March 16, 2004

Charleston, SC - Like many of the dads in the hard-coal region of Pennsylvania, Jack Zernhelt worked in the mines for most of his life. A machinist for Alcoa Aluminum, Zernhelt loved to work with his hands and could repair most anything in the mines that needed it.

"He could fix anything, he could build anything, whether it was mechanical or carpentry or whatever," recalled his oldest son.

But Jack Zernhelt -- who came down with black lung disease, the coal miner's affliction, and died in 1998 at age 73 -- refused to pass those skills on to his son, John.

"He said, 'I don't want you to do this stuff,' " said John Zernhelt. "So he would not teach me how to do those things. He taught my younger brother, but he wouldn't teach me. He wanted me to do something else."

And in that part of central Pennsylvania back then, something else was usually football. Coal and football were the foundation of life in small towns like Newtown, Pa., where the post office was the back porch of the Zernhelt house. "Years ago," John Zernhelt said, "football was a way out for a lot of people there."

The team at the local high school -- Minersville High School -- is known as the Battlin' Miners and plays in a league called the Anthracite 8, anthracite being the harder, cleaner-burning coal dug out of the ground around Minersville.

"On Friday nights, the whole town would shut down for football," Zernhelt said. "Everybody was a fan or a critic. If you were a tight end and dropped a pass, everybody would want to know why you dropped the pass as you walked down the street the next day."

Jack Zernhelt didn't teach his son how to work in the mines. But he and those coal miners taught him how to work hard, and that coal miner's work ethic has carried 50-year-old John Zernhelt through a 27-year football coaching career. After years at work in the coal mines of coaching -- long hours in the tape room, studying the smallest details of an offensive lineman's technique -- Zernhelt earned his first head-coaching job in January, when The Citadel named him to succeed Ellis Johnson.

"The work ethic of those people is unsurpassed," said Zernhelt, who wrapped up his first spring practice as head coach Saturday. "So, what influenced me? Being around people who know how to work."

WHO IS COACH Z?

When Citadel athletic director Les Robinson decided to promote Zernhelt from offensive coordinator to head coach -- bypassing several "Citadel men" who wanted the job -- many Bulldog fans were unfamiliar with "Coach Z." Heck, many of the Bulldogs' defensive players didn't know him well, either. Zernhelt had been at The Citadel for less than a year; when spring practice started in 2003, he was between jobs, having left James Madison after four seasons.

So, who is Coach Z?

He's a guy who looks like what he is, a former offensive lineman. He keeps a spit cup handy and loves to hunt and fish with his son John Paul, a freshman at Wando High School.

"The best way to describe John Zernhelt is that he brings his lunch pail to work every day," said James Madison coach Mickey Matthews, with whom Zernhelt had a "parting of the ways" after the 2002 season. "He's a very consistent person in his work ethic. He's not a flamboyant guy, but he's very consistent, and that's something that's hard to find in our society today."

Larry Beckish, who writes a sports column for the Hilton Head Island Packet, coached with Zernhelt at East Carolina in the mid-1980s.

"Frankly, I would rather have Z as The Citadel's head coach than Steve Spurrier, because he can comfortably and in good conscience work within the mission of The Citadel and not let his ego get in the way," Beckish wrote. "John has about as much ego as the Lowcountry has snow."

Fred Goldsmith, now the coach at Franklin (N.C.) High School, hired Zernhelt at Rice and Duke.

"John was always very loyal," Goldsmith said. "I remember that Frank Beamer wanted to hire him at Virginia Tech, but John didn't leave us to go up there. Some guys are telephone coaches, always looking to promote themselves, but John's not that way ... He's not a big ego guy. He's paid his dues, and he'll be able to relate to the problems of the coaching staff. But he's a strong enough person that when he's got some things he believes in, he'll let them know."

Ellis Johnson, now defensive coordinator at Mississippi State, also worked with Zernhelt at East Carolina and jumped at the chance to hire him last year.

"Until people get to know him, they think John's a very serious guy," Johnson said. "But he's got a great sense of humor, and that will really be an asset to him in that job. Like a lot of schools, The Citadel has a lot of restrictions. But there's only five or six schools like The Citadel in the NCAA, and John's personality will be a benefit to him as he makes that adjustment."

Katie Zernhelt has been married to the coach since July 4, 1981 ñ they met in a pizza place, where they shared a liking for garlic and onions -- and has traveled with him from Ferrum to Marshall to East Carolina to Maryland to Rice to Duke to South Carolina to James Madison. She cried when the Zernhelts had to leave their house on Lake Murray when USC fired Brad Scott.

"He's not moody and he's not quick to react in anger," she said. "He amazes me on the sidelines when he can keep his composure as well as he does. I can get pretty emotional and stuff, but he just exudes confidence."

A GOOD FIT

Zernhelt's football career helped shape the kind of coach he became. Cut from the first team he tried out for when he was 12, Zernhelt went out for the team in the next town over and made the squad. Lightly recruited as a 16-year-old, 190-pound senior, he went to Greenbriar Military School for a year and sprouted into a 245-pound end good enough to catch the eye of coach Jerry Claiborne at Maryland.

"He was the most honest guy who recruited me," Zernhelt said. "He said, you're a tight end now, but if you keep getting bigger and bigger, it's very likely you could end up at defensive or offensive tackle. He was not painting a pretty picture for me like everybody else, and that's why I went there."

Under Claiborne, the Terps went from what Zernhelt called "the worst team in America" to three ACC championships. Zernhelt blocked former NFL great Randy White in practice and learned from him, too.

"He played with the attitude of a 5-11, 180-pound guard," Zernhelt said. "He played hard all the time, and that's what made him a great player."

That's the kind of player Zernhelt was, and that's the kind of player he expects to coach at The Citadel. Though the Bulldogs went 6-6 last year with wins over Southern Conference powers App State, Furman and Georgia Southern, the 2004 season shapes up as a huge challenge. The Bulldogs play at Auburn and at Duke, and have just four home games scheduled at Johnson Hagood Stadium, which is slated to undergo renovations during the season, reducing it to half a stadium.

"I love football, because it's one game that you can play simply because you want to do it worse than someone else," he said. "I told myself, if hard work is what it takes, I can do that. I knew I could become stronger, I knew I could be in condition and I knew I could physically hit.

"Athletic ability has nothing to do with being in better shape than somebody," he said. "It has nothing to do with out-hitting somebody, and it has nothing to do with out-hustling somebody. It comes down to want-to, and that's probably what I've loved about football all these years."

That's the kind of attitude that has Citadel officials describing Zernhelt as a "glass-is-half-full guy" who can look past the military school's limitations to its possibilities.

"One of the most important factors is that he fit here at The Citadel," said Robinson, who coached basketball at The Citadel. "There are a lot of good coaches that I would not hire here ... If you have the right attitude, a military school can be the greatest place in the world to coach. If you have the wrong attitude, it can be the worst place to coach."

But as Jack Zernhelt knew so well, coaching football anywhere beats working in a mine.

"The fact that you could do something you loved for a living, that meant a lot to my dad," John Zernhelt said.

"Everyone was an hourly wage-earner, and you worked in the mines or drove a coal truck and were for the most part always being told what to do.

"So for me to the have the chance to do what I loved, it was meaningful to him. He liked that."