There was a fantastic article today by NJO's Jerry Izenberg, profiling Rutgers' Head Coach Greg Schiano and his ability to teach the Rutgers student-athletes more than just football.

Often times as fans we forget the true meaning of the word "student-athlete", and forget that these students head home to study, take exams, and go to class after each game, win or lose.  Instead of focusing solely on football, and preparing players for the NFL (which is not very likely), Coach Schiano focuses on making his players better people and preparing them for life after college and after football:

[Schiano] was speaking about the journey that has marked his tenure and the kids-grown-to-men who have passed through it at Rutgers. He spoke about what he looked for in his recruits.

‘‘First they have to be talented ,and you want to know how serious they are. What is his commitment? You are allowed six recruiting visits with a kid. So we go to see his coaches and his guidance counselor and the principal of his high school. If one of them tells us he is supposed to be in room 228 in his English class, and he’s not there, and it happens again on the next visit, I tell my guys to forget him.

‘‘Then he’s got to love football. Because if he does, his character will develop with us. He’ll go to study hall or, as we sometimes tell them, sit in the first three rows in class. His love for the game means he doesn’t want to lose all that, and if he doesn’t study, he knows he will.’’

 Rutgers has ranked 3rd nationally the past two years in the National APR rankings, and is the only team over the last 2 years to place in the top 5 nationally in the APR and win a bowl game. 

It's amazing the job that Schiano has done at Rutgers.  He basically has raised a program from the dead without any major recruiting violations and without lowering any academic standards.  Even more surprising, he knows who that he owes a lot of his current success to the players that built this program from the ground-up:

‘‘Getting through the tough times here was about a lot more than the coaching,” he said. “These guys, they did more than stay and more than play. They backed me and the staff up when guys were complaining and naysaying in the locker room. I’m talking about support from a guy like William Beckford ... a guy like Brian Leonard ... like Clark Harris and Ramel Meekins.’’

Schiano is truly thankful to the guys who bought into this program when Rutgers was grinding out 1 and 2 win seasons. 

Rutgers fans should be thankful that we have a coach who cares more about the players than the actual wins and losses.  Schiano could have left for greener pastures in Ann Arbor or Miami, but he's chosen to see this thing through at Rutgers.  So next time there's a bad play call on 3rd down, or the defense gives up a big play, let's be a little bit easier on the guy.  After all, there's more to college football than just wins and losses.