Stepping Out of the Shadows

When George Lumpkin was a young assistant coach at Hawaii, he worked alongside an assistant with big hopes and dreams for his career. That assistant started at Kent State, moved to Hawaii, made stops at San Jose State, Cal, Tennessee and Ohio State before finally moving on to an extended pro football career. Lumpkin and his friend kept in touch and he even visited him professionally over the years, tapping into his friend’s growing experience. On one of his visits, Lumpkin and his friend started reliving a few old times when the coach admitted Ohio State had once been his dream job. “He said, ‘I thought Ohio State was the ultimate in coaching,’ but when he finally got there it almost drove him out of coaching,” Lumpkin says. “He lost the fun in the game. He said they took it away from him with the pressure, the way they recruited, the way they ran their meetings. He said,