The first thing George DeLeone does every morning, when he wakes before the rest of the world, is ask himself a question: What can I do today to win more football games?

Daily 7 a.m. wake-up calls? No problem. That’s what his job calls for. Coaching football, mind you, requires passion, a passion that separates winners and losers. And George DeLeone is on Syracuse University’s payroll to win.

It’s his job to win, so workdays – off-season, regular season, doesn’t matter – last 15 hours. Seven in the morning to midnight. Every day. Workdays that make his two sons and wife tertiary figures to the behemoths he barks at and men who share his secret, the one that says you can squeeze out a few more first downs if you just outwork the other guy.

Always worked for DeLeone’s father, a Connecticut farmer who went bust and started driving a produce truck at 4 a.m. for 10 hours before working the late shift at a liquor store. Inglorious, to be sure, but he sent his son to college with all the hours on the road, all those hours packing a truck with fruit and shelves with whiskey.

Football for 15 hours a day? That’s easy.

So why was Jake Crouthamel standing on the podium Dec. 12, six days after Syracuse finished another mediocre season? Seven a.m. to midnight is supposed to get you wins. It’s not supposed to bring you to the brink of losing your privileges to call plays for Syracuse.

But that’s what happened Dec. 12. DeLeone, a man who’s made 100 percent of practices at Syracuse for 17 years but missed 90 percent of his sons’ high school football games, was replaced by head coach Paul Pasqualoni as the man who calls plays for Syracuse. He kept his offensive coordinator and offensive line coach titles and became SU’s director of recruiting, and Pasqualoni said he’ll still rely heavily on DeLeone’s input for play-calling.

But publicly, DeLeone was the fall guy for two seasons of shame, two years that brought a 10-14 record, plummeting attendance and a black eye to SU’s tradition.

‘In the minds of the public, clearly something had to be done, or we were going to lose everybody,’ Crouthamel said. ‘One way to do that is to have George leave.’

Not happening. Crouthamel and Pasqualoni respected DeLeone too much. Both call him one of the best football minds they’ve ever seen. Letting DeLeone go never crossed Crouthamel’s mind. Not once.

Yet that didn’t mean that DeLeone couldn’t leave on his own. And he almost did. After losing his role as play caller, DeLeone interviewed twice for a head coach opening at Division I-AA Massachusetts.

UMass chose Dan Brown, who had been a head coach at Northeastern for four years, over DeLeone. Had he been offered the position, DeLeone doesn’t know if he’d have taken it, and he refuses to ponder. (Speculation? That won’t help anyone win football games.) His interviews with UMass weren’t a response to his role redefinition – UMass contacted him. ‘I’ve never, ever applied for a job,’ DeLeone said. ‘I’m not pursuing a job. I enjoy being here. My loyalty is to this school. I have never been a guy that’s been on the phone trying to get a job. My agenda has been about one thing: the team. Whatever the team needs me to do to be successful, that’s what I’m going to do.’

This year, that means coaching offensive linemen and heading up recruiting. His position has changed, but DeLeone hasn’t. He still puts in his tireless days – Manley Field House at 7 a.m.; staff meeting from 7:30 to noon; make practice outlines until 2; player meetings and practice til 6:15; dinner; grade practice film; talk to 20 to 30 high school coaches; two or three hours of odds and ends; leave at midnight. Repeat.

‘Sometimes I wonder if he ever goes home,’ senior offensive tackle Adam Terry said.

When asked about DeLeone’s personality away from football, Crouthamel couldn’t answer. ‘Away from football?’ he asked. ‘There is no such thing.’

‘The game of football is tremendously complex,’ DeLeone said. ‘You have to research the game. Not only research the opponents that you play, but research new ideas in both fundamentals and scheme to put your players in the best possible position. All that cannot be done casually. All that cannot be done on the clock. It has to be done at whatever it takes to get that done, it has to be done.’

DeLeone approaches football like James Joyce did literature or Patton did war. SU possesses a playbook thicker than a New York City phonebook. He makes daily calls to fellow coaches, pro and college, to keep up with ‘the latest technologies and complexities.’ In 1997, he spent a season with the San Diego Chargers, and he said his biggest thrill was competing against football gurus like Brian Billick and Mike Holmgren.

He analyzes even the most minute nuances, from the way a linebacker stands to how a quarterback hands off. Xs and Os? You’d have to invent a whole new alphabet to describe DeLeone’s schemes.

Somewhere, though, something was lost in translation. DeLeone’s advanced technologies became run-run-pass-punt to the Syracuse faithful. Fans called for a thaw of DeLeone’s infamous freeze option.

The fans’ fickleness has grown since Donovan McNabb graduated, as DeLeone had to manage a gaggle of subpar quarterbacks. Still, his offense scored 26.7 points per game last season. Didn’t matter. While Pasqualoni came under his fair share of pressure, DeLeone and his seemingly vanilla offense drew the community’s harshest ire.

DeLeone’s perceived propensity for the conservative is so well known, even Crouthamel jokes about it. Asked if he could recall one particularly clever play DeLeone has called, Crouthamel laughed and said, ‘Throwing the deep ball on first down.’

‘I think it’s unfortunate that for some in the community, he has become the scapegoat,’ Crouthamel said. ‘It’s unfair. I do feel for him, especially in this situation this past year, where he basically was a scapegoat. That hurt him terribly. He never said anything to me or anyone else, but I know it hurt him terribly.’

DeLeone says that’s not true. He doesn’t read the newspaper, doesn’t listen to talk radio and doesn’t know what’s been said about him in either medium. He puts the blinders on in situations like that. Hell, will worrying like that win football games?

‘I’m going to stay focused at the job at hand that I have to do, and I’m not going to be distracted by anything,’ DeLeone said. ‘I know in my heart what has to be done.’

While that’s mostly on the football field, it spills over to the rest of his life. Funny what happens when a man spends so much time away from family – he makes a new family. For DeLeone, it’s the Syracuse football team.

Though he’s one of SU’s most intimidating coaches during practices, he’s a confidant after the whistle sounds. Two summers ago, before SU running back Walter Reyes became a household name, his best friend from home was murdered. Desperate to not fall into a dark place, the first person Reyes went to was DeLeone. The coach made sure he didn’t.

When SU guard Matt Tarullo’s father had a hip operation last fall, DeLeone constantly checked in with Tarullo to make sure he was OK. There was also the time Tarullo’s friend was ejected from a car, and DeLeone made sure he – and his friend – were fine. Stories like that are why former players pour into DeLeone’s office when they visit Syracuse.

Odd how DeLeone – a man who admittedly regrets missing so much of his owns sons’ development – has had such an influence on the lives of other people’s sons.

‘Every day, you wake up and do what’s important now,’ DeLeone said. ‘Whatever it takes that particular day, you do what has to be done now. And you do it to the best of your ability. You can’t worry about what other people think. You can only worry about what you believe is right. And you go to work under those conditions.’

Published on April 22, 2004 at 12:00 pm