He takes every job seriously

New offensive coordinator got his first post by doing double-duty as a janitor

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By Pete Conrad, Staff Writer 12:56 AM Friday, July 3, 2009

OXFORD — Peter Vaas coached Notre Dame’s quarterbacks the year Brady Quinn was the toast of college football. He won two World Bowl championships as a head coach in NFL Europe. And he has coached in the Sugar, Fiesta and Orange bowls.

But Vaas would scoff at the notion that his new job as Miami University’s offensive coordinator under first-year head coach Mike Haywood is any less important than those other roles.

“At the various talent levels, there’s always going to be a knot in your stomach, and it’s always going to be the same knot,” Vaas said, “because the football is just as important. The intensity is the same.”

He was undefeated as head coach for Allegheny College in 1987 and again four years later as an assistant to Fighting Irish head coach Lou Holtz.

“Being undefeated was just as exciting to the players at Allegheny as winning the 1992 Sugar Bowl was to the Notre Dame players,” he pointed out.

Vaas said he learned about the importance of any job, at any location, when he drew his first college paycheck by pushing a broom.

“I ended up taking a job as a janitor in the gym at Allegheny in August of 1974,” he recalled. “The way it worked, they had only one full-time assistant coach. The second assistant was paid through the maintenance department.”

During a typical day, Vaas said, he would “make coffee in the morning, set up badminton sets, sweep the floor and keep the swimming pool clean and chlorinated.”

Vaas, who was raised in Westwood, Mass., a suburb of Boston, said his first love was baseball. But he was a walk-on quarterback at Holy Cross who became a three-year starter there, and tried out in the Canadian Football League but didn’t make it past training camp with the Ottawa Rough Riders.

“I attempted to play college baseball,” Vaas added. “I attempted to become a pitcher, and when a change-up becomes your fastball it doesn’t last too long.”

His football career has included two stints at Notre Dame. During the second stint (the 2005 and ‘06 seasons) he coached Quinn, who is preparing for his third season with the Cleveland Browns, and worked with Haywood.

“The first thing that comes to mind when you talk about coaching Brady, a pure pleasure,” Vaas said. “He was a sponge for soaking up every kind of knowledge.”

Vaas was running backs coach and passing game coordinator at Duke in 2007 but then Duke head coach Ted Roof was fired. Haywood and the RedHawks beckoned.

“I was contemplating about what to do with the rest of my life,” he said, “and I’d had a tremendously positive experience at Notre Dame with Mike.”

Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2197 or pconrad@coxohio.com.

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