The golf shirt is Wolfpack red, which seems to match the tone of Tom O’Brien’s hair perfectly. Any feeling that this is odd, of wondering why the former Boston College coach is here at North Carolina State in the chair once owned by Chuck Amato, disappears quickly as O’Brien talks about his Wolfpack team.
But beneath that red is the deeply ingrained blue of the Naval Academy, and Wolfpack fans, as they come to understand the new leader of their football program, will soon find how much he seems forged by his Navy experience.
That much was apparent Friday as O’Brien, sitting with the straight demeanor of a military man, spoke of a recent golf trip to Portugal.
It was a trip rooted in the events of Sept. 11. One of O’Brien’s Naval Academy classmates, Charles Burlingame, was the pilot of the American Airlines jet that crashed into the Pentagon. At their 30th reunion a week and a half after Sept. 11, O’Brien and seven buddies were determined to do more to keep in touch.
They decided to do what men often do -- play golf.
But they didn’t pick some local course with parched Bermuda grass.
They went to Ireland in 2003 and 2005.
This May, they went to Portugal, playing a pair of courses near Lisbon.
Just husbands -- no wives.
“Estrogen-free trip,” O’Brien quipped Friday afternoon.
In understanding O’Brien, one learns quickly he has the straight, to-the-point approach of so many who came through the military academies. He can be funny -- calling the offseason the “rubber barbecue” circuit rather than rubber chicken -- but the overall air is straight-forward.
Under Amato, N.C. State recruited heavily in Florida, but O’Brien insisted the Wolfpack will focus on the state of North Carolina. He said all nine of his assistant coaches have a part of the state as their recruiting territory, and O’Brien said the NCSU staff has visited every high school to touch base with the high school community.
“No. 1, we’re looking for athletic ability,” O’Brien said in how N.C. State will size up prospects. “But more importantly, we look at their academic records. There are kids we turned down at Boston College because they had too many tardies.”
His no-nonsense approach was evident in other comments he made Friday.
N.C. State, for example, was at the bottom of the ACC last season in turnover margin – which led in part to State turning over its head coach. O’Brien said interceptions are going to happen -- but not fumbles.
“There’s no excuse for fumbling the football,” O’Brien said. “You’re going to throw some interceptions. If you’re afraid to throw an interception, you can’t complete a pass.”
He said his three quarterbacks -- the depth chart lists “Daniel Evans or Harrison Beck or Justin Burke” -- can help themselves by looking at film of last year’s State-BC game to get a feel for what new offensive coordinator Dana Bible will do.
“They can help themselves with the knowledge bank,” O’Brien said.
“It’s going to be a strange feeling,” he said, noting that he will have coached virtually every player in the game. “It’s good to get it over with.”
What he will look for, as the season evolves and the wins and losses come, are players he can count on.
“We’ve got to see who’s going to stay in the boat and who’s going to get out. Right now, we don’t know.”
There’s that sense of the sea again.
No wonder, then, that though the shirt and hair are read, the eyes are starkly blue.
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