Happy landings all around

Rich Fisher still gets a heavy dose of football. It’s just that most of it comes on the golf course when he’s giving Tom Brady pointers on putting.

Fisher was a member of Tom Cable’s staff that was fired at the University of Idaho after the 2003 season. Cable quickly resurfaced as the offensive coordinator at UCLA, which faces Washington State today in Pullman.

Deposed head coaches usually have abundant connections in the profession and swiftly line up their next paychecks. It wasn’t as simple for Cable’s staff, but six of his eight on-field assistants are still college coaches.

Gary Coston, who coached UI special teams, was the only coach whose whereabouts couldn’t be determined, but Cable thought he was a high school assistant coach in Orange County. Spence Nowinsky, who is in his second year at Minnesota State-Mankato, heard Coston was selling real estate in California and that he’s “way better off financially than the rest of us.”

That certainly applies to Fisher. He was all set to go to Nebraska, but Frank Solich was fired. Fisher was encouraged when good friend Bo Pelini was named interim head coach, but Pelini didn’t land the job permanently.

Fisher moved in for a few weeks with an old buddy, ex-Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson, and eventually met Dave Heuser, a long-time golf instructor in New England. With Heuser’s help, Fisher became a golf instructor. Earlier this year, Fisher opened his own golf academy outside of Boston.

“It’s quite lucrative,” Fisher said. “I set my own schedule, I’ve got a pretty good base of students and I run a couple of junior golf camps.”

Fisher’s clients include Brady, Dennis Eckersley, Patriots lineman Dan Koppen and Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca.

“You can see why those guys win championships,” Fisher said. “They’re ultra competitive. I taught Tom in the off-season and we’d be out there talking blocking schemes and protections and, ‘Oh, by the way, hit a shot.’ “

But coaching still tugs at Fisher, who said he’d sell his business if the right position came along.

“In my heart, football comes first,” he said. “Next season, I’ll probably give (coaching) another go.”

Bret Ingalls, who was Idaho’s offensive coordinator under Cable, ran into numerous dead ends trying to find another coaching job.

“Unless you have an in, you try hard and you really don’t go anywhere,” said Ingalls, who is an assistant at Miami, Ohio, after spending one season at I-AA Indiana State. “There were a lot of those, anywhere from 15-25.”

Ingalls said it usually boils down to who you know.

“I knew the head coach (at Indiana State),” said the well-traveled Ingalls, who has held eight assistant jobs, including two stints at Idaho, in his 23-year career. “The job opened late and he said, ‘Why don’t you come out.’ It was one of those things where it wasn’t the kind of position I was looking for, but in order to stay in the business I had to take that chance. It worked out because the opportunity I have (at Miami) is a wonderful situation.”

Nowinsky had a leg in the door at Mankato, his alma mater.

“I had a connection to the head coach through I guy I worked for at Wisconsin,” said Nowinsky, a Vandals assistant for only one season. “And what helped me are my recruiting ties in Minnesota and Wisconsin.”

When Idaho’s staff was fired, the assistants remained in Moscow for a brief period because they were under contract until January.

“We were all we had,” Nowinsky said. “We were our own support group.”

Eventually they began finding employment. Nowinsky had two unsuccessful interviews before going back to Mankato. Rich Scangarello also went back to familiar surroundings as the quarterbacks coach at UC Davis, which upset Stanford earlier this season. Scangarello was at Davis in 1998 and 1999.

Tarn Sublett is tutoring quarterbacks at University of La Verne, a Division III program in California. He also worked for the Leopards in 1997. Greg Jackson didn’t quite go home, but he got close. The former LSU standout is coaching cornerbacks at Louisiana-Monroe. Ed Lamb is in his first year at the University of San Diego, where he joins another ex-Vandals assistant, Tim Drevno, on staff.

Cable has been fired twice. He was a young offensive line coach when California dismissed Keith Gilbertson and his staff after the 1995 season. He was fortunate that he wasn’t out of work for long.

“Three days after it happened I got a call from Jim Sweeney at Fresno State and he wanted me to interview for the line job,” Cable said. “Three days after that, (new Cal coach Steve) Mariucci called and asked me to stay at Cal.”

Cable eventually went to Colorado with Rick Neuheisel before taking the head job at Idaho. Prior to his last season in Moscow, Cable declined an offer to join UCLA coach Karl Dorrell’s staff in hopes of a turnaround season with the Vandals. But Idaho went 3-9 in 2003 and Cable was told he wouldn’t be retained with three games remaining.

“That place will always be special to me, but I’m not used to failure in a lot of ways and that was hard for me to swallow,” said Cable, a UI graduate. “That’s water under the bridge now. At the same time it was an incredible experience. The next time I coach I’ll be better for having gone through it.”