Tice earned job, not this grief

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These should be the best days of Mike Tice's life. He has beaten the odds. He has risen quickly from a Redmond deli owner to the Minnesota Vikings' offensive line coach, to their head coach.

Already he is challenging his offensive enigmas, quarterback Daunte Culpepper and wide receiver Randy Moss. And he has hired his East Islip (N.Y.) High School coach, George O'Leary.

These are the best of times for Mike Tice.

They're also the worst.

Less than a week after he was named Vikings coach, Tice was named in a lawsuit filed by the family of the late Pro Bowl tackle Korey Stringer, blaming Tice and other Vikings officials in Stringer's death from heatstroke last August.

The suit felt like a sucker punch. It alleges that Tice, a tough, compassionate coach, a player's coach, called Stringer a "big baby," that he had taunted Stringer.

Tice knows it's not true. He lost a good friend when Stringer died on Aug. 1, a fact that has been lost in this lawsuit.

"To have the things said about me in the lawsuit, that's just a totally crushing blow on top of everything else," said Tice, speaking by telephone late last week. "You're supposed to have a little bit of a feeling of satisfaction after you've finally reached your goal to become a head coach. I mean it's not the way I planned it.

"This isn't the way I wanted to become a head coach, replacing one of my mentors (Dennis Green) like this. But not much in life happens the way you plan it. But then, after being on the job less than a week, to have the lawsuit come out and all of these things that are said that I did that are so far from the truth, it's shocking."

I wasn't on the sideline that sweltering summer day, when Stringer's temperature rose above 108 and he died. But I know Mike Tice. I spent 10 years talking with him in the Seahawks' locker room, after practices, after wins and after losses. I saw him often at Longacres, where he owned horses. I saw him around town.

He was as approachable as any player I've ever met. He was the kind of guy who cared about everybody around him — writers, trainers, equipment guys and especially teammates. Nothing came easily to Tice. He was a tough-guy player, but he appreciated every day he played and he respected everybody around him.

The lawsuit says Tice saw Stringer rolling around in pain on the practice field and did nothing about it. I don't believe it.

"The stuff in the lawsuit is so far from the truth," Tice said. "If anything, I baby my players. If you see me in action, you know I'm so defensive of my players. For them to take that potshot at me, it just crushes me. I live with what happened every day.

"I loved Korey Stringer very much and I'm very hurt by the things that were said in the lawsuit. The team knows what went on. The team knows how I felt about Korey. The team knows how his death affected me. They saw how it affected me. I don't have to apologize for the way I feel about Korey Stringer."

Everything went wrong with the Vikings this past season. The team never recovered emotionally from Stringer's death on Aug. 1. There were fierce arguments on the sideline during games. The Vikings lost 11 times, and Green left the team just four days before the season finale in Baltimore.

"After 20 years in the National Football League, this was the most no fun I ever had," Tice said. "This is a fun job, supposed to be a fun job. But I had no fun. No fun. The tension in the building, between what was going on, on the sideline, between what was going on with Denny and the owner, it just was not a good deal. It was there 24 hours a day. You'd get up in the morning and there was tension in the building. It was terrible."

Now it is Tice's charge to repair the Vikings, to blow all of the negativity out of the building, to remind this team how good it can be. He is the right person for the job. He is understated like his former Seahawk coach Chuck Knox was. Driven like Knox. The kind of coach a player plays hard for.

Tice earned this assignment. After he finished his career, he tried to get into coaching, making the rounds at the Senior Bowl and the East-West Shrine Game, passing out resumes, looking for work. He had the "Fill Your Belly Deli" in Redmond, but he wanted more.

"As soon as I retired, I gave coaching a whack, but I couldn't get in," Tice said. "I got the usual, 'Hey, how you doin'? No, we don't have any openings. You don't have any experience.' I heard that for a couple of years, so I kind of moved on. I thought I'd have these deli chains and clean bathroom floors the rest of my life."

But in 1995, after he had been retired for two years, all the Vikings' tight ends got hurt and Tice got lucky. Green coaxed him out of retirement, and after the season, gave him a job coaching tight ends.

Metaphorically, Tice brought Chuck Knox with him. He still quotes Knox's aphorisms. He mentions Knox so often that some of the Vikings' linemen call Knox "our coach."

"I call Chuck all the time," Tice said. "I call him about technical stuff, picking up stunts and blitzes. I ask him about how to handle certain situations when I was having problems with my players. I bounce a lot of things off him. I talked to him the other night about what guys I should hire. Chuck has been a great resource for me. He's been a much-quoted person by me."

Before he accepted owner Red McCombs' offer, Tice flew to Palm Springs and talked with Knox.

Like Knox, Tice isn't glitzy. He doesn't have the SportsCenter glitter of new Washington Coach Steve Spurrier. He isn't self-promotional like Bill Parcells. He isn't a self-proclaimed genius. His arrogance and ego are focused in the right direction. And he's as loyal as a big brother.

Tice hired O'Leary, who has been mugged in the media since he left Notre Dame after it was discovered O'Leary lied on his resume.

"Guys are saying to me, 'What a great gesture,' and I'm telling them this ain't a gesture," Tice said. "This guy's a better coach than I am. I'm making myself better by hiring this guy. There wasn't even a second thought.

"I've leaned on him for 30 years, just like I've leaned on Chuck. To have him on my staff at a time when he's trying to regroup, it's good for him and it's good for me. I have a guy who's going to keep an eye on me and make sure I don't screw it up."

Mike Tice won't screw it up.

Steve Kelley can be reached at 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com.