ATHLETIC ACHIEVERS: Shane Montgomery
6/30/2005 12:00:00 AM | Pack Athletics
June 24, 2005
• The second in an occasional series of former Wolfpack athletes who have worked their way up to other top jobs in college and professional athletics, either in coaching, administration or some other facet of operations.
BY Tim Peeler
RALEIGH -- Shane Montgomery may be the youngest head coach in NCAA Division I-A football, but he's not in the top five youngest coaches in the history of Miami of Ohio, the famed "Cradle of Coaches" where Ara Parseghian, Woody Hayes, Bo Shembechler and Dick Crum all got their starts.
Montgomery is a former NC State starting quarterback from 1988-89, and one of the few signal callers who still has any records left following the graduation of Philip Rivers. After some 15 years as an assistant coach, he was named as Terry Hoeppner's successor at Miami on national television, just before the RedHawks took the field in the Independence Bowl.
Montgomery is the second NC State graduate to become a NCAA Division I-A head coach, joining current Wolfpack coach Chuck Amato. NC State is one of 18 schools with multiple graduates as head coaches on the Division I-A level. Yet another, Bill Cowher, is the head coach of the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers.
Montgomery, who was Miami's offensive coordinator the last four years and the position coach for 2004 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year Ben Roethlisberger, is a native of Newark, Ohio, which is about three hours east of Miami's campus in Oxford.
The 1990 graduate was lured to Raleigh by former NC State coach Tom Reed, himself a former Miami of Ohio head coach who spent three years at the helm of the Wolfpack. Montgomery played his first year behind Erik Kramer, a junior college transfer who was named the ACC Offensive Player of the year in 1986, after leading the Wolfpack to an 8-3-1 record in Dick Sheridan's first year as the Wolfpack's head coach.
 Montgomery was twice named MVP of bowl games while playing at NC State  |
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"I kept working hard and I knew that if I didn't get a chance to play if wasn't going to be because I didn't work hard."
Montgomery says he will take many of the lessons he learned at NC State, from both Sheridan and his former position coach, Mike O'Cain, when he leads the RedHawks into action this fall.
"I have been a coach now for 14 years," Montgomery said. "I think you take a little bit from everybody you are with, whether it is saying if I am a head coach here is something I want to do or here is something I don't want to do. Playing for Coach Sheridan for four years at NC State and being a graduate assistant with him, the thing that always comes to mind is the discipline of the program. He was a no-nonsense guy.
"Players always knew where you stood with him as far as discipline on and off the field. He wasn't going to put up with it. That is one of the reasons that he turned the program around so quickly. I think people realized that he was a real no-nonsense guy who was going to ask the utmost of us and he was going to do ask us to do things right on the field as well as off the field. There were some people that were suspended early in his career that popped people's eyes. A lot of the thoughts I have on discipline and doing the right thing and doing the right thing for the athlete came from being with Coach Sheridan."
Montgomery, who spent two years as a graduate assistant for the Wolfpack, gained a different perspective playing for Mike O'Cain, who later became NC State's head coach when Sheridan retired in the summer of 1993.
"Really, the thing I took from him is just having a great relationship with your players," Montgomery said. "He treated us with the utmost respect. When I got into coaching, I felt like if I could have that kind of relationship with my players as I had with him, then obviously we could have a lot of success and I would feel good about my position as a coach. You are not a coach without players. My relationship with him made me feel good about wanting to get into coaching."
There have been others along the way, including Hoeppner, who hired Montgomery away from Tennessee-Chattanooga in 2001 and eventually endorsed Montgomery as his replacement.
Sheridan was one of the many people who was watching the night Montgomery was introduced as the Redhawk's new head coach, after he was tipped off by his former quarterback that an announcement would be forthcoming.
"Shane always showed a tremendous understanding and grasp of the game," Sheridan said. "He had a good football mind and is a very smart guy. You can't fake that. It's been great to follow his career and see him get that opportunity. I think they made a wonderful choice."
Montgomery said he has always kept up with NC State since graduating with a degree in Management in 1990, but never more so than when Rivers and Roethlisberger finished their brilliant college careers and were being scouted by various NFL franchises.
"Throughout that process, people kept asking me who would I take, Ben, Philip or Eli (Manning)," said Montgomery, who was a 2003 finalist for the Broyles Award as the nation's top assistant coach during Roethlisberger's senior season. "I didn't think you could go wrong with any of those. They are all very talented, very smart and they all have a bright future. Those three will be in the NFL for a long time."
Manning was the first of the three taken, with the first overall pick by the San Diego Chargers. Rivers was taken next by the New York Giants. Then they were traded for one another. Roethlisberger was taken with the 11th overall pick by the Pittsburgh Steelers, who, of course, are coached by former NC State linebacker Bill Cowher.
There were a couple of Montgomery's passing records that Rivers left alone, thanks to one pass-happy day in Durham. Montgomery still holds the single-game records for passing attempts (73), passing yards (535), total plays (76) and total offense (537). All of them were set in a 35-26 loss at Duke.
"Those records come from throwing the ball too much at time," Montgomery said. "For somebody's sake, hopefully no one will have to throw the ball 73 times ever again."
Besides, he doesn't want his name completely erased from the record books.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
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