A little about Dean Pees and Kent State

Not sure how many of you know who Dean Pees is. Let me educate you: Dean Pees is the New England Patriots' defensive coordinator, which as of the time I am writing this, is not a particularly good place to be because the Pats are down 24-0 to the Ravens in the second quarter of their AFC wild-card matchup. But I digress. Pees became the Patriots' defensive coordinator in 2006 after serving as the team's linebackers coach from 2004-2005. Before that, he was the head coach at Kent State (my alma mater) from 1998-2003.
Ah, so now you see the connection.
I wanted to write something about Pees because as I am watching this game, I was thinking about what an interesting story Pees has, concerning the NFL and Kent Srtate. Here is a link to Pees' Wikipedia page, which details all of his coaching stops: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Pees
When I was at Kent State from 2000-2004, Pees was the head coach of the football team. I covered the football team for the school newspaper, The Daily Kent Stater, for parts of the 2001 season, and the entire 2002 and 2003 seasons. During that time, I talked to Pees sever times a week (during the season) and got to know him fairly well. Kent State was bad during this time. Bad. 3-9 in 2002 (1-7 in the MAC) and 5-7 in 2003, which was kind of a fluke because some even worse seasons followed after that. Also, during this time Kent State had Josh Cribbs and James Harrison. That is pretty remarkable. The best kick returner in the history of the league and the 2008 NFL Defensive Player of the Year. Pees coached, and recruited these guys. That is a pretty good eye for talent. During these bad, sometimes miserable seasons in 2001-2003, I always felt that Dean Pees was a better coach than the records and stats indicated. He is a defensive guy and is from the same coaching "tree" as Bill Belichick and Nick Saban (one of Pees' closest personal friends). Belichick thought enough of Pees to bring him in as the Patriots' linebackers coach after Pees had enough at Kent State and resigned in 2004.
Like I said, Pees is/was a defensive coach. For parts of the time I covered KSU, Pees even served as the defensive coordinator as well as the head coach. He struggled with offensive schemes, and never really had a solid offensive coordinator as the play calling was somewhat questionable during those years. Josh Cribbs was a decent quarterback, but obviously had to rely on his legs and never had a good runnung back, or receiver, or offensive line for protection.
During these bad season, Pees was always upbeat and kept a positive attitude, which believe me, was not easy. I was at practices, games, in the locker room and in the coaches' offices. They all knew that wins were never going to be easy to come by. My point here is that Pees never let that deter him from doing his best to provide a winning attitude at Kent State and change the culture. I wrote countless stories about that in the Stater. Pees is a high character guy with a great family and he was always nothing but class at Kent State, in the face of all that losing and misery. I realized is partly back then, but now I realize it more.
Pees is also a great family man, he always talked of his kids (one of which is my age) and his wife could been seen around Kent State during these years, providing smiles and levity to the players and coaches, and even us, the media.
Also, I wanted to note that on Sunday, Jan. 3, Pees had to be hospitalized in Houston after he experienced a shortness of breath on the sidelines, during the game. He stayed in the Houston-area hospital over night, but returned to New England the following day after passing a battery of tests. Thankfully.
I have always been glad that Pees was able to land on his feet in New England and coach one of the best defenses in the NFL over the second half of this past decade. Talk about a guy who deserved it after what he went through at Kent State.
Here's to you, Dean Pees. I'll aways be pulling for you.