Editor's note: This story is part of the Arizona Daily Star's 2018 college football preview.
Antonio Pierce could be, well, anywhere else right now.
On a tropical beach sipping mai tais. In a far-off museum, learning about farther-off things. Hiking a snowy mountain with an unpronounceable name.
He’s got his millions and, praise be to the football gods, his health.
He’s got his University of Arizona education and a good smile and a great head on his shoulders.
So what is he doing here? At hated Arizona State? Dealing with the grime and grind of college football as the linebackers coach for under first-year head coach Herm Edwards?
“First and foremost, football has been a part of my life since 12,” said Pierce, who played two years for the Wildcats after two years at Mt. San Antonio College, and before nearly a decade with the NFL’s New York Giants, for whom he went to a Pro Bowl and won a Super Bowl.
“That’s more than 25 years of my life that I’ve had it part of my life every day. It’s blessed me with a lot. It’s something I love. I have a desire. It’s the team. It’s the players. It’s being around the coaches. Each year, new guys, new faces, getting together with one goal of winning a championship. Millions of teams play at every level, Pop Warner, flag, high school, college, and there is only one champion anywhere.
“Why am I still coaching? It’s about constantly chasing that goal.”
It’s the chase. It’s the chase the 39-year-old Pierce can’t quit.
Antonio Pierce, right, started at middle linebacker in 1999, then moved outside for his senior season. Though he never earned all-league honors at UA, Pierce played nine years in the NFL.
‘The American Dream’
Pierce now roams the campus of Arizona’s most hated rival, two decades after he first stepped foot in Tucson.
Pierce arrived at the UA with little fanfare from Mount SAC in 1998, just as All-Pac-12 linebacker Marcus Bell and the rest of the Wildcats were posting the best season in program history. He redshirted as a junior, then started at middle linebacker the following season.
Pierce lost his starting spot in 2000 to future NFL star Lance Briggs, and so he bounced to outside linebacker. He finished his senior season with 77 tackles, including 10 for loss, three sacks, two forced fumbles and one interception.
Pierce was never an all-conference pick, and he didn’t fill Arizona’s record books. At 6 feet 1 inch and 235 pounds, he was undersized for a linebacker, and a step slow. But the Redskins liked what it saw in a group workout with his teammates Joe Tafoya and Brandon Manumaleuna. Or, at least, they liked enough of what they saw to bring him in as an undrafted free agent.
Pierce made the team — then played in all 16 games as a rookie, making eight starts. He stayed with the team for four years, then, in 2005, signed a $26 million contract with the Giants.
Pierce was installed as the Giants’ starting middle linebacker — home — and he was a force, finishing with 100 tackles in 13 games in his first season, with a career-high 138 tackles and a Pro Bowl nod in 2006 and a Super Bowl ring in 2007. He was released in 2010 and announced his retirement shortly thereafter; ESPN quickly signed the ex-Cat as its newest NFL analyst.
“These players, they want to be like me,” Piece said. “Most of them are going to be undrafted. The majority are going to be like me, and those guys live through what I lived. Getting that one opportunity and making the most of it, that’s the American Dream right there. I lived it and breathed it. I’ve had the lowest of lows, watching 31 linebackers getting drafted in front of me and outlasting them all, and the highest of highs, winning a Super Bowl. There’s got to be a desire and a burn. It’s the guys who get it who make it.”
So when Pierce says he came back because he missed that championship chase, he’s not painting the full picture.
He also came back to create more Antonio Pierces.
Antonio Pierce spent four seasons as the head coach at Long Beach Poly High School before joining former ESPN colleague Herm Edwards’ staff at ASU.
From Poly to Tempe
It’s not as if Pierce has been away from coaching, or away from football. But the grind of a college coach dwarfs what he experienced in four years as head coach at Long Beach Poly, one of the most famous high school football programs in the country.
“The biggest thing I’ve adjusted to is time management,” said Pierce, who went 31-15 in four seasons as. “I feel like I’m a student-athlete. This whole four-hour (NCAA) rule, it’s a disadvantage, but as a guy who has been there and done it, you manage the best you can. Football is football. Chip Kelly, spread offenses, power offenses — look, it’s going to be a run or pass. But how do you manage your day?”
Pierce is trying to learn how to manage two things: Time and expectations.
At Poly, Pierce pumped more than 50 players into Division I football programs but did not live up to the lofty standards set by former head coach Raul Lara. Lara won 142 games in 13 seasons, with five division titles; his teams lost just two league games, ever.
“Expectations — sometimes they were realistic, sometimes they weren’t,” Pierce said. “We had a long tradition. Over 100 years of getting championships and getting kids to the college level.”
Pierce loved being on that side of it, helping kids pursue their paths with a purpose, connecting kids who may have been an inch too short or 10 pounds too light with a coach who knows football isn’t defined by one inch or 10 pounds.
But a phone call from a good friend, respected mentor and former ESPN colleague — Edwards — has brought him to the other side. Pierce joined the Sun Devils’ staff just before Christmas.
“Antonio has not only competed at the highest level of football as a linebacker himself in the NFL for nearly a decade, but he has also coached at the highest level of high school football in his time at Long Beach Poly,” Edwards said then. “He will be a valuable addition to our staff and someone we expect to immediately have an impact on our program.”
Pierce said joining Edwards’ staff was a no-brainer given their relationship.
“The relationship we had at ESPN grew, and the respect I had for him, too,” said Pierce, who has made an immediate splash in the recruiting game, helping the Sun Devils land two of his former Poly players, safety Aashari Crosswell and defensive end Jermayne Lole. The two recruits are among the team’s most highly coveted prospects.
“With me being in New York with the Giants, watching Herm with the Jets, you learned to grow a fondness for how he handled his business.”
So that’s how he landed in Tempe, a Wildcat-turned-hated-Sun Devil, just a couple hours west on Interstate 10, in familiar territory.
Beats lying on a beach somewhere, doesn’t it?
