Doba returns home to South Bend
On April 11, 1965, Bill Doba, the first-year coach at Angola (Ind.) High School, was playing golf when a monumental disaster appeared out of nowhere.
The Palm Sunday tornadoes ripped apart Indiana. Eleven twisters struck 20 counties and killed 137 people, and property damage exceeded $30 million. It was Indiana's worst tornado disaster.
"The destruction was devastating," recalled Doba, who just missed the storm's wrath.
One of the hardest hit areas was Goshen, where Doba had coached the previous year, and would return as head coach in 1968.
Life takes some interesting turns.
Doba, who will turn 63 on Sunday, is coming home this weekend. The native of South Bend, who was an Indiana prep coach from 1962-76, will lead Washington State against Notre Dame.
Miracles as well as disasters can come from nowhere.
"I never imagined this would happen in my wildest dreams," Doba said.
Doba served under Mike Price for 14 years and was perfectly prepared to remain a defensive coordinator until he retired. But when Price made his ill-fated decision to become Alabama's head coach, Doba was immediately promoted.
And now his second game as an unlikely head coach will be in one of sports' greatest cathedrals. He grew up eight miles from Notre Dame, and his family loved the Fighting Irish.
"If my mom were still alive, I don't know who she would cheer for," Doba said. "As soon as they kicked off, the rosary beads came out and she was saying her Hail Marys."
Doba still spends his summers in Indiana. He will have five grandchildren at the game. Many of his old buddies won't know who to cheer for.
During his time as a high school coach, Doba attended some Notre Dame practices and looked with awe as Ara Parseghian and Dan Devine called the shots. He never coached a player good enough to play for them, much less thought he'd one day compete with one of their successors.
But Doba and the Cougars aren't going on vacation. They won't spend too much time soaking up the sites honoring a great football tradition.
"If we focus on that, we'll get killed," Doba said.
Therefore, the Cougars, 1-0 after beating Idaho, aren't treating Notre Dame with reverence. Doba already declined to trade game tapes with the Irish, who are playing their season-opener, forcing their coaches to use the limited angles provided by television to study the Cougars (and Idaho, Washington's State's cooperative neighbor, also turned down a Notre Dame request for game tapes).
While Washington State rushed for 339 yards against Idaho, the going will be much tougher against a salty, talented Notre Dame defense. That will put pressure on senior quarterback Matt Kegel, whose limited playing time over the past few seasons behind Jason Gesser has been marked by inconsistency.
Doba said he has confidence in Kegel, whatever happens this weekend. Kegel himself doesn't want to treat this contest as his coming out party on a grand stage, because that could be a recipe for failure.
"This is a game you dream about," Kegel said. "But in the same sense, you approach it like any other game, though it will be hard to do that. I don't want to put too much emphasis on this game. It's not as important as any of our conference games."
Doba has seen a lot in his life. His path has been a winding one. But he doesn't plan to get too philosophical or sentimental about returning home as the head coach of a Division I-A program.
Of course, it's easier to say that when you're sitting in Pullman, instead of staring at Touchdown Jesus.
"It will be a thrill," he said. "I'd be lying if I said it wasn't."
Ted Miller covers the Pac-10 for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
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