face for the first time. In that moment, the crowded room faded into oblivion.
It was just Rhule and his team.
“I can't promise you much, but I'm going to promise you one thing as I stand here in front of you today,” he began earnestly.
“I'm going to give you guys the same commitment, the same trust, the same respect, the same level of work ethic that we as a university demand from you. You can trust what I tell you. I'm going to push you like crazy, and we're going to win together.”
“We have a chance to play a national schedule, a championship game, a BCS bowl,” he continued. “What we didn't have before was opportunity. Now we have it.”
The sound of camera shutters clicking echoed in the moment of silence that followed before the room erupted with the sounds of excitement, of hope, filling the room floor to ceiling.
Rhule flashed a smile -- one that glimmered in such a way it could only be wrought by the struggle he had endured.
Two years ago, prior to accepting his current job as an assistant offensive line coach with the New York Giants, he applied for the opening that was eventually filled by Steve Addazio.
“I want to thank Bill Bradshaw for giving me this opportunity. He turned me down two years ago, and he was right,” admitted Rhule. “He made the right decision two years ago. I wasn't ready then, but I'm ready now.”
Faced with a tough decision, Rhule left Temple after a year with Addazio to take the job with New York. Hopeful for a return at some point, he refused to sell his house in suburban Philadelphia.
“My wife and I, and our son, we consider ourselves Temple people. We didn't go to school here, but we're Temple made. Every decision we've made in our lives, in our career, has revolved around this university,” he said.
He caught Temple games on television whenever he could, often following broadcasts on the Giants' plane to and from other NFL cities.
Addazio even invited him to come watch the Army game in November.
That's when he came to an important realization.
“I looked at those kids -- these kids over here that sometimes hated me, sometimes loved me -- and I said 'you know what? This is the right place for us. These guys are the right people for us and we're going to be loyal to them.' It was in that moment that I knew that if this opportunity came I was going to fight for it. Not just apply for it, but fight for it. And we did.”
When word of Addazio's abrupt departure rocked the locker room and news hit the wire, Rhule was ready.
So were his former players.
An impromptu locker room session with the athletic director and football staff turned into a team vying for Rhule's services this upcoming fall.
“It was all about just having the right guy come in here who wanted to be here and having that stability back in the program, and he was definitely the first coach that came to mind,” quarterback Chris Coyer said.
“Because of the relationship that I've developed with Coach Rhule and because he was the one who brought me here, I know how hard he's willing to work to get this team ready.”
“To hear them know who I am, to know that they felt that way told me it was the right time,” Rhule said in response.
A year ago today, bathed in the glow of an Albuquerque sunset, he put his arm around his wife on the sidelines and told her, “I don't know if we'll be here next year. It feels like we've completed the cycle. We've done what we came to do.”
For Rhule, the time is now, and the cycle begins again.
PHILADELPHIA -- On an otherwise dreary December day, a glimmer of promise illuminated a college campus as one of its own returned home.
Propelled by a hearty selection of cheers, former offensive coordinator Matt Rhule took the podium alongside athletic director Bill Bradshaw, flanked by his wife, Julie, and their eight-year-old son Bryant, to officially accept his appointment as the University's 26th head football coach.
He did so most appropriately: a year to the day after last year's team hoisted the Gildan New Mexico Bowl trophy on a sunny afternoon in Albuquerque, New Mexico -- a fact that Bradshaw pointed out in his introductory speech.
“Exactly one year ago today, on a beautiful day in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who was the only coach there who was also a coach in 2005, hoisting up the trophy for Temple's first bowl win in 32 years?” he asked the crowd.
“Matt Rhule. Talk about continuity.”
Rhule's storied allegiance to Temple University began back in 2006, when he joined Temple's staff alongside former head coach Al Golden. The two had both attended Penn State University, but had never actually met prior to Golden's taking the head coaching position at Temple.
With the program in shambles and a new coach at the helm, Rhule saw opportunity where most of his peers saw misery. So he and his wife and their son Bryant, a newborn at the time, embarked on an 11-hour drive to 10th and Diamond where he knocked on the door of the Edberg-Olsen complex and asked to speak to Golden.
“I told Al Golden I wanted to work with him, and I told him why,” he recalled. “I knew this was going to be a great place. I knew this was a place I wanted to be, and I knew he would win here.”
Thirty days later, Golden invited Rhule onto his staff as the defensive line coach.
It wasn't always pretty and glamorous, and it certainly wasn't easy, but Rhule helped turn around a Temple football program that had admitted defeat.
“It was five years, but it was five great years. Sometimes I think I can still feel the dirt underneath -- not just mine, but all of our -- fingernails,” he said.
As he stood on the podium before a handful of his former-turned-current players recalling some of the moments that molded his memory and shaped his career, they sat enraptured. They finally had a familiar face in their corner.
Midway through the press conference, he addressed them face-to-face for the first time. In that moment, the crowded room faded into oblivion.
It was just Rhule and his team.
“I can't promise you much, but I'm going to promise you one thing as I stand here in front of you today,” he began earnestly.
“I'm going to give you guys the same commitment, the same trust, the same respect, the same level of work ethic that we as a university demand from you. You can trust what I tell you. I'm going to push you like crazy, and we're going to win together.”
“We have a chance to play a national schedule, a championship game, a BCS bowl,” he continued. “What we didn't have before was opportunity. Now we have it.”
The sound of camera shutters clicking echoed in the moment of silence that followed before the room erupted with the sounds of excitement, of hope, filling the room floor to ceiling.
Rhule flashed a smile -- one that glimmered in such a way it could only be wrought by the struggle he had endured.
Two years ago, prior to accepting his current job as an assistant offensive line coach with the New York Giants, he applied for the opening that was eventually filled by Steve Addazio.
“I want to thank Bill Bradshaw for giving me this opportunity. He turned me down two years ago, and he was right,” admitted Rhule. “He made the right decision two years ago. I wasn't ready then, but I'm ready now.”
Faced with a tough decision, Rhule left Temple after a year with Addazio to take the job with New York. Hopeful for a return at some point, he refused to sell his house in suburban Philadelphia.
“My wife and I, and our son, we consider ourselves Temple people. We didn't go to school here, but we're Temple made. Every decision we've made in our lives, in our career, has revolved around this university,” he said.
He caught Temple games on television whenever he could, often following broadcasts on the Giants' plane to and from other NFL cities.
Addazio even invited him to come watch the Army game in November.
That's when he came to an important realization.
“I looked at those kids -- these kids over here that sometimes hated me, sometimes loved me -- and I said 'you know what? This is the right place for us. These guys are the right people for us and we're going to be loyal to them.' It was in that moment that I knew that if this opportunity came I was going to fight for it. Not just apply for it, but fight for it. And we did.”
When word of Addazio's abrupt departure rocked the locker room and news hit the wire, Rhule was ready.
So were his former players.
An impromptu locker room session with the athletic director and football staff turned into a team vying for Rhule's services this upcoming fall.
“It was all about just having the right guy come in here who wanted to be here and having that stability back in the program, and he was definitely the first coach that came to mind,” quarterback Chris Coyer said.
“Because of the relationship that I've developed with Coach Rhule and because he was the one who brought me here, I know how hard he's willing to work to get this team ready.”
“To hear them know who I am, to know that they felt that way told me it was the right time,” Rhule said in response.
A year ago today, bathed in the glow of an Albuquerque sunset, he put his arm around his wife on the sidelines and told her, “I don't know if we'll be here next year. It feels like we've completed the cycle. We've done what we came to do.”
For Rhule, the time is now, and the cycle begins again.
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