It was Christmas break in 1987 and coaches had some rare time off, but O?Leary, a first-year defensive coordinator at Georgia Tech, wanted to take a trip to New Jersey to watch a potential recruit play basketball. He convinced a reluctant Ralph Friedgen, his good friend and Yellow Jackets? offensive coordinator, to come along on the trip.
As the flight to New Jersey neared its destination that winter day, however, the pilot emerged from the cockpit and lifted up some floor boards. The crew could not tell if the landing gear was deploying.
The plane circled for some time to burn off fuel, and it flew by a Westchester airport so the tower could see if the landing gear was down. The two coaches sat next to each other in first class as flight attendants readied the aircraft for an emergency landing.
In the aisle seat, O?Leary turned to Friedgen. ?Good luck,? he said, before tucking his head between his legs.
Friedgen cursed at O?Leary. ?I shouldn?t even be on this trip,? he shouted, peppering in four-letter words.
Friedgen laughed when he recalled the nearly-disastrous trip. O?Leary had become one of his closest friends on the staff at Georgia Tech, one that could pull him on a Christmas-time flight that might never land safely.
O?Leary functioned in a different way as a coach, sometimes. Friedgen remembered a time when O?Leary approached him before a spring scrimmage and requested that the offense run a long pass play on the third play. O?Leary, the defensive coordinator, was having a disagreement with the defensive backs coach about a certain coverage.
?I got to prove a point to this guy,? O?Leary said.
The defense ran that coverage on the third play, and the long pass play was converted for a touchdown. O?Leary stared down the defensive backs coach, Friedgen recalled with a chuckle.
In 1989, after Georgia Tech opened the season 0-3, assistant coaches went out to recruit while Friedgen and O?Leary headed back to the office to figure out how to fix the situation. O?Leary broke down the offense for Friedgen.
?There are only two guys that can make a play,? O?Leary told Friedgen.
The next game, Friedgen looked specifically to get the ball to those two players. The Yellow Jackets beat Maryland that week, and would win seven of their final eight games and 18 of their next 20 en route to a national championship in 1990.
Those two players, Jerry Mays and Shawn Jones, would combine for 1,954 yards from scrimmage and 15 touchdowns in 1989, with Jones passing for another 12 scores.
?It was really a lot of fun,? Friedgen said. ?The most fun I?ve ever had in coaching was coaching at Georgia Tech in those years.?
Oh, and that player from the nearly-disastrous recruiting trip? He signed to play for Georgia Tech, Friedgen noted, and lettered for two years.
E-mail Paul Tenorio at ptenorio@orlandosentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @OSKnights.
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