by Rex Ryan
Football is my domain, and everything else is Michelle’s. She has helped me become a successful coach and a successful parent. I worry about the Jets during the season, and Michelle worries about everything else: our house, the cars, the bills, the schoolwork, Payton and Seth, and anything from A to Z that relates to our home. All I need to worry about is making sure my house key opens the door each night. The only thing Michelle asks me to do around the house is maybe move something that’s too heavy for her. She takes care of everything else. She has to be the disciplinarian, she has to be the mom, she has to be the dad at times—she has to be the one who does everything. Of course, the boys love me because I want to do things with them when I am around. I am not the disciplinarian. When it comes down to good cop, bad cop—I am the good cop.
Michelle’s sacrifices and determination have given me the freedom to concentrate on football and work the long hours I need to work to make the Jets successful. Some coaches’ wives might not agree with that arrangement; they may want their husbands home at a certain time so they can catch dinner and a movie. Michelle, however, has never complained about my hours away from home and from the kids. She wants to take care of everything on the home front so I can focus on football. If I am successful, our family is successful. When you get to this level and you put in the time that my wife has (and several of the other wives with their husbands), they are really the unsung heroes of the coaching profession. It’s the wives and the families who don’t get to see their husbands and fathers for six months out of the year who make the real sacrifices.
What more can I ask for? I am so fortunate to be in a career that I love and I am successful at, and I have a great wife and two great sons. Michelle is so understanding and accommodating. She knows when I am down and tired, and she can see the stress in my face or maybe in my actions when things don’t go well. I get quiet, and maybe even a little snappy after a loss. I may not say much on the drive home from the field, but Michelle understands. Even when we win games, I still might be pissed with the way we played. Those are the nights I need to go to bed; but one time I was so pissed at how we played defensively after a win that I went back to the office that night instead of going home. It doesn’t have to be like that, and it’s wrong, but Michelle never complained. Usually after games, I want to read the newspaper and watch television so I can see what the media has said about our team and me. That way I’m not surprised when I meet with the media at our daily news conference the following day. Michelle is the complete opposite. She doesn’t read the papers or watch television when it relates to our games. She believes the media distorts winning and losing. She can’t control the games, she can’t control the press, but she can—and she does—control our home. Our home is my sanctuary away from football, and she’s the one who makes it work. I can relax the few hours I am at home each night during the season because of Michelle. She makes it easy on me.
Take our games—Michelle knows my routine better than I do. When I break down film on Monday after a loss, that’s when I usually start to feel better. I usually see that we played better than I had thought, that maybe one or two plays were the difference in the game. We may have lost, but I’ll see some good things and I always believe we are going to win the next game. By Tuesday, I already start to game-plan for Sunday’s opponent, so the previous week’s game and loss are behind us. I need a short memory in this business. I don’t forget how we lost or why we lost, but I can’t dwell on it for too long because we always have another game in a few short days. Michelle and my kids know that. They understand me, just like I understood my father.
Michelle also understands that all my bravado, though genuine, is not always about me. I have confidence in everyone involved with the Jets, top to bottom. I know I have a great team and I have great coaches, so why shouldn’t I be confident in myself? I tell my children to be confident. Why not? If you set your standards low, what are the odds you’re going to achieve at a high level? If there’s no pressure to win, why coach? Who wants to hear a coach say, “Hey, let’s be average this year. Great! We’re on course to win half of our games, so let’s take it easy the rest of the way”? If a head coach, the leader on the football field, doesn’t believe in himself, who is going to follow? That’s why leadership, confidence, and bravado are an important part of the equation, in the NFL and, I really think, anywhere. If you believe in yourself, then you can often overcome a flawed plan or a negative circumstance just by willpower.
This is why I work so well under pressure and under the gun. There are a lot of people in the world, even in the coaching profession, who don’t want the pressure on them. I want that pressure. I am confident in what I can do. I want our children to be confident and believe in themselves and each other, too. Michelle gets it, and that’s why our family is such a great team.
Michelle and I really didn’t have a chance to relish the moment I was hired in New York until a few weeks later after the initial press conference. I was so tired from the NFL season that had just ended, and after a few weeks we finally had the opportunity to enjoy it all and look at each other and say, “We made it.” I had reached my goal to be a head coach in the NFL—and it was in New York City, of all places.
We absolutely love New York, too. We like to take the train into the city and walk around or eat at a restaurant that somebody recommended. I actually have tried to play more golf, too, during the last off-season since the boys enjoy it. There’s a par-3 course near our home, and Seth and I will get out for a quick, 90-minute round. When at home, Michelle and I like to watch a good movie, or I might sit in my chair and work on a Sudoku puzzle.
People always see me smiling, laughing, and in a good mood, and they wonder if Michelle and I ever fight. That’s what is so great about our relationship—even our disagreements end up in laughter. There are times when Michelle is determined to stay mad at me. She might slam the cabinet door or throw a pan down on the counter to get my attention when she is set on making me suffer. I get that look all wives probably give their husbands when they are mad. Of course, I pop off and say something smart-alecky or funny and Michelle, bless her soul, can’t keep a straight face. She tries, but she can’t.
I am also the kind of guy who always tries to make a game out of anything. The Ryan family has long made up rules as we go. Like when the kids were younger and I was on the couch watching football and wanted a drink of water. Now, how in the world are you going to get one of your children to walk into the kitchen, fill up a water bottle, and bring it to you? Not likely. I told the boys, “Okay, let’s see who can get me the water bottle the quickest,” and I’d time them. It worked every time, and the Road Runner didn’t have a chance against Payton and Seth.
The two boys are close and pull for each other even though they have different interests. Payton is not comfortable in the spotlight. He loves the Jets and hates it when I lose. I think that’s one reason why he elected to stay in Baltimore and finish high school, even after the Jets hired me. He lives with my brother-in-law. In Baltimore, he is removed from the highs and lows of our wins and losses. But he can tell you exactly what happened in our game, remember nearly every play, his memory is that good. He knows where we are in the standings. Payton might act nonchalant about our season, but it means a lot more to him than he might want you to think. I am so proud of Payton. He’s a great kid.
As I said, Seth is the son who absolutely loves football. Of course, his favorite player is our quarterback, Mark Sanchez. Sanchez loves Seth; Seth is like his little brother. They text-message each other all the time. Mark went to every one of Seth’s freshman football games, home and away. I told him to stop because I thought it would interfere with his preparation for our games, but he insisted, “No, no, this is part of my routine.” Once people started to figure out Mark would be at the game, a lot of fans started to show for Seth’s freshman football games. Mark didn’t cut Seth—or even Michelle—any slack either. Seth had lost his game uniform pants before one game and the
replacement pants Michelle had for him were huge and just about swallowed him whole. Mark busted Seth and Michelle and said there was no way Seth could show for his game in those pants. “You don’t look good, you don’t play good,” Mark repeated about a thousand times. I was like, “Nah, he’s fine. It’s not a big deal.” But it was a big deal to Mark. He absolutely killed Seth and Michelle about those pants.
I mentioned before that Seth attends practice with me and runs routes against our cornerbacks. A guy like Darrelle Revis won’t give Seth any slack either. He has knocked Seth to the ground on a completion. One time, Darrelle stepped on Seth’s shoe while Seth ran a route and the kid still caught the ball in front of Revis. Revis was pissed. So Seth has that on his résumé: “Caught a ball in front of All-Pro cornerback Darrelle Revis.” When Seth’s at practice, I let him run round and have fun. Even though he’s my son, when he has run routes, our players think, “Hey, I don’t care if he’s the coach’s kid, we don’t want him catching the ball on our watch.” They go after him pretty good. Seth is fearless, and it’s kind of hilarious to watch. I don’t know if that’s going to be a good thing, but I just want him to have fun and play. I do know one thing, though. He’s going to be a third-generation coach in the Ryan family, that’s for sure.
But until Seth is coaching a team of his own, he’s pretty possessive of mine, and everything that goes with it, including the little rituals. Of course, my wife and I and the kids have our own superstitions when it comes to our games. Each Friday night, we eat out at our favorite local Mexican restaurant. Michelle even has a lucky outfit she wears for the home games against New England.
Everyone is anxious and excited, and it’s neat that my family has been involved in this journey. I am so blessed, so thankful, and so appreciative to have such a wonderful wife and a wonderful family. I am also hopeful that Payton and Seth look up to me the same way I look up to my father to this very day. There’s nothing better than being a father of my own.
6. Tackling Dyslexia
When I said publicly in 2009 that I had dyslexia, my family was a little upset about it. My brother Rob said, “Why are you telling people about that? What’s it their business?” We’re twins, but lucky for him, he doesn’t have that problem. I understand why my family reacted that way to me talking about it—they were trying to protect me. Some people get embarrassed about this stuff and, trust me, when I was a kid and I didn’t know what was wrong, it made me embarrassed, too. I wanted to lash out when kids made fun of me for struggling with reading. And I really did struggle.
These days, I couldn’t care less. I’ve come to realize that one of the reasons I am where I am in my life is that I found a way to deal with dyslexia, even when I didn’t know I had it. In other words, in its own way, having to deal with it forced me to become who I am. I was unaware of being dyslexic for so long, that having this disability drove me to work harder, to use my strengths—and that led me down this path. It’s my own personal kind of meeting with Darwin, I suppose. Either you sink or you swim.
I’ve heard that somewhere between 5 and 17 percent of people have some form of dyslexia, which basically means that letters look jumbled as you read them and there’s kind of a disconnect between being able to read them and being able to pronounce them. It really screws up your ability to learn. A lot of dyslexic people will flunk out of school, even though they are intelligent. Doctors say there is absolutely no relationship between IQ and dyslexia. I’m not telling you I’m a genius, but the point is that just because I have dyslexia doesn’t mean I’m dumb. What it means, according to one doctor I met with, is that the people who actually find a way to make it have learned to adapt—and it’s unbelievable how high they can go.
As a kid I remember not having any problem with vision, which was why it seemed strange that I had problems seeing things on the page. Actually, I had great hand-eye coordination. I was a really good hitter when I played baseball in high school. Even as an adult, I could always hit. My brother Jim loves to tell the story about one time when we were in Mobile, Alabama, at the Senior Bowl. This was when Rob and I were just getting started as coaches, and Jim was pretty fresh out of law school and wanted to be an agent representing players. So we were all at the Senior Bowl at one of the little schools where the players used to practice (they practice at the stadium in town these days). We were leaving practice and we walked past the baseball field, where there was a kid pitching, working with the catcher. We chatted with him, trying to be friendly, but the pitcher started bragging on himself about how great he was and how he was getting ready for the draft, expecting to make it big. I was thinking to myself, “He’s not really that tough.” So I grabbed a bat, walked up to the plate, and said, “Okay, show me what you got.” I was standing there in cowboy boots and jeans, just looking ridiculous going up to bat. The kid was so cocky as he wound up. He threw me a fastball, and I just crushed it. Jim guessed I hit the thing like 400 feet. On the first pitch, not even looking one over—that was sweet. I just dropped the bat and said, “Oh yeah, kid, you’re going far.” We all just walked away laughing. The kid was probably shell-shocked.
Anyway, the point is that I never thought there was something physically wrong with me, so it took me a long time to address the problem. Now that I know I’m dyslexic, I don’t hide anymore from the things that might be wrong with me. I don’t hide from the fact that I’m overweight or that I don’t read that well. This kind of stuff basically tells who I am, about some of the struggles I have or have had; I’m man enough to admit it. If I can help somebody realize that I was able to accomplish what I’ve done so far despite what I had to overcome, it’ll make me very happy. This wasn’t a fun thing to deal with.
It’s the same way with my players. If I’m willing to put myself out there with them, they’re going to feel the same way about talking to me. They’re going to open up as people, maybe telling me something that I can do to help them, motivate them, or make them better players. If I’ve got nothing to hide from my guys, they won’t hide from me.
The one person who I think struggled most with my public announcement was my mom, and her problem wasn’t that I talked about it. I think it’s more about guilt. Like I wrote before, my mom has a doctorate in education administration. Think about it: She’s incredibly smart; my dad was an Academic All-American; my older brother Jim has three degrees, including a law degree; and my twin brother Rob has his degree and never had any problems.
Then there’s me, and my mom didn’t ever figure it out. She explains it this way:
When Rex was a kid and he was getting started in school, we were living in Toronto. The people at the school thought maybe Rex was a little slow, but I knew that wasn’t the case. He was very intelligent. It would just take him a long time to read things. Looking back, I thought they never really taught him to read. So I had him tested in Ontario and they told me they thought he was a little slow. Truly, I don’t think they knew what they were looking for. He was such an outgoing, confident kid. He didn’t show signs of being slow in picking things up, but here I am an educator and I didn’t figure it out. When Rex finally found out all those years later, it all made sense to me and I felt so embarrassed. I felt so bad, and I asked him one time if there was anything I could do and he just said, “Mom, it’s okay, I’ve gotten this far, I can deal with it,” but as a parent, you feel so guilty.
I understand where she’s coming from. I’m a parent now and I want to make sure I do everything I can for my boys, but I really want my mom to understand that she didn’t fail me in any way. I mean, really: Is my life bad? I do what I love, and when you think about it, what might have happened if I had actually learned to read more effectively? Would I have ended up as a coach or would I have gone into another career? I know that my disability made me stronger in other ways that have helped me as a coach. When I say I’m doing exactly what I need to be doing, I mean it. I want to be a coach and I need to be a coach. I can’t do anything else. This is where I can succeed.<
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I found out I had dyslexia around 2007. I was visiting a doctor for a completely unrelated reason and we got to chatting. I told her I’d always been a very slow reader. Well, she started asking me a few specific questions and a few minutes later she told me I was almost certainly dyslexic. I was pretty flabbergasted. I thought, “That’s crazy! I would have known it by now.” But then she gave me a test with a list of 100 words that I was supposed to read. It seemed to take me at least 15 minutes to get through it, because I was looking at those words and they were just a jumble of black letters on white paper. When I got done, they called my younger son, Seth, in and gave him the list of words to read. He rattled them off in about 30 seconds, right down the list like it was nothing. I was floored, finally realizing what was wrong with me for all those years. Then I remember just laughing about it, thinking about all the stuff I did trying to accommodate my problem without even knowing what it was.
Oddly enough, I wasn’t embarrassed. In fact, I took some other tests related to reasoning and brain function and the doctors evaluating those said that I had the highest percent of problem solving and creativity they’d ever seen. That’s how I compensated for what I couldn’t do. You see what I mean about developing other strengths? More important, those problem-solving and creative abilities are crucial for coaching, especially in football. When you play in a game that has 22 moving parts at one time, you constantly have problems to solve and you’re constantly looking for creative ways to attack the opponent. Problem solving and creativity work everywhere in this business.
Let me give you an example of how I dealt with dyslexia without even knowing it. Somewhere along the line, I figured out that I could read more effectively if things were printed on colored paper. I don’t know where or how I figured that out, but it’s true. So I developed a color-coding system for how to organize the plays I wanted to call. I might have had some on blue paper, some on green, some on yellow, whatever worked. If you’d ever see my call sheet for a game, it looks like a freakin’ rainbow. Anyway, then I’d have Mike Pettine, who was one of our staff assistants in Baltimore and is now the defensive coordinator with me on the Jets, print the stuff on different-colored paper. Again, this was before I ever knew I had the disability. It would drive Pettine crazy. He’d say to me: “How can you read that better?” He didn’t understand it. Heck, I couldn’t explain it at the time; it just worked.
