By REGGIE BENSON, Huntsville Times
Brothers coaching on opposing teams won't spill secrets
When Roger Totten's phone rang almost six years ago at 2:30 a.m., he anticipated somebody was in trouble. After all, isn't that usually the case when the phone rings that early?
In this case, however, Roger's younger brother, Willie, was calling with good news.
Willie Totten had just been hired as the head football coach at Mississippi Valley State, their alma mater, and he called to invite his older brother to join his staff. Roger, now at Alabama A&M, was an assistant coach at Arkansas-Pine Bluff at the time.
"Don't you want to come back and work at a place where your name is on the stadium?" Roger recalled his brother asking. "Don't you want to come back and help me restore this program?
"In all honesty, he blackmailed me into coming back to Valley."
The stadium at MVSU was renamed Rice-Totten Stadium in 1999 in honor of Willie and Jerry Rice, one of the most electrifying quarterback/wide receiver tandems in the country in the mid-1980s. Roger played receiver in Rice's shadow and they were both seniors in 1984. Roger stayed at MVSU in 1985 and helped coach Willie, a senior that season.
Willie used the stadium name to lure his brother back.
"We had gone through a lot," said Roger, who took on a leadership role in the family while in college after their father died.
"We had helped turn the program around as players, and we believed we could turn it around as coaches."
It took a year after Willie became the head coach at MVSU in 2002 before Roger could accept his invitation and join the Delta Devils' staff.
After posting back-to-back losing seasons in 2003 and 2004, MVSU put together back-to-back winning seasons for the first time in two decades and came within a win of playing for the Southwestern Athletic Conference championship last season.
But despite their success, things weren't all rosy for Roger at his alma mater, and he elected during the past offseason to take a job as receivers coach at Alabama A&M.
As a result, Roger, 46, and Willie, 45, will be on opposite sidelines Saturday night when the Delta Devils take on the Bulldogs at Louis Crews Stadium. Kickoff is at 6:30.
"Expectations were really high at Mississippi Valley last year for us to win (the SWAC) and things didn't work out," Roger said this week. "Once expectations are high and you don't meet them, people want to do something different.
"I felt if I left it would take some of the pressure off of Willie. It was nothing negative against Mississippi Valley. Mississippi Valley has been very good to me and my family. There's eight of us and five of us graduated from Valley. We felt like the program was moving in the right direction, but I guess it was time for me to do something different and let Willie run his own program."
Willie told a much different story earlier this week.
"I blame a lot of people for that," said Willie, referring to his brother's departure but refusing to elaborate. "When you have a seasoned coach. ... Roger has over 20 years experience in the game. He's been around the league and knows a lot of football.
"To lose him was very, very crucial for us. But we have to move on."
The Delta Devils haven't moved on very well.
Normally among the league's most potent offenses, MVSU is last or next to last in all four of the major statistical categories this year.
Meanwhile, A&M's offense has undergone an awakening since Roger arrived.
The Bulldogs, a ground-oriented offense during Anthony Jones' first five seasons as head coach, have not only been good on the ground but have been terrific through the air. A&M is averaging 45 points, to rank seventh nationally, and 529 yards in total offense after two games.
"Roger has added an attitude to our receiving corps," Jones said. "He's a no-excuse kind of guy. He brings some toughness to those guys and he has raised their level of expectation. He's really done a nice job of getting those guys to compete and play at a high level."
MVSU's loss has clearly been A&M's gain.
Willie and Roger, who grew up in Greenwood, Miss., say they haven't discussed Saturday's game. In fact, they haven't communicated in months.
"We haven't spoken since he left in June," Willie said. "That's normally how we operate. We both have a job to do. Both of us are loyal to our programs. When he was at Alcorn and Arkansas-Pine Bluff, we never talked during the season because it's strictly business.
"We talk family business, but not football business."
Added Roger: "We don't talk during football season. We've been doing that since we got in the business. We're very serious about what we're doing and it's all business to us."
They'll likely talk a little Saturday night. Approximately 25 of their family members are expected to attend the game.
Valley faces long odds - 16th seeds are 0-92 against No. 1s
