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“If they didn’t match up to scholarship requirements, coaches would make them go through the gauntlet until (they went) down,” said Cindrich, a sports agent who played linebacker at Pitt and in the NFL in the early 1970s. “Why did they do that? If someone quits, they give up their scholarship.”

What was acceptable behavior decades ago has become grounds for dismissal, as the conduct of coaches has come to the forefront of college football with the firings of Mark Mangino by Kansas, Mike Leach by Texas Tech and Jim Leavitt by South Florida in the past several weeks following allegations of emotional, mental and physical abuse.

The most stunning development is that all three were prominent coaches at BCS programs. Mangino and Leach are former recipients of national coach of the year honors, while Leavitt was the only coach in the 13-year history of USF football.

Mangino was fired Dec. 3 amid allegations that he was verbally abusive and forced one player to do bear crawls on scorching artificial turf that caused third-degree burns on his hands.

Leach was let go Dec. 30 after being accused of forcing a player suffering concussion-like symptoms to stand in a shed during practice.

Leavitt was dismissed Jan. 8, not so much for striking a player at halftime of the Louisville game but trying to cover it up.

“Shoot, when I was in high school, we did bear crawls all the time,” said Bill Fralic, the former Penn Hills and Pitt All-America tackle who spent eight seasons in the NFL. “I used to get paddled all the time, too, in grade school. I don’t think you can do that anymore.

“I’m sure it was hell, because I’ve been through some of that stuff. But toughness carries you through at the end of the day. With that stuff, you can win a lot of football games with mediocre talent.

“I didn’t want to go through it, but I was forced to. I think society has gotten softer.”

Which begs this question: Where is the line drawn between motivation and humiliation, and when do college football coaches cross it?

“I just wonder how much of this has gone on over the years under the disguise of motivation and mentoring,” said Dennis Dodd, a national college football analyst for CBS Sports. “You can put a lot of false labels on this stuff. When it comes down to it, it’s still humiliation of a player and mistreatment.

“These (coaches) have all the power. I don’t see the reason to do this stuff. It’s a power trip and a character flaw.

“I think something significant is happening here, that we’ve seen three of these in (just over) a month. I wonder if any teams are going to bring in someone from the university to say: ‘This is what you can’t do.’ ”

While NCAA guidelines outline principles for institutional control, student-athlete well-being and sportsmanship and ethical conduct, the onus of responsibility is on each institution to ensure appropriate behavior.

Cindrich doesn’t expect schools to be extremely specific, in part because it takes away some of the leverage they have over coaches with lucrative long-term contracts by having a vague out-clause written into the deal.

Mangino had four years left on a $9.2 million extension. Leach had four years remaining on a $12.7 million deal. And Leavitt was in the second year of a seven-year, $12.6 million extension. Where Mangino reached a $3 million settlement with Kansas, Leach and Leavitt have filed suit against their respective universities to challenge that there was cause for firing.

“If someone is looking to run someone out of town, that is a good way of doing it,” said Cindrich, whose clientele includes college and pro coaches. “It’s too easy of a way to get rid of someone.”

That could be the case for Leach and Texas Tech, as his firing was prompted by the furor caused after he ordered sophomore receiver Adam James, the son of ESPN college football analyst Craig James, to stay in a dark room during practice after Adam complained of concussion-like symptoms.

That football-related concussions are a hot-button topic only made matters worse, but high school football coaches Terry Smith of Gateway and Bill Cherpak of Thomas Jefferson also believe the reaction to the Texas Tech case shows the sense of entitlement belonging to today’s athletes.

“(The abuse is) not near as bad as it used to be,” said Smith, who played at Gateway and Penn State. “In today’s society, not as much is tolerated. I can remember being coached and called names and pushed and shoved and kicked and grabbed by the facemask, but it was tolerated then.

“That’s part of what’s wrong in society today. Kids are growing up with no respect for authority and no fear of authority. You look at the Texas Tech incident. Craig James has some influence and used it.”

Smith recalled being stunned at a prospect camp when a college position coach berated one of Smith’s players with profane language during a drill. Surprisingly enough, the player still signed to play at that coach’s school and had a productive college career.

Even so, Smith warns his players not to choose a school if they don’t like those types of motivational tactics.

“The mental side, that’s sometimes worse than being hit,” Smith said. “You hear: ‘You’re stupid’ enough, for a young, fragile mind, that might not go over too well.

“If you know their reputation, you’ve got to tell your player: ‘Here’s their coaching style. If you can handle this, then this is an option. If you can’t handle it, you’ve got to take them off your list.’

“Don’t get there and think something is going to change.”

Friday, February 17, 2006

By Paul Zeise, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Bruce Gradkowski was a record-setting quarterback at Seton-LaSalle High School, but he was overlooked by almost every Division I college. In fact, it wasn’t until after his senior season — and only after a coaching change — that Toledo gave him a scholarship.

Five years, three brilliant seasons and 19 Toledo passing records later, he again finds himself having to answer questions about his ability. And, once again, he is eager to prove he is more than capable of being a big-time quarterback.

Gradkowski, who threw five touchdowns in his final college game Dec. 21, a win against UTEP in the GMAC Bowl, is one of seven players represented by Carnegie-based agent Ralph Cindrich who are working out at the UPMC Sports Performance Complex on the South Side for the NFL combine.

“I feel like I am starting from scratch again,” Gradkowski said. “I have to prove myself all over, but that’s what these workouts are for, and that’s what the combine is for.

“So I’m excited about it because it is another opportunity. And I’m not afraid to do anything. I am going to do all the workouts because I feel like anything I can do will increase my stock, and that’s the goal — to get drafted higher.”

The questions about Gradkowski are two-fold — his size (he is listed at 6 feet 2) and his arm strength. Despite that, he is projected by most scouting services to be a third- to fifth-round pick in the NFL draft. He believes that once he attends the combine Feb. 22-28 in Indianapolis he’ll answer any lingering questions about his arm strength.

He said that while he hopes to make a lasting impression at the combine and subsequent workouts, he believes his body of work the past three seasons with the Rockets builds a strong case.

“People talk about my arm strength, but I don’t question it at all. And that’s why I’m excited to get to these workouts because I can go out and make the throws they want to see,” Gradkowski said.

“The system I played in college was high percentage decision-making and short passes, and we didn’t throw the ball downfield all that much, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have the arm strength to do it.

“But, ultimately, you make your name through game tape, and that’s really where you get your grade at. All this other stuff is extra, and it is a chance to show them that what they see on film is really what they are going to get.”

Since the GMAC bowl, Gradkowski, who graduated in December, has focused his energy on getting ready for the combine. He spent some time in Atlanta working out with former Green Bay Packers assistant coach Zeke Bratkowski efore returning to Pittsburgh to begin an intense six-week program at UPMC.

Joining Gradkowski in the program are Minnesota center Greg Eslinger, Virginia linebacker Kai Parham, Louisville guard Jason Spitz, Wisconsin receiver Jonathan Orr, Michigan State center Chris Morris and Michigan guard Matt Lentz. Parham and Orr are probably the two highest-rated prospects, but all seven are expected to be drafted in April.

The program, under the direction of UPMC’s director of sports performance training, Ronald DeAngelo, is designed to increase strength, quickness, speed and conditioning and prepare them for drills and testing at the combine.

“What we’re trying to get them to be is as fast as they can be, as quick as they can be and as explosive as they can be,” DeAngelo said. “This is unique in that we have everything under one roof — physicians, physical therapists, sports nutrition, sports psychology — it is all here in one building.”

(Paul Zeise can be reached at pzeise@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1720.)

TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, April 14, 2002

Mary Rose Cindrich can stay. No offense, but everyone else must get out.

Mary Rose has been around her husband, Ralph Cindrich — they were college sweethearts at Pitt — long enough to know that draft day is his holy day of obligation. When the NFL conducts its 2002 draft Saturday and Sunday, he will demand peace and quiet in their Mt. Lebanon home and nothing but a television tuned to ESPN, a radio tuned to Myron Cope and his annual dinner of spaghetti, salad and a glass of wine.

“I shoo everyone out of the house,” said Cindrich, one of the most influential and successful player agents in the NFL. “My wife will be there because she doesn’t bother me. If my kids are home, out. My mother-in-law, out. People stopping over, out.”

Cindrich is totally devoted to his clients, but especially when they are among the anxious group of prospects hoping to hear their name called early in the draft-day proceedings.

He’s also a realist, and he doesn’t sugar-coat the often-agonizing process. Said Cindrich: “I’ll be letting them, many of them, know, it’s going to be a long, long day.”

ATHLETE REPRESENTING ATHLETES

Cindrich knows about agony and frustration. He was an athlete long before he started representing athletes.

At Avella High School in the 1960s, he was undefeated in dual wrestling meets as a junior and senior and was a WPIAL champion and PIAA runner-up. In football, he was captain of his team at the Big 33 Classic and went on to Pitt, where he was an All-America linebacker as a sophomore and senior.

Due to a knee injury suffered in the first football game ever played on Astroturf at Pitt Stadium in 1970, Cindrich wrestled only one year in college. Still, he was a heavyweight champion in the eastern region and ranked fourth nationally as a sophomore. He was invited to the Olympic trials, but the injury forced him to decline.

Cindrich was dedicated to the athletic lifestyle.

“This was the flower era,” he said of the late 1960s and early 1970s. “When things were wild, I was clean. I didn’t do the partying.”

He wore his hair short and vowed to avoid alcohol and tobacco.

“You lived like a monk,” he said.

After three knee operations, he was a fifth-round draft choice of the Atlanta Falcons in 1972 and he managed to play four seasons in the NFL (one with the New England Patriots and three with the Houston Oilers).

His career was cut short by the lingering effects of the knee injury, but he was ready for the rest of his life. While playing for the Oilers in 1974, he went to law school at the South Texas College of Law at Texas A&M. He received his license to practice law in Texas in 1978.

Today, Cindrich sits in his handsomely appointed office in Carnegie, and speaks on a speaker phone to many wealthy clients, including former Steelers center and future Pro Football Hall of Famer Dermontti Dawson, who make positive imprints on society.

Then, however, one of his first clients was a Manson-like cult follower, a woman who was the ringleader among three people accused in the one-at-a-time murder of two 18-year-old hitchhikers near the Astrodome in Houston. Cindrich remembers the grisly details better than he does the numbers on his richest contract.

“They tied them up like pigs, (by their) feet, with their hands behind their backs,” said Cindrich, who was ordered to defend the suspects by a Texas judge named Jimmy James. “They put a rope around the neck of one, one (suspect) got on one side and the other (suspect) on the other side, they put their foot on his shoulder blades and pulled until he died. And he took a while to die.”

The second boy watched his friend die and was killed in the same manner, Cindrich said, after the suspects went out for donuts and coffee.

Eventually, the suspects confessed to the killings. But another murder case went Cindrich’s way, even though his client shot the victim six times with a snub-nose gun.

“After the first two, he was down on the ground,” Cindrich said, “and he put another four in him.”

Cindrich won, arguing self-defense and noting that the victim — “Just a nasty character,” he said — was known to carry a hook knife in his back pocket.

“We argued it more as a benefit to society because he was a bad guy.”

Happily for Cindrich, his clients still are involved in brutal, violent acts, but it now revolves around the controlled chaos of the NFL.

VETERAN NEGOTIATOR

Cindrich has been negotiating contracts for NFL players for a quarter-century, starting with former Pitt lineman Glenn Hyde, who signed a deal in the 1970s with the long-defunct WFL’s Chicago Fire. The Fire’s general manager was Bill Polian, now the president of the Indianapolis Colts.

This year, Cindrich and Polian were back at the bargaining table, hammering out a six-year, $40 million deal, with a $10 million signing bonus, for offensive tackle Tarik Glenn, the largest contract awarded in the NFL this year.

Former Pitt offensive lineman and Outland Trophy winner Mark May was one of Cindrich’s first high-profile clients in 1981. But it was more than a cold, business relationship. The two men became friends, their families vacationed together and Cindrich was the best man at May’s wedding.

Four years later, Cindrich worked out a deal for another Pitt lineman that was and still is one of the most creative and lucrative in NFL history.

The year was 1985, and Cindrich had landed two top college players, Penn Hills’ Bill Fralic and wide receiver Al Toon, who were drafted second and 10th, respectively, in the first round.

The Fralic deal with the Falcons was unique in that it was written to yield a $150,000 annual payment long after the end of his playing career. In fact, for the rest of his life.

“Every January, when he wakes up, he has a check for $150,000 coming,” Cindrich said.

For Cindrich, his 3 percent fee was nice, but it cost him an entire bottle of Pepto Bismol to finalize the deal.

Trouble was, Falcons general manager Tom Braatz, loved to drink beer.

“The word about him was if you drink beer with him, you’ll go under,” Cindrich said. “He could drink all night long and look like a choir boy in the morning. We had three or four meetings and each time, he said, ‘Let’s have a beer.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t want a beer.’ ”

Sober, the men failed to come to an agreement. One day, Cindrich invited Braatz to go fishing on an Avella pond that sat on land owned by Cindrich’s father.

“I take two cases of Iron City beer, we get hammered and do that deal, probably, within an hourn-and-a-half,” Cindrich said.

But before setting out on the water, Cindrich drank a full bottle of Pepto Bismol to coat his stomach.

“I tried to pace myself and he kept shoving them in front of me. It was the first and last time I’ve ever done that.”

RULES MUST BE BROKEN

In world of negotiating, compromise is critical. So, Cindrich compromises some of his values in order to survive — and thrive — in the business.

Two years ago, he said he never would have made arrangements for a client to purchase a car. He does now, just to keep up with rival agents.

“That’s so neandarthal, so prehistoric in this business that you can’t survive,” he said. “That I survived through that amazes me. Whether it’s against your good judgement or not, if you don’t do that you’re not competitive.”

Now, Cindrich said the “worst” favor he’ll do for a client is arrange for a line of credit and/or a vehicle.

“Even though, if it were my son, I wouldn’t do it, but to be competitive, I would do it,” he said.

Not that Cindrich has always been a boy scout.

His associate, Greg Diulus, remembers the time when “we out-Al Davised, Al Davis.”

It involved the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ desire to trade offensive lineman Paul Gruber to Davis’ Raiders at the NFL’s trading deadline in 1993.

Gruber didn’t want to play for the Raiders, but the Raiders called Cindrich and said, “He’s coming to us. Here’s the money. That’s it.”

When the time came for Gruber to sign the papers to finalize the contract and complete the trade, Cindrich purposely had Gruber wait in the Buccaneers’ parking lot until after the 4 o’clock trading deadline. Since the trade was officially late, the NFL Players Association voided the deal, and Gruber remained in Tampa for more money, Cindrich said.

Davis’ reaction?

“Mad is kind,” Cindrich said.

A RICH STABLE

Cindrich and his firm, Cindrich and Company, have flourished for years, but especially since the NFL ventured into the era of free agency in 1993. In the first two years alone, he negotiated more than $120 million worth of contracts, according to his records.

About 10 years ago, The Sporting News compiled a list of the 100 most powerful people in sports. Steelers president Dan Rooney was 37th. Cindrich was 49th. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was 65th.

Cindrich’s stable of clients includes some of the highest-paid players in the NFL, including Glenn and Denver Broncos quarterback Brian Griese. Two years ago, the first big-money deal of that year’s free-agency signing period went to quarterback Jeff Blake, a Cindrich client who got a four-year, $17 million contract from the New Orleans Saints. Center Jeff Christy got an average of $3.5 million from the Buccaneers. Offensive lineman Harry Swayne got a $5 million signing bonus from the Baltimore Ravens in 1998 when he was 34-years-old.

When Steelers linebacker James Farrior was a rookie with the New York Jets in 1997, Farrior fired his original agent, who couldn’t get a signing bonus included in his initial contract. Farrior hired Cindrich, who proceeded to negotiate a $4.02 million signing bonus. Five years later, Steelers officials will tell you that Cindrich’s patience while the team ebated whether to re-sign Earl Holmes helped Farrior get the job as Holmes’ replacement.

This year, Cindrich represents four of the top offensive lineman in the draft — Ohio State center LeCharles Bentley, Texas A&M center Seth McKinney and Miami guard and tackle Martin Bibla and Joaquin Gonzalez — plus Iowa running back Ladell Betts and Nevada quarterback David Neill.

Perhaps none will get drafted in the first round and Cindrich will have to soothe some hurt feelings if the wait lasts longer than anticipated.

“When they sit and they watch, and they go through the agony of seeing other people drafted, it kills them,” he said.

Somehow, Cindrich will find the right words.

Just like he did the other day while speaking to Gonzalez, who has made a good accounting of himself during his pre-draft visits with several NFL teams.

“You’re selling your (butt) off, man,” he told Gonzalez. “If you don’t make it in the football business, we’ll make you an agent.”

Trev Alberts Former NFL linebacker and CNN/SI football analyst
Kurt Angle WWF wrestler and U.S. Olympic gold medalist
Jeff Blake NFL quarterback
Jeff Christy Tampa Bay Buccaneers center Jeff Christy
Dermontti Dawson Former Steelers center
Roger Duffy Former Steelers offensive lineman
James Farrior Steelers linebacker
Tarik Glenn Indianapolis Colts offensive tackle
Brian Griese Denver Broncos quarterback
Justin Kurpeikis Steelers linebacker
Mark May CBS-TV football commentator
Tom Myslinski Former Steelers offensive lineman
Jerry Olsavsky Former Steelers linebacker
Marc “Bubba” Snider WWF wrestler and producer, WBZZ-FM
Jim Sweeney Former Steelers offensive lineman
Will Wolford Former Steelers offensive lineman