By Bill Koch
Enquirer staff writer

Mark Dantonio's calm demeanor often masks his intensity when it comes to football. "He's in command. There's no entitlement in the program," athletics director Bob Goin says. The Enquirer/JEFF SWINGER

Mark Dantonio puts the emphasis on teaching his players, not yelling at them. Dantonio says he learned the value of patience from his former boss and current Ohio State coach, Jim Tressel. The Enquirer/JEFF SWINGER

M O R E   I N F O R M A T I O N MARK DANTONIO FILE Born: March 9, 1956 High school: Zanesville High School College: South Carolina Wife: Becky Children: Kristen (11), Lauren (8) Coaching experience 2001-03 - Ohio State defensive coordinator. 1995-00 - Michigan State secondary coach, associate head coach. 1991-94 - Kansas secondary coach. 1986-90 - Youngstown State secondary coach, defensive coordinator. 1985 - Akron secondary coach. 1983-84 - Ohio State graduate assistant. 1982 - Butler County (Kan.) Community College defensive coordinator. 1981 - Purdue graduate assistant. 1980 - Ohio University graduate assistant. 1979 - Anderson (S.C.) Westside High School assistant coach.

Nearly everyone who follows the University of Cincinnati football program knew what kind of head coach the Bearcats needed after Rick Minter was fired last December.

Everybody, that is, except athletic director Bob Goin.

Even though the prevailing opinion was that the Bearcats needed an offensive guru who would win over new fans by lighting up the scoreboard and entertaining reporters during press conferences, Goin meticulously went about the business of seeing who was out there.

Ultimately, he chose substance over glitter, defense over offense, and hired Ohio State defensive coordinator Mark Dantonio.

"What you hear him say is what he means," Goin said. "He wasn't out to impress anybody. He wasn't out to say all the flowery things about how the mountains were going to move if he showed up. He's a solid person who has worked hard in his profession."

Dantonio, 48, isn't likely to win over current UC football fans with his wit or attract new fans with his charisma.

He's aware of his reputation of being a deadly serious guy without much personality, an image that followed him down I-71 from Columbus "because they interviewed me after those games and I'm not going to (give them a bunch of bull). I'm going to tell them what happened and I really don't like the limelight to be on me. I'd rather it be on my players."

'Built on toughness'

That's not to say UC's first-year head football coach doesn't smile now and again or that he doesn't like to have a good time.

"My wife thinks I'm happy-go-lucky," he said. "My kids do. I think of myself like that. I was on the Racer at Kings Island. I went on the Drop Zone. I like to have fun with our players, but I confront them when they're wrong."

Dantonio and his wife, Becky, have two children - Kristen, 11; and Lauren, 8. He is deeply religious, and although he doesn't wear his religion on his sleeve, it forms the foundation for everything he does.

"I'm not trying to push religion on people," he said. "But for me, that's what it is. It's my faith. When that's intact, I know that regardless of the outcome, I'm doing the right thing."

Dantonio, who has waited 25 years for the chance to become a head coach, hopes his long apprenticeship will serve him well now that he's the man in charge. Certainly it has taught him the value of patience.

"It's been a long ride because I've been a lot of different places, especially as a young coach," he said. "I looked to get out at some point in time. I remember I was at Youngstown State, I was getting ready to get married and I was like, 'I don't know. I got my resume out there to try to look at a couple of different avenues.'

"One person wrote me back and wanted me to run a Cambridge Diet place, so I thought I'd better stick with coaching."

He spent the last three years as the defensive coordinator at Ohio State, where he helped the Buckeyes win a national championship in 2002 working under Jim Tressel.

Before that, he worked for six years coaching the secondary and serving as associate head coach at Michigan State under Nick Saban, whose Louisiana State team won a share of the national title last year.

He has toiled at the highest levels of the college game and believes he knows what it takes to transform a UC program that he calls "a diamond in the rough" into a shining jewel to take its place alongside Ohio State as one of the two premier college football programs in the state.

"This program is going to be built on the strong and it's going to be built on toughness," Dantonio said. "That's going to be who we are. We're not going to be soft. We're going to be built on discipline."

Importance of impact

Dantonio moved with his family from Texas to Ohio when he was a year old. He grew up in Zanesville and was an all-state defensive back at Zanesville High School.

He knew he wanted to be a college football coach during his senior year in high school, when his father, a high school baseball and basketball coach and later a principal, asked him if he had decided what he wanted to do for a living.

Dantonio remembered all the coaches who had made an impact on his life and told his father that he wanted to be a college football coach.

His course was set.

He played college football at South Carolina, where he lettered for three years as a backup free safety. That's where he encountered Dale Evans, his position coach who remains a close friend.

"He had a genuine concern for me as a person, not just as a player," said Dantonio, who says he tries to treat his own players the same way.

Every summer on the first day of practice, Dantonio calls Evans, the athletic director at Dorman High School in Spartanburg, S.C. They talk about their families and about the prospects for the team Dantonio happens to be coaching.

Dantonio even called Evans before the Buckeyes left their hotel to play Miami for the national championship in the Rose Bowl two years ago.

"He was very hard-nosed as a player," Evans said. "He was one of those guys that never said very much but was always absorbing everything you were telling him.

"He understood what his physical limitations were and knew that if he was going to play, he needed to have an edge on knowing his assignment and knowing what everybody else is supposed to be doing."

Even though he never became a starter, Evans said, Dantonio didn't pout or complain.

"He always brought great intensity to practice and games," Evans said. "You always knew you were going to get everything in his tank."

That's what Dantonio expects, not only from his players, but from everyone associated with the UC football program.

"Whether you're a starter or a backup or a trainer or whatever, you need to impact somebody on game day," Dantonio said, "if you just stand there with your helmet in your hand and you never play a down and you just sit there, you're doing nothing, and I would say the same to a fan. You need to have an impact on the people around you because that becomes contagious."

So far, so good

Dantonio has learned something from all of the coaches he's worked under and played for, but he's been most influenced by Tressel and Saban, who used to pop into Dantonio's secondary meetings unannounced to observe him in action.

"When I worked for Nick Saban as a secondary coach, I found out how much I didn't know," Dantonio said. "He used to say, 'If you're not coaching it, you're letting it happen.' "

From Tressel, he learned the value of staying calm in the face of adversity and teaching his players about life as well as football.

"I've seen the patience that he's had as a person," he said. "The patience and ability to persevere and not allow things to bother him is invaluable to me. He has a way of calming people. He has a way of delegating. That's something I'm trying to do, to allow people to do their jobs, to delegate."

The UC players embraced Dantonio's style almost immediately during spring practice, citing his honesty and his emphasis on teaching rather than yelling.

"He's a man of his word," said senior running back Richard Hall. "I've known Coach from back in '99 when I was in high school. He recruited me out of Michigan State. My mom still believes he was the only honest guy she's met that was a coach."

The Bearcats' new head coach understands the situation he has inherited at UC, where the football program has long been overshadowed by the basketball program and attracting fans has been a chronic problem. He doesn't profess to have all the answers.

But Goin has already seen the players respond to some of the attributes that impressed him during the interview process.

"The qualities that I thought were going to make us good are being shown every day," he said. "The athletes are behind him. They're going to play hard for him. If a kid doesn't do what he's supposed to do, he's not going to be part of the program. (Dantonio's) in command. There's no entitlement in this program. You have to earn his respect."

Dantonio makes no promises, except that his players will be disciplined and will play hard.

But he's determined to put everything he has into efforts to make it successful, much the way he did as a backup safety at SouthCarolina.

If it doesn't work out, he will have no regrets about the work he put into it.

"Three years from now, you might be sitting here saying, 'What happened, what went wrong?' " Dantonio said. "I might be packing my office. I can always go back and be a defensive coordinator somewhere or I can go off into thesunset.

"I'm secure enough to know that it's about relationships. That's why you coach."

E-mail bkoch@enquirer.com

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