For the first time in more than three decades, Bronco Mendenhall isn't working the phones with recruits or planning staff meetings on Mondays. He's in his truck, waiting for the rain.
After he resigned as Virginia's head football coach, Mendenhall moved his horses, gear, and supplies to Montana and returned to his roots. It has been a short period of time. A new home on a quiet lake that he and his wife, Holly, have dreamed of for years, is one of the projects he is overseeing. He rides a lot. He's training for two half-Iron Man competitions, as well as fielding calls for business ventures, teaching opportunities, and a host of other ideas for what comes next.
He has two horses in need of riding and he is burning daylight.
He said that he hadn't been out fishing today.
That's sort of the point, if that all sounds like the dream itinerary for someone who has left his past life in order to find meaning off the grid.
In the hours after Virginia lost to Virginia Tech in the regular-season finale, Mendenhall decided it was time to live the dream.
"So far, it's been amazing," said Mendenhall. "A lot of the coaches who've called me are saying, 'Man, we think you've got this right.'
Another example of a coach burnt out by the new world order was seen in Mendenhall's farewell. The new landscape has pushed coaches to the brink of exhaustion due to name, image and likeness rules. He would definitely leave.
The conclusion is a logical one. It's not correct.
Mendenhall is obsessed with philosophy, leadership, religion and happiness, and he is a coach. There's a book about Mendenhall's approach to football and leadership that was published in 2012 and he views the world differently than most other coaches. He saw an opportunity to fulfill a promise to Holly, to take a deep breath, and to see what life away from football might be like.
He keeps thinking that all those changes, all those new demands on coaches, might be the reason he wants to get back into it.
There are a lot of ways to look at this in terms of challenges and reasons to leave. There are new opportunities to make a difference with that. I might be one of the people who runs back in when people leave the profession.
With less than three minutes to play, Virginia had four plays from the Hokies' 11 yard line, but a 2-yard run and three straight incompletions doomed the drive. Mendenhall was thinking about the future less than a day later.
What do you think about success at Virginia? What can he do to make the team better? What time will that take? What resources do he have to get it done?
Mendenhall processes the same questions over and over, adding new information as it becomes available, then producing the best answer. Every day the program runs again. It said that he needed a break.
Mendenhall didn't use the word retirement because he didn't see it as that. To make sure Holly and I were unified in doing it, it was to change what we were doing.
Mendenhall didn't have a plan when he first became a coach. He had played football in college, so why not become a coach? It was more of a waste of time than it was worth.
Mendenhall's first job as a coach was as a graduate assistant at Oregon State in 1989 and he was obsessive when he was a player. He stored his clothes in a filing cabinet and slept on a roll-out foam mattress in his office after he parked his car on campus. He couldn't locate his car when the season ended. After the students moved out, campus police found it parked in the same spot he had left it.
Success came from that obsession. After a decade as an assistant at Oregon State, Louisiana Tech, New Mexico and BYU, Mendenhall was hired as the head coach of the Cougars in 2005, and they went on to post back-to-back 11-2 seasons. He felt deflated after Mendenhall's success.
It was the first time Mendenhall resigned.
Mendenhall didn't know if he wanted to coach football. It's an entertainer's job and he's an entertainer. It's a world dominated by whoever yells the loudest because he's quiet and considered. College football can be reticent of new ideas, even though he's a voracious reader in search of any new twist on leadership or team-building. He had never stopped to think about whether he really wanted to be a coach.
He told Holly that he was ready to go somewhere else.
She said no.
She told him it was too soon to leave. He didn't have to leave his job. He didn't need to win or lose, he just needed to find meaning.
Mendenhall went to a retreat with a sports psychologist. Mendenhall was cornered and asked who he was. What is left after taking away the title and money?
Mendenhall wrote out what he believed to be his core beliefs. He has it on his screen saver, and he reads it often.
"What really became clear is that the daily interaction with young people, and the influence to help shape and develop and teach and mentor, there's no price I can put on that." It's the most amazing thing that I've experienced in my career.
Mendenhall continued to flourish even though he stayed at the school. He looked at the things that made him unique. He is careful to take time to meditate or ride his horses because of the social demands of coaching. He decided the wins weren't what motivated him. Success on the field earned him credibility, but what he did with that was more important to him. He's a good person. The challenge is something he needs. He left for the Virginia job, taking over a program with no clear direction, and building something new with the knowledge and perspective he'd gained at BYU.
He acknowledges the potential hypocrisy by using the word service.
It's difficult to say that in college football. It's not appropriate to be making $4 million. What is it about that service that makes it worthwhile? There is a mindset that I find fulfillment in and that makes a difference.
Mendenhall was able to read those words again when the season ended. He faced an exhausting 2020 campaign due to COVID-19, when he said he struggled to balance a moral decision about his players' safety. He used to relax by riding and roping with his sons, but now all three were out of the house, and he and Holly were officially empty nesters. The demands of the job pulled him away from the interactions with his players.
Take away the money. I don't know who I am.
Mendenhall was not sure for the first time in a long time.
He called Holly again and said he was ready to quit.
Mendenhall said it was a similar response this time. There were a lot of tears and uncertainty. This has made the picture much clearer.
After the Virginia Tech game, he told Williams he was stepping down. He told James Ryan. Mendenhall's time at the University of Virginia was over a month after the bowl game was canceled due to an outbreak of carbon dioxide in the locker room.
Clark Lea was a student of the Taoists.
When he got into the profession, he found a spirit in Mendenhall that he felt was similar to his own. He loved reading "Running into the Wind" when he worked at Wake Forest. Even though he hadn't met Mendenhall, he used his coaching strategies as a template when he became Notre Dame's defensive line coach.
I always connected with him when I saw what he was doing or listened to him. I identify with him as an introvert as well. Both of us are pretty cerebral, but his teams played hard. He made an impact on every play, but you didn't see him yelling or screaming.
It wasn't until Mendenhall reached out to inquire about a job for one of his young graduate assistants that he connected with the man.
"I've been waiting for that call for a long time," she said.
The first conversation lasted more than an hour and the two remained in touch throughout the season. Mendenhall invited a woman to a meeting. She was going to talk about coaching in the winter. Then Mendenhall stepped down.
I was going to talk to the head coach at Virginia. I thought our conversation would get better.
Mendenhall understands how people complain about being tired. The coaches are paid well. He has been given the chance to take time away to build a ranch and escape. It's a job that has forced him to make hard choices about playing through a Pandemic and is now driven by money. He said that Mendenhall isn't angry, but he's curious and using his time away to reexamine the landscape. He sees NIL as a way to learn. Athletes can maximize their opportunities by using the transfer portal. He sees an opportunity to challenge his philosophy and find new ways to communicate with his players. He has yet to figure out the plan.
Dave Clawson recalled a conversation he had with Frank Solich when he was at Ohio. In the year before he accepted the job at Ohio, Solich changed his approach to coaching.
"If every coach had the chance to take a year off, he would talk about how much he learned about football," Clawson said. The schedule prevents you from reflecting.
He said that Mendenhall is not missing the job. There are many things to keep him busy in Montana. He misses being able to share his message with young people who might benefit from it.
Some people who take that year are done. There are other people who take a year off and come back in better shape.
It's late June and Mendenhall is on vacation. The man is in Mexico. This spot is too good to risk becoming a trendy destination on a travel site and he doesn't want to say where. He is on a surfing trip with two friends.
While working at New Mexico, Mendenhall surfed. He would tell Holly how much he liked the guys out on the beach. He found a bag with an envelope when he returned from the Lobos' final recruiting camp. A plane ticket and a letter were inside. She had taken him to a weeklong surfing camp in San Clemente, California, that featured Mendenhall, some teenagers, and a few midlife crisis guys.
Surfing became a passion as the experience continued. He would wake up early to get some time on the waves, change clothes in his car for recruiting meetings at a few high schools, and then go back to the beach with his board. He needed a balance between the sales pitch and the need to relax on the ocean.
Mendenhall said that he always feels better when he surfs.
Mendenhall emerged from the water and felt refreshed and positive. He's still finding his footing in this semiretired, post- football world that doesn't feel completely solid, but he feels rejuvenated.
Mendenhall slips back into coaching mode easily, with Holly reminding him that she is not his receptionist and the boys are not his players. Holly said that he still studies every day and that he thinks reading books might make him a better coach. He doesn't mind the work.
She said thatBronco liked a challenge. He's a person who fixes things. He isn't deterred by issues like that. He can make a difference if he sees it as a challenge.
Another analogy is needed for what is to come. Mendenhall compares it to being a smokejumper, an elite squad of firefighters who jump into a fire to help the people below. The college football world is going strong.
Our profession needs Bronco right now. There is a void between what our profession has been and what it is now.
Before Mendenhall can take a new job, he needs to check off days on the calendar. Holly said he's not making any promises and she's not sure what he's going to do next. Mendenhall would like to make a difference. He wants to make a difference in people's lives. He knows that. He might be able to work for a consulting firm or teach classes. He has had opportunities.
Maybe he needs to go back into the fire.
Mendenhall said it's hard to find a platform that is as impactful as college athletics. The landscape is changing quickly.
The money, the title, and the pressure to win are taken away. Is there anything left?
"As a head coach," he said, "the decisions you make to construct the culture and the values of your program can still resonance in a way that's authentic and real."
The answer he keeps coming back to is that college football is the only platform that can make the kind of impact he wants to make.
Mendenhall said that clarity came from distance. It's like dying without being dead and not knowing who will come to your funeral. All the substance comes from those relationships.
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