Parenting and pigskin: Oregon coach Erik Chinander juggles family and football after birth of daughter, Penelope

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EUGENE — Penelope James Chinander arrived healthy and happy last August, one week after she was supposed to and two days before kickoff, smack dab in the middle of the two dates her parents watched anxiously all summer.

 

For Erik Chinander and wife Megan, their daughter's birth marked the merger of personal and pigskin, the day their lives changed forever followed by the most unforgettable season in Ducks football history. And to ask even a simple question is to be shown how tightly the twin, and often competing, ideals of family and football are intertwined in a coaching household.

 

Her birthday, Megan said, is Aug. 28.

 

"South Dakota week," Erik reminded.

 

It's an unshakeable habit in football coaching to remember each fall week by the opponent on the schedule, a custom Chinander himself, UO's first-year outside linebackers coach, learned early as the son of a high school football coach in Allison, Iowa.

 

Even Penelope won't break that — but that doesn't mean she hasn't altered, at just four months old, how this and [CENSORED]ure seasons will be defined forever for the Chinanders, whose reference points for fall 2014 will include big victories against Stanford and Arizona and when Penelope began to recognize her parents' faces and learned to roll over onto her stomach.

 

"That was big," Megan said, her smile wide as she looked into her wriggling daughter's eyes.

 

The Chinanders are certainly not the first to learn how to juggle the equally high-stakes joys and stresses of coaching and parenthood, of managing often 100-hour work weeks alongside the desire to spend time together. But what is unique, those at Oregon say, is the environment in the football offices — passed down from head coaches Mike Bellotti, to Chip Kelly and now Mark Helfrich — that prioritizes winning football games and being an attentive parent.

 

It's a philosophy that believes a coach can be just as prepared for both Penelope's birth and Oregon's Jan. 1 College Football Playoff semifinal berth.

 

"Mark has two kids of his own and they're both young, he's going through the same thing that a lot of us did," said UO tight ends and special teams coach Tom Osborne, who worked under all three head coaches at Oregon. "You'll see him walking down the hallway from one meeting to the next talking to his kids. It's not just, 'Hey, give them time' — he walks the walk."

 

On Christmas Day, the Chinanders and the rest of the Ducks will travel to Los Angeles, where the Rose Bowl festivities begin. If their holiday celebration seems curbed, they aren't troubled. This year, along with being given advice, presents and numerous challenges, they say the most important thing they've received is perspective.

 

***

 

For the first time in his 11-year career Chinander, 35, kept a phone on him at all times, in practices and meetings, in late August, as Penelope's due date came and went. If Megan went into labor, he had the green light to leave immediately and be by his wife's side.

 

And sometimes Megan did call. It just wasn't "the call."

 

"It was me not even thinking a few times," Megan said. "Just being like, 'Oh, I went to the doctor today (for a check-up).' He'd say, 'Oh, no baby? All right, well, we'll talk to you later.'"

 

Despite all his vigilance, Chinander nearly missed the birth because of a cup of coffee.

 

The morning of Aug. 28, he was told that Megan's labor wouldn't begin for 90 minutes, and that he was free to get some coffee to keep him awake after spending all evening bedside. Erik left to take the doctor up on the offer. And left his phone in the room, too.

 

"It went from like an hour and a half to 15 minutes," he said. "When I came back she was on the table, he was like, "She's ready to go, you gotta get in here!'"

 

Penelope was born at 9:05 a.m. Soon thereafter, Chinander's outside linebackers all received text messages announcing the newest Duck, complete with a photo.

 

It is telling that an ill-timed coffee run nearly caused him to miss the birth, not work.

 

Ever since he was hired from Kelly's Philadelphia Eagles staff in January, he and Helfrich — whose son, Max, and daughter Maggie, are both under the age of 8 — knew a birth would cut it close to the season opener, Aug. 30 against South Dakota. An unspoken agreement was formed, one which wasn't taken for granted.

 

"He was going to say, 'Go' whenever the call came," Erik said. "I think the majority is guys, head coaches, they think that (football) is more important than anything else and I don't think Mark thinks that way. Obviously there's work that has to be done but your family is only going to get one time. He's had little kids and he goes through it. But you hear all kinds of stories like hey, my wife's being induced Tuesday at 9 a.m. and the head coach says, 'Well can't you move it to 7?' And if you can't, you can't miss practice. There are all kinds of horror stories out there."

 

Said Helfrich: "We want to make it as family-friendly an atmosphere as there can be in this profession."

 

Instead of a horror story Tom Osborne, Oregon's longtime tight ends coach, tells a different kind of tale to crystallize the attitudes of UO's head coaches about the balance of family and football.

 

In 2011, Sheldon High School and Lake Oswego met in the Oregon big-school state title game, at Portland's Jeld-Wen Field. It would be the final high school game for his son, Tyler, one of the dozens of coaches' kids allowed to roam the sidelines of UO practices as children.

 

Kickoff would be 1 p.m. on a December Saturday, however, right in the middle of Oregon's Rose Bowl preparation for Wisconsin. Osborne walked into Kelly's office, ready to bargain with the head coach; he'd stay for practice, but could he leave immediately after, in order to catch Sheldon's second half?

 

"Chip goes, 'It's his last game? Just forget it. Just cancel the special team meetings.' Which we did," Osborne said. "I drove up there and got to see the whole entire game. I'll never, ever forget that as long as I live."

 

Tyler Osborne is now back on Oregon's sideline, a junior at UO who serves on the team's support staff, a every-day reminder of the place of family.

 

***

 

The Chinanders met in 2009 at the house of a mutual friend. He was a former Iowa Hawkeyes lineman turned coach at Northern Iowa, she a student at Wartburg College 17 miles away visiting her twin sister at UNI.

 

They grew up separated by a 10-year age gap and 8 miles between their tiny Iowa hometowns of Allison and Bristow, rural communities whose combined po[CENSORED]tions would barely fill one section in Oregon's Autzen Stadium.

 

Since their first meeting, their lives have been reshaped time and again: an engagement and her mother's passing in 2010, a wedding in July 2011 and Penelope in 2014. They've moved from Iowa to Eugene to Philadelphia and back to Eugene, a place they echo as ideal to raise a family in.

 

In some ways, their daughter — given the initials P.J., to match those of Megan's late mother, Pamela Jean — is the biggest change of them all.

 

Yet the challenge of spending time together as a family hasn't gotten easier. The shortest day of Chinander's work week during the football season, from August till February, is Sunday. He typically arrives by 11 a.m. and leaves 10 hours later. On Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, he'll wake up with Penelope at about 5 a.m. and spend an hour together before getting to work. He's back home at their southeast Eugene home by 10 p.m. those nights. In a normal fall week, it's not uncommon for coaches to work 80 hours or more, Sunday through Friday -- and then comes the game, an all-day affair.

 

"There are days where I'll be like, please be 10 o'clock, but not very often," said Megan, whose sisters, father and in-laws have all arrived throughout the fall as backup. A yoga and pilates class is her mental break.

 

"I guess I don't mind it, maybe just because I'm so used to the schedule and this is just what fall is like," she said. "But we really look forward to when he has a day here or there to spend."

 

Said Erik: "My wife, she's been awesome. She's basically a single parent."

 

To take advantage of their rare moments together, when everyone is awake, anyway, they've put into action advice received from other coaches and wives. Penelope stays up later, past 10 p.m., so that Erik can catch a few minutes with her after work. In the mornings, mother, daughter and the family's 3 ½-year-old shih tzu, Percy, walk the paths of Alton Baker Park that are just a Marcus Mariota spiral away from the football offices, stopping by Chinander's office afterward for lunch or a "five-minute hello." Crying and dirty diapers aren't annoyances anymore.

 

Still ... football is always there, and pulling himself away is a constant battle. Asked about whether Penelope has helped Erik see the bigger picture, Megan is first to answer.

 

"If you ever say you stop thinking about football," she said, a smile spreading at her husband's contemplation, "you're lying."

 

"Yeah, I don't think it ever stops," Erik said. "But it makes it easier. ... It used to be like, eh, maybe Meg's waiting for me. It was like, oh it's cool, she'll understand. If somebody wants on Thursday night when we get out of here early, hey let's stop by The Cooler and have a beer. Meg will probably understand. Now it's like, guys I gotta go home, I have a kid. It's non-negotiable anymore. She just wants to see you."

 

They might not even be hitting the busiest time of year yet. Chinander calls January and May his most difficult months because he will be on the road almost the entire time recruiting.

 

Their evaluation of how they've done so far is unvarnished: It's not easy. Especially since Penelope stopped her typical sleeping schedule from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. -- "that was amazing!" Megan said -- and now awakens somewhere between 2 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. most mornings.

 

Those around the couple, however, say they appeared as happy and healthy as their girl.

 

"He's a great person, first and foremost," Helfrich said. "The qualities he has that make him an excellent coach also make him an excellent husband and father. It's been fun watching him balance the challenges beautifully."

 

More than that, they say, he's kept the promise he tells recruits: If you come to Oregon, you're about to join a family.

 

***

 

After home games this fall, the same sixth-floor lounge that the Chinanders are sitting in on a recent December day is turned into a banquet hall where recruits are feted, and fed.

 

But the 17- and 18-year-old star recruits are not the youngest at the table.

 

That would be Penelope.

 

If there was ever an example to drive home the program's perception that team is the same as family, a baby might be the perfect pitch. And a genuine one.

 

"He gets deeper than football with us," said senior outside linebacker Tony Washington. "We share our life stories and what we're going through. I don't know how he juggles it. It's really draining dealing with us all day and then you gotta go home to your crying baby and be there for their needs," Washington said. "But he's always giving. I'm sure he's doing a great job, because he's still married."

 

It's too early to know whether his coaching style will translate to his parenting but some parallels exist. Another early Christmas gift, for example, was patience.

 

"It's like a family," Erik said. "Some days we're going to like them a lot. Some days we're not going to like them at all. But you have to love them every day. It's just like her."

 

Back in the lounge, Penelope spent an hour tired and hungry and bereft of attention as her parents discussed her. Yet she cried just once and was calm throughout. It's a quality that Megan, an admitted worrier, says has already rubbed off on her.

 

Then the parents saw what was holding their daughter's attention for so long.

 

Splayed across four television sets on a far wall was a bowl game broadcast. Football's movement and colors catch her like nothing else, though "Wheel of Fortune" is a close second. Football, it appears, will continue to define much about the young family.

 

But not everything.

 

In three days, it will officially be Rose Bowl week.

 

But for now, this is the Chinanders' time.