By Steven Keslar
s-keslar@onu.edu
With the rivalry that exists between Michigan and Ohio State, one wouldn’t expect a University of Michigan alumnus to coach football at an Ohio school. Then again, you may not expect a former first-round NFL draft pick to coach at a Division III school.
Tyrone Wheatley, a graduate from the University of Michigan, was drafted by the New York Giants in 1995. Wheatley, an all-star running back during his high school and college career, played for both the New York Giants and the Oakland Raiders during his 10 year career in the NFL.
Wheatley is now the assistant coach of the Ohio Northern University football team, helping with the running backs. Head Coach Dean Paul said he couldn’t be happier with the situation.
“It’s been really good for our running backs. He knows all the tricks of the trade from playing in the NFL,” Paul said. “He’s keeping things fresh for our guys.” 
Wheatley’s position with Ohio Northern is being completely funded by the NFL, courtesy of the NFL internship program run through the NFL Players Association.
After playing in the NFL, some players want to begin coaching, but the field is difficult to break into, Paul said. Basically the internship program is for NFL players looking to find an internship somewhere, so the NFLPA matches up colleges with players to help them further their coaching careers, Wheatley said.
Paul received an e-mail application for this program in June, and it looked like the type of email that most people would just delete without filling out or reading, he said. So he took some time and put together a good case for why ONU is a good fit for this program. Paul’s application was impressive enough, and ONU was chosen as a recipient of one of the interns.
The NFL intern program is new for the Division III level. It can be difficult for a former player to break into the realm of coaching, so this experience helps them along.  Wheatley is happy with his place at ONU. He labeled Division III as the “great unknown.”
Coming from Michigan where he went to a Division I school, then to New York City and Oakland, Ada is a much different in terms of populace, but that doesn’t seem to faze Wheatley.
“It’s smaller, it’s quaint, but the atmosphere is pretty much football,” Wheatley said.
The biggest surprise to Wheatley was that the players here are not on scholarship. They are playing simply for the love of the game, he said. They may want to reach the NFL, that’s a dream every football player has, but they realize it’s less likely that they will make the NFL, yet they still continue their football career.
“It gives you a different respect for the game,” he said.
Wheatley’s future hopes are to be a head coach somewhere, but he needs to develop the necessary experience before reaching that goal. He started coaching at the University of Michigan as a sprint and hurdler coach on the track team for two years. He then became the head football coach at his former high school in Michigan. Before he started there, the team had gone 3-6 and 0-9 the two years prior, but with his coaching the team went 9-2 and reached the state playoffs. His experience there helped him as a coach, and he started a portfolio, marking down things that worked and things that didn’t work. He realized the importance in how to treat players. “Every player needs to be treated different,” he said.
“They were my Guinea pigs. I learned what worked. Some things that I thought would work tanked,” he said.
More than anything, coaching track and high school football helped him realize that not everyone could do what he could as a player. Just because something came easy to him doesn’t mean that it does to everyone. That is just one among many things he has learned since beginning to coach.  He also realized that a lighter approach to the game seems to work best. He prefers to treat the players like adults.
“I’ll help you and give you tools to further your goals and aspirations, but if you mess up I’m not going to chase you,” he said. “No one’s going to chase you in real life.”
Since being away from the game, Wheatley realized that he really missed the characters that encompass a football team, especially the running backs. Although he admits to being bias, he thinks running backs are the most all-around players because they must do a little bit of everything. “With the variation of responsibilities you also get the variation of personalities,” he said. “They’re a great group of guys to be around.”
The players on the ONU football team seem to think so as well, and they are responding positively to Wheatley’s coaching, Paul said.
Wheatley is doubtful that he will be back at Northern next year, as he hopes to continue his pursuit of being a head coach, he said, but he wouldn’t completely disregard the idea.