Pardee’s Career Takes New Turn With the USFL

HOUSTON —  It would be easy for Jack Pardee to become bitter over some of the clouds that have darkened his football playing and coaching career.

Instead, he’s busy looking for the next silver lining.

One came last week when Pardee was named to the College Hall of Fame, but he’ll need more than a plaque to survive his present predicament.

Pardee is the coach of the Houston-New Jersey Gamblers-Generals, a United States Football League team with a temporary home, a muddled ownership and only two assistant coaches.

Without using much imagination, Pardee could see himself wearing a Super Bowl XX ring and counting his earnings as head coach of the Chicago Bears, a team he took to the playoffs in 1977 before resigning to become head coach of the Washington Redskins.

Pardee might even have been interviewed for some of this season’s National Football League vacancies had he not been under contract in a league with an antitrust suit pending against the NFL.

But he’s learned not to look back at career decisions.

“I left Chicago and I should have stayed,” Pardee said. “I thought I was taking a better job with a team that was about equal and had the best organization and owner in football.

“The facilities were bad in Chicago and the owner (George Halas) was 83 years old at the time. I learned that you can’t predict the future.”

Pardee joined the Houston Gamblers in 1983 and guided them to the USFL playoffs two consecutive seasons before sale and merger talks started with the Generals.

Pardee has been left with a skeleton staff of two coaches and more variables than a coach would like to endure.

Most of the offices are empty, vacated by furloughed coaches.

There is no secretary. If the phone rings, Pardee likely will be the one who answers it. The weight room is silent.

But rather than sit on his hands waiting for answers, Pardee maintains a regular office routine, splicing film, preparing playbooks, grading film, making out preseason training schedules that may be changed by the next phone call.

“We are doing this to maintain sanity as much as anything,” Pardee says, pointing to a splicing machine set up in his office. “We’re working on, as if everything was in order and settled.”

But nothing is settled. Pardee is making out workout schedules and has planned a mini-camp in April.

“I’ve made out my own schedule but it depends on the league,” Pardee said. “The phone could ring right now and they could say throw everything away.

“We’re doing things that need to be done and it also keeps our minds off things that we have no control over anyway.”

Pardee had no control over getting cancer in 1964 but he found a benefit from the ordeal that has helped him deal with career crises.

“At the time, I wouldn’t have chosen to have cancer,” Pardee said. “But I’m glad now that I did because it helped me more than anything in my life.”

After being told that he would have to undergo surgery, Pardee said he had a week to think about his life.

“The doctor didn’t pull any punches,” Pardee said. “He told me to get my will and my affairs in order. We had four little kids, a new house and my career was going pretty good.

“When I came out of it, it helped my priorities. I learned how to use my time and now I try not to question what He has in mind for me.”

Pardee would, however, appreciate some answers.