45

The Ierullis: What it takes to go the distance

By Stefan Cooper
Editor
Blount Press Row

It’s still a curious thing to see him in a Carson-Newman shirt.

Then again, maybe not.

Tony Ierulli wakes for game day each Saturday the same way he’s done for the last 45 years.

“He gets up and he has quiet time to himself, usually super, super early” Carol Ierulli, the coach’s wife of 45 years, said. “Before he even thinks about leaving for the game, he has to have that time, to reflect, I guess, and get ready.”

“I spend about an hour to myself, looking over the scouting report and game tendencies,” Tony said. “It gives me that hour or so of, like, meditation. It started way back when I started coaching.

“You’ve got to be mentally prepared.”

Then it’s a short drive up Interstate 40 to Jefferson City, where the former Maryville College great as both a player and coach coaches linebackers for Carson-Newman University.

The Scots brought their native son home this weekend, Ierulli joining Jeremy Cason (men’s golf), Missy Barker Johnson (softball), Jack Llewellyn (men’s basketball/baseball), Jay Malone (football), Beverly Stepp Meyer (women’s soccer), Kiera Payne (women’s basketball) and Brent Watts (men’s basketball) as inductees on the Maryville College Wall of Fame.

The Scots (4-1) host Methodist on Saturday for homecoming 2024.

Kickoff at Honker Field is 1 p.m.

Ierulli is in his 45th season as a college football coach, nine of the last 10 with the Eagles. It says so very much about the man.

During his playing days at Maryville in the late 1970s, Ierulli captained one of the most successful teams in school history, becoming only the second recipient of the school’s prestigious J.D. Davis Award.

The Maryville/Carson-Newman rivalry dates back more than century. Teams from the two schools don’t play each other that often these days, but, ooh, when they did. Supporters of the Eagles got really creative Ierulli’s senior season in 1979, hanging a sign above the entrance to Maryville’s Pearsons Hall, detailing the terrible things they were going to do to the Maryville captain that Saturday.

Football overcame all of that. It always has.

An Italian whiz kid from Florida with a gift for numbers, Ierulli arrived at Maryville intent on pursuing studies to get accepted to medical school. He was also a standout football and baseball player, fiercely competitive in both.

His parents divorced when he was young, he said. His mother, Elaine, moved the family from Illinois to Florida, where she raised four sons and a daughter and sports became a rock for the Ierulli family.

Tony was All-State in both football and baseball at Cardinal Mooney in Sarasota, the Cougars rolling to the 1972 state championship. During his senior year at Maryville, Ierulli told his father, Anthony Sr., staying around the game is what he wanted to do with his life. He would become a coach.

“The people who had the biggest influence in my life were my high school and college coaches,” Ierulli said. “My dad didn’t quite understand that. I think he didn’t talk to me for about two or three months.”

After attending a game early in Ierulli’s career and seeing his son at his craft, Anthony Sr. gave his blessing.

“He said, ‘Tony, I think you made a good decision,'” Ierulli said.

The last 45 years simply wouldn’t have been possible without Carol, he said. The pair decided to marry right after graduation, complete with a honeymoon one for the books. Tony already had a job as an assistant coach at Bowling Green State University.

“We got married, and the next day we’re on the way to Ohio,” he said.

Football has brought with it many highs. In 2002, Ierulli was named the Division II Assistant Coach of the Year while on the staff at Shippensburg University. A year later, in 2003, he was hired as his alma matter’s 27th head coach. Maryville won in his debut, outlasting Westminster, 12-7.

“The place was packed!” Ierulli said. “We were down, but rallied to win. It was just very special. The rang bell (across campus).

“It was such an honor coming back to your alma matter and being the head coach.”

The lows have come as well, like being let go as the Scots coach eight years later after compiling 39 wins, third-best in Maryville history.

Weathering those lows has produced perhaps THE guy to coach college linebackers.

Carson-Newman’s Mekhi Brown is one of the nation’s top prospects at linebacker in NCAA Division II football. A 6-foot-3, 205-pound speedy tackling machine, there’s talk the redshirt sophomore and preseason All-American could make the jump to the professional level in a year or two.

“He’s a very intelligent young man,” Ierulli said. “He’s got a lot of physical ability. The thing that impresses me is not only is he a competitor, he’s got a lot of football smarts to him.”

His fiery position coach is perhaps best at teaching players to block out the noise and focus on the job at hand, Brown said.

“Everyday in practice, he pushes us to be great, fundamentally, effort,” he said. “Coach Ierulli is the one who’s going to make sure you do things right and do it all full speed.”

Under first-year coach Ashley Ingram, the Eagles (7-0) are on the rise, rolling into a weekend clash at Emory & Henry unbeaten. Carson-Newman returns to Burke-Tarr Stadium on Nov. 2, hosting Anderson for a 3 p.m. kick.

They’ve never discussed how long Ierulli will coach, Carol said.

“All I can tell you is it’s been a wonderful 45 years,” she said. “Every (year) is exciting still, just like the first year he started coaching …

“Because he loves it. It’s his passion, and I wouldn’t want him doing anything else.”

Neither, it appears, would the 34-and-counting young men who’ve followed their coach into the profession.