MitchMash: Former Gorman, new UNLV coach Tony Sanchez always had "it"

The first time I met and interviewed Tony Sanchez was in a counselor’s office at Granada (Livermore, Calif.) in the early 1990s.

He was a high motor, over-achieving receiver and defensive back out of the East Bay Athletic League, one of the three top leagues in the San Francisco Bay Area. He had big numbers, a big smile and eyes that could light up a room.

I noted his posture: strong, upright and confident.

He was full of energy, joy and football vernacular. He had life and opposing players by the tail, and he was shaking it all for all it was worth.

And he was only 17-years-old.

The proud son of a policeman didn't talk like most teens — he had a lot to say and did so at a NASCAR pace — and he certainly didn't carry himself like one. I remember leaving the interview feeling like I was talking to a peer more than a kid, even though I was 14 years his senior.

So it shouldn't really surprise me that Thursday Sanchez became just the third high school football coach ever to jump right to the head ranks of a FBS college job.

He’s been rumored to be the front-runner for the UNLV job for weeks and Thursday it became official when Rebels’ Athletic Director Tina Kunzer-Murphy introduced him as the university’s 11th head football coach.

It didn't surprise me that he turned around a longtime struggling California (San Ramon, Calif.) job or catapulted Bishop Gorman (Las Vegas, Nev.) into one of the nation's elite prep programs by going 75-5 with six straight state titles. He sent 25 kids to Division I programs and finished things off with a probable mythical national crown.

Sanchez, now 40, has a magnetic personality. He’s clear, strong, impassioned and organized. And fiercely strong, loyal and competitive.

Of those traits, his organizational and delegation skills might come in most handy at the collegiate level.

Though a high school program, Gorman, with its state-of-the-art facilities, massive, supportive and demanding alumni, huge media interest and second-to-none national schedule that involved complicated television deals and logistics, is probably as close to a college outfit as there is in the country.

I have swooped into Las Vegas always for Gorman’s biggest national games, and at the height and frenzied busiest time of his schedule. Partly out of loyalty — he’s never forgot where he came from — partly because he loves the pace, and mostly because of his unique skill to manage all things human and otherwise, Sanchez made me feel like I was the only scribe/friend/pal in town.

In the meantime, his world was turned upside down, lit on fire, doused with petrol and blown to pieces with a stadium-sized air horn. There were ticket solicitations, interview requests, celebrity calls, parent complaints, alumni demands, injury reports, uniform choices, multi-media presentations and administration orders all coming at him at once — all while I sat comfy in a chair across from his desk.

He’d handle all the chaos like he was playing catch with his 11-year-old son Jason, all while engaging in a perfectly coherent and always insightful/fun conversation/interview.

I never felt his stress. I never felt an inclining of panic or inconvenience. It always felt like a couple of two old Bay Area boys catching up on the day, while in the meantime his life was figuratively a three-ring circus about to be engulfed by a tsunami.

“At the end of the day,” he’d always say or “You know what…(fill in the blank).”

Sanchez would sum up our conversation or point with a perfectly natural transition to emphasis his point succinctly and eloquently. I’d leave our catch-ups fully nourished, with a rich portion of family/Gorman/football news, pulse and anecdotes.

Way beyond that, I’d feel fully charged and re-connected with an old friend, whom I used to write about as a lad.

And then it would always occur to me that Sanchez makes just about everyone who enters his world feel that way. Not in an insincere, salesman way.

He simply has the ability to make just about everyone in his world feel special, and he has this uncanny ability to store all this information into his noggin and process it, and speak to it, at supersonic speeds.

Combine that with his love and knowledge of the game, his passion for people, ability to communicate and organize and delegate, and you have a true leader, a man always present, in the moment, engaged, ready to attack the day.  

“He is a leader of men,” was how Colt Goodman, a JV assistant described Sanchez. Goodman, an actor, teacher and coach, who has crossed many paths and experienced many professions in his 50-plus years, believes Sanchez has “it.”

“There are a lot of strong personalities and strong men in this program and Tony is very tough. He’s fearless and demanding and a tireless worker. Mostly he’s a true leader.”

The best description from his players might have come from co-captain and middle linebacker Nela Otukolo.

"On the field, he's really not your friend," he said. "He's your coach and he's tough to please. But off the field, he is very special, someone unforgettable. He is like a father figure to me and to many of us."

How that all translates to the next level is difficult to determine. The odds and numbers aren’t in Sanchez’ favor.

The two high school to head college coaches before him — Gerry Faust (Moeller) to Notre Dame in 1981 and Todd Dodge (South Lake Carroll) to North Texas in 2006 — lasted a combined nine seasons at those jobs and went a combined 36-63-1.  

The six coaches before Sanchez at UNLV — including John Robinson and the latest, Bobby Hauck — went a combined 106-219.

Kunzer-Murphy and UNLV president Don Snyder acknowledged Sanchez was a bold pick. They’re open to being innovative and willing to take a chance.

Sanchez didn’t look like a chancy pick at Thursday’s press conference. Either did he last week when all parties were dive bombing him from every angle about the pending job, the one he was leaving behind, a possible national championship.

Other than a sore throat — “did a lot of talking,” Sanchez said — he looked like a content man, looking like he’d accomplished all he wanted at one place and ready to move to another.  

Gorman won its final game in convincing fashion, Sanchez got his final words and embraces in, and Thursday at the press conference, with that big smile and wild eyes, he looked and sounded like the same kid I remembered at 17, simply strengthened and flavored with 23 years of good living and strong leaderships. 

“I don’t know what everyone has done in the past but I know what I’m going to do,” Sanchez said when asked what he could possibly do to turn around a program that more qualified college coaches had failed to do. “I’m going to bring a sense of energy, a sense of motivation. We’re going to strive on building the entire person, not just the athlete, because that’s not the most important thing. I’ve always believed that winning is the byproduct of the way you carry yourself.”

Starting with good posture.