Listen to the entire interview with Ken Flajole
Ken Flajole hasn't been back to Missoula since he and the rest of Larry Donovan's coaching staff were fired after the 1985 football season.
But he insists it has nothing to do with being bitter.
The fact is he's just been too busy progressing through the coaching ranks all over the country to come back to a place he and his wife, Teri, truly enjoyed, and where they had both of their daughters.
The price of poker recently went up for Flajole who, earlier this year, was named defensive coordinator for the St. Louis Rams of the National Football League.
The Pacific Lutheran graduate had already coached at his alma mater for two seasons and the University of Washington for one before answering Donovan's call to UM in 1980 along with coaches like Joe Glenn and Mike Van Diest.
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The defensive coordinator position at St. Louis is just the fourth of his varied career. He held that position for part of his time at Montana and was co-coordinator at Nevada-Reno in 1996-97.
The other time was in 1994 at Richmond, 14 years before the Spiders downed the Grizzlies for the national championship.
Here's the collegiate coaching path Flajole and his family took after leaving Montana:
Texas-El Paso, 1986-88; Missouri, 1989-93; Richmond, 1994; Hawaii, 1995; Nevada-Reno, 1996-97.
Flajole made the jump to the NFL when he signed on as defensive quality control assistant with Green Bay in 1998.
"You're the computer guy," Flajole said of the position. "You generate the playbook, are responsible for all of the film breakdown on a particular opponent, (and) you're really kind of at the beck and call of the coaching staff (as their) right-hand man in terms of getting things organized for practice.
"It's a tireless job," Flajole went on. "We have a guy that does it for us and he's probably the hardest working guy in the whole building."
From Green Bay he went to the Seattle Seahawks, where he served as either defensive backs or linebackers coach from 1999-2002.
In 2003 he signed on with the Carolina Panthers, and worked there until the Rams hired him this year.
Coaching moves often are based on connections established over a period of time, and Flajole's move from a solid job at Carolina to St. Louis - where there are definite challenges - has that feel.
New Rams head coach Steve Spagnuolo and Flajole go back a few years. Spagnuolo was friends with one of Flajole's fellow coaches at UTEP and Missouri. The two came into the NFL at about the same time and had stayed in touch over the years.
"It was," Flajole said when asked if it was tough to leave Carolina. "Anytime you work for good people it's tough. (Panthers head coach) John (Fox) was great to me personally and to us as a staff."
During his six years at Carolina - which won two NFC championships while he was there - Flajole coached in Super Bowl XXXVIII and at one Pro Bowl, and established a reputation as an innovator as well as someone who could deal successfully with player injuries and personnel changes.
"I think this was just a natural progression from a professional standpoint," Flajole said. "Plus I had a lot of respect and admiration for what Steve did at New York (with the Giants) and when he was with Philadelphia."
It gives Flajole what he called "a chance to get my feet wet in a little different scheme from what we did at Carolina and to grow professionally now as a coordinator."
The biggest change for Flajole is all of the organizational stuff he must take care of because he's in charge of the whole defense. Now he has to put practice plans together and prepare scripts for workouts. He also was much more involved in the Cardinals' draft effort just completed over the weekend.
While he had some input in choosing the defensive position coaches he'll work with, those decisions mainly were Spagnuolo's.
"He had a pretty good idea of who he wanted to hire," Flajole explained.
The move from college to pro coaching wasn't circumstantial for Flajole. It was something that had been on his mind for some time.
"When I was at Texas-El Paso I coached with a guy named Andy Reid," Flajole noted.
Reid is now head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles. He and Flajole coached together at Missouri as well before Reid was hired by then Green Bay Packers coach Mike Holmgren.
"It always had kind of been a professional aspiration of mine to coach in the NFL," Flajole said. "Andy recommended me to Mike, and fortunately I had a chance to get up there and get an interview and got the job."
After one year at Green Bay, Flajole followed Holmgren to Seattle, starting out as the secondary coach.
After four seasons Flajole and his family made the move all the way across the country to Carolina.
"My wife was looking cross-eyed at me at the time," Flajole laughed. "But that wasn't our craziest move ever. I was coaching in Virginia (at Richmond) and I ended up going to Hawaii, so how do you like that for mileage on a move?"
Asked about
differences between NFL organizations he's been with, Flajole
talked about the unique situation in Green Bay with the team being
the only publicly owned one in the league and being probably in the
smallest population market as well.
"Everybody from an ownership standpoint has a different handle on (things)," Flajole said, noting that computer magnate Paul Allen was the Seahawks owner.
"When I went to Carolina, Jerry Richardson was the only owner that actually played in the NFL," Flajole pointed out, "so he had a little bit different approach because he had some experience in the game."
The one thing that isn't different from team to team is the expectations. Everybody wants to win.
The key to getting the Rams back on track is tied to that fact.
"We've got to win a few more games," Flajole said. "The one thing about the National Football League is you're never that far off. I think the Miami Dolphins from last year are probably a good illustration. Here they go from disaster in 2007 to being a playoff team in 2008."
Flajole said the draft and free agency contribute to a lot of parity in the NFL. He said the draft this year was important, and that coaches need to put current Cardinals players in position to succeed. Keeping players as healthy as possible is always a major factor.
Hearkening back again to his family's days in Missoula, Flajole related a story about his wife and their two daughters, Kelly and Kori.
"When she'd change them on the bed she'd sing the Grizzly fight song and make them do cheers," Flajole said. "She'd move their arms when they were little babies, so that's all our kids know."
Kelly is a University of Wisconsin graduate who currently is working on a master's degree at the University of Chicago. She was married in February.
Younger daughter Kori works at Seattle Children's Hospital. She's a University of Washington grad.
"They're both doing great," Flajole said with pride. "You wish you were a little bit closer to 'em, but this is the first place where we've actually been fairly close - a drive away - from one of our daughters."
As for Teri, Flajole said, "She's just putting up with me right now and trying to get a house sold in Charlotte, N.C."
Asked if he has thoughts of becoming a head coach at some point in time, Flajole said his focus right now is trying to be "the best defensive coordinator I can and be a big help to our head football coach.
"I think it's more important that this time that I enjoy what I'm doing here and that I try to do the best job I can and not worry what lies down the road."
Flajole said in the coaching profession, as unstable as it can be, you always put your name on the door in pencil rather than ink. And he gives all of the credit for keeping things in perspective to his wife.
"This is our 10th move (eight were with children)," Flajole noted. "The important thing is you've just got to have a rock-solid home life. I'm talking about your wife's gotta have it wired pretty tight with your kids.
"To my benefit, my wife has done a great job with both our kids," he added. "Both call Teri every day. They've got a special relationship. Teri was always on top of what they were doing, who they were with.
"Much to my kids' chagrin, if they were gonna spend the night at somebody's house my wife would call their parents," Flajole said. "It embarrassed them when they were teenagers. I look at 'em now and they're both squared away, but that's all to Teri's credit. She did what she had to do."
Looking back at their time at Montana, Flajole said Missoula has always maintained a special place in their hearts.
"(We) enjoyed it there, loved the university, loved the people of Missoula," Flajole pointed out. "From that standpoint, great memories. You always wish as a football coach you could have won more games, (but) from the other standpoint, we had a great time there."
Flajole also expounded on his friendship with Donovan, calling him a great mentor when he was a younger coach.
"From an assistant coach's standpoint, he was really a great guy for me to work for," Flajole said. "He was very patient with me, and he was just a good human being."
Flajole always hoped that one of the team's he's worked for in the NFL would send him to Missoula to look at prospective players, but that hasn't happened so far.
"I'd like to see how the town is," he said. "People say it has grown. I've heard the stadium there is outstanding. Hopefully I'm gonna get a chance to get back there."
Flajole said he and Teri, when he gets a couple of weeks off this summer, are planning a visit to their daughter in Seattle and might just jump in a car and drive east to Missoula.
He also takes a lot of pride in the track record he, Glenn and Van Diest have put together since leaving UM.
"It was probably the handiwork of Larry Donovan," Flajole said, "because Larry was good enough to hire all of us. Those guys I still stay in touch with. They're good people."
When the Rams hit the field this fall, Flajole knows what he hopes people see from his defense.
"I hope you see one that's aggressive," Flajole said, "well prepared, disciplined. Obviously we don't want to beat ourselves with foolish penalties and mistakes and make the offenses earn every inch that they get.
