Coach Dad

-- FATHER'S DAY for coaches and their kids points up how difficult it is to find family time when dad's time and travel commitments can keep him away for day sor weeks at a time.

They give thanks for field goals, their favorite letter is "W" and they drape themselves in purple.

But they're more than Husky football fanatics. There's a reason the youngest of the three, 2-year-old Joe, throws his little arms in the air and screams touchdown.

It's not just a game, it's Daddy's job.

Husky Coach Rick Neuheisel's sons - Jerry, 7; Jack, 4; and Joe - are about to embark on a unique life. They can expect years of football games, roller-coaster seasons, a father recognized everywhere and endless questions about what it's like to be the "coach's kid."

"It's a crash course," said Susan Neuheisel, Rick's wife. "There's nothing to prepare you for this, you just kind of roll with it."

Lesson No. 1 is realizing holidays aren't exactly like the rest of the world's. Neuheisel's young sons will spend Father's Day helping with registration at Dad's football camp.

Which brings us to Lesson No. 2: Life's a little different when you're a coach's kid. The Neuheisels are slowing discovering what the families of Mariner Manager Lou Piniella, Seahawk Coach Mike Holmgren and Sonic Coach Paul Westphal already know.

PACK 'EM UP, MOVE 'EM OUT

Forget about the players he left behind at Colorado. And all the friendships and loyalties established in Boulder. And the seven-year contract worth an estimated $10.5 million to coach the Washington Huskies.

All that mattered before Neuheisel made the announcement Jan. 9 to join the Huskies were the feelings of his son, Jerry.

Rick looked into his oldest boy's crystal blue eyes and searched for the right words to create some excitement about leaving his friends, big backyard, and favorite teachers behind for an unknown world in Seattle.

His strategy? Dad told him Ken Griffey Jr. played in Seattle.

"Jerry had his bags packed that night," Susan said.

Jack and Joe took some bribing.

"I promised them a dog," Rick said.

What kind?

"A Husky," he said.

But that will have to wait until the Neuhseisels find a house - the third in their eight-year marriage.

"Hopefully this is it," Susan said. "We love it here, so hopefully we won't have to go through moving again."

Sure, coaches always stay put. Yeah, and pigs - or pigskins in this case - fly, right?

In the coaching biz, moving is a part of life. Of the four coaches, only Westphal's family didn't have to box up the house, travel cross-country, and make new friends in the middle of the school year.

Both of the Westphal children - Torri, 23, and Michael, 19 - lived most of their lives in Phoenix, where Dad played and later coached for the Phoenix Suns. When he took the Sonic job last season, Torri was studying art at Pepperdine but Michael hadn't decided on a college.

"I was going to go wherever he was," said Michael, a sophomore at Washington. "It didn't matter."

The Holmgrens lived a more typical coach's life, moving eight times stretching across California, Utah and Wisconsin.

The first move was the hardest. When Mike, then an assistant at San Francisco State, became the quarterback coach at Brigham Young in '82, he moved to Provo, Utah, and left his wife, Kathy, alone with four daughters, all under the age of 8. They lived in a small two-bedroom apartment in San Jose. As soon as Mike left, the four girls came down with chicken pox.

Alone and stressed, Kathy quickly dialed up Mike. "She told me to quit and that she had had enough," he said.

Quitting wasn't an option, so the crisis helped forge a bond between the girls. Understanding they needed to depend on each other as they trekked through life has served them well.

"Moving was rough," said Calla, one of the Holmgrens' 25-year-old twins. "But they always made it into an adventure."

Piniella and his troupe were truly on an adventure. Once the oldest, Lou Jr., was born in 1969 in Tampa, Fla., the Piniellas went on a six-city tour that included trips back and forth between Tampa and New Jersey for five years.

Lou and his wife of 32 years, Anita, were born and raised in Tampa. When Piniella was traded to the New York Yankees in 1973, they brought their two grade-schoolers, Lou Jr. and Kristi, back to Tampa during the offseason to be around family. Having a third child - Derek in 1979 - nixed that cycle. The Piniellas waited until Derek was ready for high school to make Tampa their permanent home.

When Piniella joined the Mariners in 1993, trips to Seattle became summer vacations for the kids, but Anita travels to Washington 10 times a year to be with her husband.

"The traveling and moving can be too much," Anita said. "But after a while you get used to it. The kids needed to be around their father, so I did whatever was possible to make that happen."

GIMMIE, GIMMIE, GIMMIE

Imagine your dad's the coach of the Seahawks or Sonics.

Joey Galloway or Gary Payton drop by at lunchtime. Autographed balls and free tickets for everyone.

Instant popularity, right? Wrong.

Classmates have to play 20 questions just to get most coaches' kids to admit who Dad is. And talking about it? Fat chance.

"It just ends up being a lot of work," Jenny Holmgren said. "Everyone wants something autographed or something for charity. Sometimes I don't mind getting things signed, but I try to keep it secret."

Michael Westphal had a better idea. As a 6-foot-3 shooting guard on the Chaparral High School basketball team in Phoenix, opponents and fans always wanted to know who Paul's son was.

"We'd say it was our scrawny little point guard," Michael said. "They'd start heckling him, but eventually figured it out.

"I've never told anyone, because they make it into a bigger deal than it is. He's just my dad."

Life for Westphal included regular pickup games with Charles Barkley in the front driveway. Holmgren's four daughters had Steve Young as a babysitter. Derek Piniella has taken batting practice at Yankee Stadium and the Kingdome. Then there were the behind-the-scenes views of the Super Bowl, NBA Finals or World Series.

"It was exhilarating," Lou Jr. said. "We'd play in Yankee Stadium's tunnels with Ken Jr. and Craig Griffey. Slip on a uniform and shag balls or be the bat boy."

And impressing friends or teachers was easy. "Classmates were always funny. They wanted anything they could get their hands on - Reggie Jackson's shoes, anything," Lou Jr. said. "I gave my teachers tickets. It was like a real shiny apple."

The Holmgrens only had one rule when it came to party favors: "We couldn't sell anything," Calla Holmgren said.

But when the team's losing or Dad makes a dumb coaching decision, it's a different story.

"They'd say, `Oh, I hate that team,' " Jenny Holmgren said. "You try not to take it personally. But our life revolves around it. Every time he loses we worry he's going to get fired, and when they win, we're probably a little too excited."

Derek Piniella, a defensive end for Virginia Tech, remembers many jeers from his football teammates.

"Dad got upset at an umpire last season and was throwing his hat a lot," Derek said. "The next day when I came in the locker room everybody started throwing their hat and stomping on it. You gotta laugh at that."

WHERE'S DAD?

It was 3 a.m. and the house was quiet. Lou Piniella dumped his duffel bag in the foyer and quietly made his way up the stairs.

Lou Jr. remembers waiting eagerly to hear those sounds every night from 1974 to '84 growing up in New York. Dad was an outstanding outfielder for the Yankees, but Lou Jr. would have gladly traded his autographed balls for a few extra hours with him.

"I'd miss him so much," the younger Piniella said. "Watching him on TV and getting phone calls weren't enough. I just wanted him around, not really to do anything but just to be there."

A kiss on the forehead and an "I'll-see-you-in-the-morning" whisper usually eased the pain.

The season is the hardest part for a coach's kid. Piniella could be gone for months at a time during the eight months that began with spring training and often ended in October. Westphal and Neuheisel's absences last maybe a week, Holmgren's about five weeks during training camp and many weekends.

And when Dad is home, there are meetings, training tables, practices and the usual curfew checks and player-coach crises that keep them from getting home until 11 most nights. By that time, their children were asleep. And Lou Jr.'s game-ending soccer goal or Michael Westphal's game-winning basketball shot were long over, not to mention Calla and Jenny Holmgren's band concerts or father-daughter dances.

"I missed a lot of things from tennis matches to awards banquets," Holmgren said. "When I got too distant, the girls were very verbal. They'd walk right up to me and say, `Hey, you haven't been around, it's time we see you more.' I'd try to always make it up to them."

Little gestures helped the kids forget Dad couldn't be with them on special days. Piniella had broadcasters wish Derek, now 20, a happy 16th birthday. And he called Kristi, now a 27-year-old mother, a million times while she was delivering her daughter.

"Tell my dad I'll call him back," Kristi pleaded while in labor, "I'm trying to have a baby!"'

Once Holmgren moved up to the NFL in 1986 as the San Francisco 49ers' quarterbacks coach, Thursdays became family nights.

"He'd always make these big plans," Jenny Holmgren said. "We were going to eat dinner, watch movies or play games, but by 8:30 he'd be passed out. It was funny. My parents are very early-to-bed, early-to-rise people."

Sometimes they would go on high-school scouting trips, exhibition games or practices just to spend time with Dad. Emily Holmgren, now 22, worked a few Green Bay Packers' training camps, serving lunch.

Dad was protective of his young daughter, though. "There was a rule," Holmgren said. "No one could talk to my daughters. And if I caught them . . . there was going to be trouble."

When Lou Piniella Jr. started college at Villanova in the early '90s, he joined his dad, then a manager for the Cincinnati Reds, on the road. It didn't matter if it was a West Coast swing or nearby New York.

"That was a special time for me," Piniella Jr. said. "If I didn't travel with him, I wouldn't have seen him at all in college."

It doesn't take a major effort to see Dad in the offseason, however.

Running in dizzying circles at Husky Stadium on Wednesday, the Neuhesiel boys don't even remember what it's like when dad is gone. The "Pep Boys," as Rick calls them, storm into their parents' room and pounce on Dad every morning. Jerry, 7, calls the game Godzilla.

"We try to push him off the bed," he said. "If we do, we win. If he pushes us off first, then he wins. We usually win."

"You don't get a large quantity of time to spend with your kids," Rick Neuheisel said. "But it's important to make the time you do have quality time. They get my undivided attention and we play until they're wiped out."

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

As daylight broke through the bedroom window today, Paul Westphal felt a nudge from his two kids.

He awakened to the smiling faces and a box of See's candy (Victoria Toffee, his favorite). It's a family tradition that Torri and Michael use to show their dad they love him.

Holmgren is relaxing at their California cabin with his youngest daughter Gretchen, 18. Neuheisel and his boys will spend the day registering football campers. Both are Father's Day traditions.

And Piniella?

He hopes to manage the Mariners to a victory over the Cleveland Indians. But his three grown children will call to wish him a happy holiday, too.

Like most families, they'll remember the funny moments, sigh at the rocky times and thank Dad for doing all he could to provide a better life for them. No matter how unusual it was to outsiders, it was normal to them.

"It definitely wasn't the sit-down-family-dinner, `how-was-your-day?' Cleaver life," Lou Piniella Jr. said. "I had some great experiences, but I would trade all of it for more time with my dad. When you think about it, though, it was a great life." -------------------------------

FAMILY SNAPSHOTS

THE HOLMGRENS Coach/dad: Mike, Seahawk head coach, first year Wife/mom: Kathy Kids age Update Calla 25 Doctor in Milwaukee Jenny 25 Director of Communications, North Park College in Chicago Emily 22 Newlywed is finishing teaching degree at North Park Gretchen 18 Recent high-school grad will attend North Park

THE PINIELLASCoach/dad: Lou, Mariner manager since 1993 Wife/mom: Anita Kids age Update Lou Jr. 30 Inventory manager in Tampa, Fla. Kristi 27 Raising 3-year-old daughter, Kassidy, in Tampa Derek 20 Plays defensive end at Virginia Tech THE WESTPHALSCoach/dad: Paul, Sonic coach, first year Wife/mom: Cindy Kids age update Torri 23 Taking summer classes in Italy, finishing degree at Pepperdine Michael 19 Sophomore walk-on with Washington basketball teamTHE NEUHEISELSCoach/dad: Rick, University of Washington football coach, first year Wife/mom: Susan Kids age update Jerry 7 Wants to be a quarterback Jack 4 Likes to sing country songs Joe 2 Fine-tuning his touchdown dance