Stan Parrish knows a little bit about what Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio went through this weekend.
Just hours after Dantonio's aggressive play call led to a thrilling 34-31 victory against Notre Dame, the 54 year old suffered a minor heart attack and was hospitalized.
Parrish said he had a heart stent inserted when he was at Michigan in the late 1990s. Dantonio had an emergency angioplasty Sunday, a procedure similar to a heart stent.
"Mark joins my club," Parrish said. "Sometimes things are out of your control. A lot of it is hereditary. I lost my dad to that."
Coaching football is a stressful job no matter the level, something Parrish has found throughout a career that took him from high school to college to the NFL. He said no matter where he has coached, the pressure to win was intense.
Another college football coaches' health gained greater notice with events last year. After losing the SEC Championship Game in December, Florida coach Urban Meyer was admitted to the hospital with chest pain and later announced he would retire because of health concerns. After changing his mind, Meyer is on the sidelines once again this fall after making some lifestyle changes.
A week before Dantonio's heart attack, Northern Illinois coach Jerry Kill was hospitalized with dehydration after a victory. He remained in the hospital until Thursday and was on the practice field Friday. He coached in Northern Illinois' 28-22 loss at Illinois on Saturday.
Kill said he couldn't imagine taking time off despite his health scare, which started with surgery to remove his gall bladder Sept. 3.
"Football is a unique sport, and you can't take time off from the game of football," Kill said. "Our kids knew I would be there on Saturday. I don't think there's any question about that. If I could have been there by Thursday's practice, I would have been."
Parrish, a friend of Kill, said it's not uncommon for his assistant coaches to work 60 to 80 hours a week during the season. Coaches typically arrive in the Fisher Football Training Complex by 7 a.m. and often don't leave until 8 p.m. at the earliest. While many of them exercise during a mid-day break, it's not something Parrish requires.
He said he makes sure he excercies every day.
"I put my headset on and walk around campus," Parrish said. "It's as much mental as it is physical. You just have to leave that world. When you're a coach, and particularly a head coach, it's very difficult to get out of that world."
Parrish said the first coaches to put in such arduous work weeks were Ohio State's Woody Hayes and Michigan's Bo Schembechler.
"They were not going to be outworked by anybody," he said. "If staying an extra hour meant an extra first down, then it was worth it."
Parrish isn't sure if extra work correlates to better results on the field, but he followed the same approach during last season's disappointments.
"My fear was we would have been 0-12," he said. "I've got stickers on my desk that say ‘Don't take shortcuts.'"
Parrish said the best way a coach can stay healthy during the season is to get enough sleep.
"The biggest thing coaches don't do during the season is they don't get rest," he said. "They work very late and they're up early, and they're competitive against each other. It's stressful."
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