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Stump Mitchell

Football

Stump Mitchell: From Too Small to Play College Football to NFL Assistant

by Drew Bailey

Lyvonia "Stump" Mitchell is The Citadel's all-time leading rusher, has the second-most all-purpose yards in Cardinals history and has coached an NFL MVP.
 
However, many people thought he was too small to seek a career in football after high school. His size is what caused him to get only two scholarship offers from colleges and get drafted in the ninth round after an illustrious college career. When I spoke with him, he said that what helped motivated him to have such a good career despite all the adversity was "all the people that when I was around nine or ten told me that I could play in the NFL," he told me that "even when I was in college I looked back at what those people said and used it for motivation." 
 
Mitchell was born in 1959 as the middle child of seven and was raised in St. Mary's, Georgia where he began playing football at age nine. It is at this time that he earned the nickname "Stump" because despite being smaller than most kids, he always wanted to play sports with the bigger kids.
 
While attending Camden County High School, Mitchell had a remarkable senior season in which he topped 1,600 rushing yards en route to being named all-state. While many running backs would have received multiple high profile scholarships after a season like that, Mitchell's aforementioned size caused him to not get a lot of attention from colleges. In fact, the only scholarship offer he had for a while was one to West Point. Fortunately, The Citadel helped him realize his dream when then-assistant coach Ralph Friedgen convinced then-head coach Bobby Ross to offer him a scholarship. 
 
When Mitchell first enrolled at The Citadel in 1977, it was a tumultuous time for minorities. The first African-American cadet had only graduated seven years earlier with the first African-American cadet-athlete graduating just four years earlier. Mitchell described the racial climate as "very rough as there were not a lot of minority cadets. But it has gotten a lot better now". He did remark that "there were negatives, but Andy Clawson's leadership was a positive. He provided everyone with a safe haven no matter if you were a minority or could not pass the physical training test." Mitchell ran for 518 yards with four touchdowns in 1977, 972 yards with six touchdowns in 1978 and 925 yards with seven touchdowns in 1979. While all of these seasons were impressive, Mitchell would truly make his mark on The Citadel in 1980 during his senior season.
 
While Mitchell is considered to be one of the best Bulldog football players of all time, he was not meant to be the starter during his exceptional 1980 season. He said that during the first game of the season against Presbyterian, "I had a fumble and they took me out and put in Danny Middleton who fortunately saved us." He then told me that the coaches informed him that Middleton would be the starter going forward. Middleton, however, suffered an injury so he would not be practicing all week, but the expectation was that he was going to start that Saturday against Appalachian State.
 
On the day of the game, Middleton was not cleared, so Mitchell would get a second chance.
 
When the game started, the offensive line was not able to block well as they had been preparing to block for Middleton all week. At halftime, Mitchell gathered the offensive lineman and told them "it is ok because he's going to get yards with or without them so they might as well join him."
 
This is when Mitchell's awe-inspiring 1980 season began as he took off for 1,647 yards and 14 touchdowns.
 
During this season, Mitchell set the record for the most rushing yards in a season and a career for The Citadel, and had the second most rushing yards in all of college football that year.
 
Mitchell does not believe he is the only person responsible for his good play though as he credits the positive leadership he experienced under all his coaches, and specifically said that during his football career at The Citadel "everything was a learning experience and it was about taking advantage of opportunities and not getting frustrated with things that I could not control".
 
Despite his record-breaking senior season, Mitchell was still not regarded as a top NFL prospect. He had to wait until the ninth round of the NFL Draft to hear his name called when he was selected 226th overall by the St. Louis Cardinals.
 
The expectations were low for Mitchell entering the NFL, but just like his time at The Citadel, when the expectations were low, he thrived. During his time with the Cardinals, he had over 1,000 all-purpose yards in six of his nine seasons. Some specific highlights would include him leading the NFL in kick return yards during his rookie season of 1981 and his 1985 season where he topped 1,000 rushing yards while leading the NFL in yards per carry. In addition, he has the second-most all-purpose yards in Cardinals history behind only Larry Fitzgerald.
 
Mitchell was truthfully ahead of his time as many running backs during his era were simply used to run the ball and the idea of having a receiving running back was not yet conceptualized. Mitchell was a trailblazer for receiving running backs today like Saquon Barkley, Christian McCaffrey and Alvin Kamara. Mitchell told me that "due to how good my coaching experiences were at The Citadel with Bobby Ross and Ralph Friedgen, I always wanted to be more than a player in the NFL."
 
Mitchell's coaching career would start out of sheer pandemonium in 1993. At the time, he held a faculty position at a local middle school but then received word that the head coach at the local Casa Grande Union High School had resigned just two weeks before the season started.
 
Mitchell would take over the position as the head coach and put forth a herculean effort as they would finish the season with a 3-7 record. While looking back at this season, Mitchell commented "the kids were talented but had become accustomed to losing. We went 3-7 because they expected to lose."
 
Mitchell was able to change the mindset at Casa Grande Union as the next year they made it to the second round of the state playoffs. This success allowed him to become the Morgan State offensive coordinator in 1995 and be promoted to head coach the very next season. 
 
Mitchell's first NFL job would come in 1999 as Mike Holmgren brought him on to be the running backs coach for the Seattle Seahawks. During this time, Mitchell's crowning achievement was developing Shaun Alexander who went on to run for 1,880 yards and be named the NFL MVP in 2005.
 
Following the 2007 season, he was named the Assistant Head Coach and running backs coach for the Washington Football Team from 2008-09. During his brief two years, Mitchell made a huge impact as he helped Clinton Portis achieve his first Pro Bowl appearance in five years and Mike Sellers make his only career Pro Bowl.
 
He then became the head coach of Southern University in 2010. During his time there he set out on a goal to not only improve their football program but to improve their academics as well. Mitchell informed me that the academics for student-athletes in particular were low so he tried to address it and eventually recruited someone who would go on to be the valedictorian.
 
Following his stint at Southern, Mitchell returned to the Cardinals in 2013 and became their running backs coach. During his time there, he helped Chris Johnson return to the Pro Bowl in 2016 as an alternate. He also helped David Johnson become one of the most electrifying backs in the NFL which culminated with Johnson being selected to the Pro Bowl and being named a First-Team All-Pro in 2016.
 
Following this, he became the New York Jets' running backs coach from 2017-18. During this time he helped Bilal Powell have the best year of his nine-year career in 2017. Then he would earn the position that he still holds today as the running backs coach for the Cleveland Browns.
 
During his time with the Browns, Mitchell has aided Nick Chubb in making two Pro Bowls in 2019 and 2020. In addition, he helped Kareem Hunt earn 1,145 all-purpose yards in 2020. He was then able to utilize both running backs to help the Browns running game rank third in the NFL last season. Despite the Browns just finishing their best season since 1994, Mitchell is remaining fixated on getting better as he commented that "we had a great year but I still felt like we could do much better."
 
While Mitchell's career unquestionably has gone well, there was one thing that Mitchell informed me he regrets. Mitchell said that "the toughest thing about sports is when you see a guy is talented and is not given a chance, Aaron Jones (a wide receiver who played under Mitchell at Casa Grande Union) who played at Utah State had 1200 receiving yards, 12 touchdowns, and ran a 4.3 during his senior season, but was not invited to the combine which hurt me. If I needed a play on offense, a stop on defense, or a return on special teams, he would do it all. I tried to get Seattle to bring him in because it just hurt me to see him not get an opportunity in the NFL and it hurts me every day." Mitchell followed this up by saying that "being a minority, it was extremely important for me to have the opportunities that I did." It is plain to see that Mitchell is in the right career with how much he values giving everyone a fair chance. 
 
While continuing to look at chances, Mitchell told me that "I believe there is a lack of minority coaches given a chance."
 
For context, out of the 32 NFL teams, there are only five minority head coaches and five minority general managers. As the Black Lives Matter Movement has tried to get the NFL to address this issue, Mitchell said that his preferred solution would be to "start new NFL franchises and make minorities have high leadership positions such as being a general manager or coach. Then if they were not doing a good job the teams can move on from them."
 
Mitchell has experienced a very fruitful career on the field as a player and the sidelines as a coach. The way that he overcame society's racial views at the time and many scout's opinions that he was too small to play football in college is inspiring. Even more so now that he is devoted to developing the running backs of the future.
 
 
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