MSL to NFL: Tim Tyrrell's Unique "What Might Have Been" Twist Turns Into NFL Success Story
Conant, Harper College Product Celebrates 40th Anniversary of Northern Illinois' MAC, California Bowl Championships
Tim Tyrrell’s story is a unique twist to the countless “what might have been” stories of athletes whose lives are altered or derailed by a devastating injury.
One can wonder what would have become of Tyrrell if he didn’t hurt his knee during the first day of football practice in his senior year at Conant 45 years ago.
Does he end up on the football team at Harper College - via a self-described successful stint at the old Dominick’s grocery store chain - and get installed at quarterback because Hall of Fame head coach John Eiiasik was looking to spark his offense?
Does that lead him to Northern Illinois University to play quarterback for the legendary Bill Mallory? Are Tyrrell and a big group of his teammates in DeKalb for a Saturday afternoon home opener against Southern Illinois to be honored for winning the program’s first Mid-American Conference football title and the California Bowl 40 years ago?
Does that propel him on a path to a remarkable NFL career where his fearless play made him one of the league’s premier special teams players for the second half of the 1980s?
Does that lead to what could only be described as a great life by the gregarious Tyrrell, who lives in Streamwood?
The “what might have beens” in Tyrrell’s case are not filled with lament and regret. Instead, retired Conant coach John Ayres and retired Northern Illinois Sports Information Director Mike Korcek use the term “one in a million” in their admiring recollections of Tyrrell.
“A lot of times today I wake up and ask, ‘Why did God allow me to have so much?’” Tyrrell said. “I was watching the UFC and Dana White and one of his fighters said, ‘Can I have the mic?’ He said, ‘I just hope and just pray all of you get one time in your life to feel the way I feel right now.’
“I want to give back and live life with a great attitude because so much was given to me.”
Even when all of it could have easily been taken away.
A Tough Break Leads to a Big Break
Football was clearly the perfect outlet for a young and energetic Tim Tyrrell growing up in Hoffman Estates. Tyrrell arrived at Conant the same time in 1975 as a new head coach named John Ayres, who joked his team was good enough to lose the season finale in overtime to Oswego to finish 0-9.
Tyrrell said he was “lucky” to be influenced by a rock-star Conant staff that included three of the most successful head coaches in MSL history in Ayres, Dave Pendergast (Conant) and Joe Petricca (Palatine) and longtime assistant Jerry Mikrut. Ayres won 4 games in Year Two and in Tyrrell’s junior season, he rushed for more than 600 yards as the Cougars went 6-3 for their first winning campaign since 1969.
“My guess is he probably fell asleep at night totally exhausted from going 100 miles per hour all day,” Ayres said. “He was the greatest kid. That’s why he made it in the NFL.”
Expectations were high as Conant figured to be a serious contender for the MSL South title when Tyrrell and his teammates reported for the start of preseason two-a-days in August. He was doing a basic non-contact running drill around some cones when something went wrong.
“I fell and tried to get up and my (right) knee locked,” Tyrrell said. “It unlocked, I got back in and between practices at lunch it felt OK. I tried to come back in the second session, got in a couple of plays and it locked up.”
Just like that, Tyrrell’s high school career was basically over and he would need knee surgery by Dr. Ralph Lidge, a renowned orthopedic surgeon who passed away in 2013. Conant’s season was basically over as well.
“As coaches we worked awfully hard to get the program going and Tim was the I-back on a 6-3 team with a really good group of kids. We played really good football,” Ayres said. “As a senior he was going to be a kid we’d run 30 times a game. We wound up 4-5 with 8 sophomores who were the core of our 11-1 semifinalist two years later.
“With Tim in the lineup we’re maybe 8-2 and a playoff team. He would have made a difference in the games we lost. He was the kind of kid who would take over a game. To his credit the way he came back was just glorious to see.”
The comeback didn’t initially include football after graduation from Conant. He took classes at Harper and, as he is in every aspect of his life, brought his competitiveness to working at Dominick’s. Tyrrell said he was the 1980 “Bagger of the Year” at Store 48 and joked that he was basically jobbed out of winning the store’s Halloween costume contest.
But that clearly didn’t satisfy Tyrrell. He wanted to get back in the game again and the best option for him was just a few miles away in Palatine at Harper College. The program was a little more than a decade old under future NJCAA Hall of Fame coach John Eliasik.
“The first time I ever saw him, I’m at a carnival at Hoffman Estates High School and walking through the parking lot with my wife (Darlene),” Eliasik said. “He pulls up on a motorcycle and says, “Are you coach Eliasik? I’m going to play for you next year.’”
Eliasik had a lot of success stories but also plenty of kids who were no-shows or went out the back door and were never seen again. Tyrrell did show up to try out for the team and was installed in the secondary. But Harper’s option offense stalled in an 0-3 start in 1980 and Eliasik needed to make a change to get it going.
He bypassed three other quarterbacks on his roster for Tyrrell. There was something about the kid even though he had never played the position before.
“I’ve coached close to a couple thousand kids and no one was more competitive than Tim,” Eliasik said. “He’s a great competitor and to me that’s the greatest compliment for any athlete.
“We were running option football then so I said, ‘Why wouldn’t we want the ball in his hands on every play?’ He ran so hard, and he had to learn passing, but it was within his ability to learn that.”
His first start was hardly a success as he was 4-for-14 passing for 69 yards and rushed for 17 in a 40-14 loss to the College of DuPage (COD). But a couple of games later he came off the bench with a hyperextended knee and ran and passed for a touchdown in a win. He shook off a shoulder injury to run for 111 yards and pass for 112 in an upset victory over Triton. Harper won its last 4 games as Tyrrell finished with 1,049 total yards in 7 games.
A year later was even better as he kicked the game-winning extra point in a 7-6 upset of Illinois Valley. Tyrrell finished second in the N4C MVP voting and was an NJCAA All-America selection as he finished his two years at Harper with 2,000 total yards. He was the biggest success story and great ambassador for a program that survived one shutdown attempt in the late 1990s but was ultimately disbanded in 2012.
“Everyone’s story is so unique and the diversity is so cool,” Tyrrell said. “We had the time of our life. Eliasik instilled a great work ethic and was so passionate.”
Now he didn’t have to approach coaches in parking lots for a chance to play. Coaches like Murray State’s Frank Beamer, who would turn Virginia Tech into a national power, coveted him. Some wanted him to play in the secondary but Tyrrell had fallen in love with playing quarterback.
And the guy who seemed to be the latest in the line of coaches he admired like Ayres, Pendergast, Petricca, Mikrut and Eliasik was Bill Mallory at Northern Illinois in DeKalb. Mallory had been around legendary coaches as a player at Miami (Ohio) for Ara Parseghian and as an assistant to Woody Hayes at Ohio State, Carm Cozza at Yale and Doyt Perry at Bowling Green.
Mallory took over at Miami (Ohio) after Bo Schembechler left for Michigan and continued the success by going 11-0 and winning a MAC title and Tangerine Bowl in his fifth and final season. He took Colorado to two bowl games and was entering his third year at Northern Illinois. Mallory would also have tremendous success in the shadow of the basketball program at Indiana.
“I wanted to play quarterback under Bill Mallory,” Tyrrell said. “That’s the guy.”
Goal Posts, A Memorable Hit and California Dreaming
An injury to Rich Bridges gave Tim Tyrrell a memorable first shot to start at quarterback for Northern Illinois in 1982. The celebration in Evanston, however, was not what he envisioned against a Northwestern program that was the country’s punching bag.
Northwestern won 31-6 to break a 34-game losing streak that was the longest in the history of major college football. The fans celebrated by tearing down the goalposts. Tyrrell scored the Huskies’ only touchdown but was 4-for-16 passing with 2 interceptions.
It was part of an early education that Tyrrell was getting in the jump to Division I football. One moment stood out with the intense and highly-respected Mallory.
“One time on the option, I took it up, got to the half-foot line and didn’t score,” Tyrrell said as he laughed about the fact Mallory didn’t swear. “He says to me, ‘By golly Tyrrell, you gotta get the gosh darn ball in the end zone.’
“I said, ‘Coach, I got as far as I could.” He said, ‘This is not Harper Junior College anymore. This is Northern Illinois University.’ The mentality for me was to tee off on everybody.”
Northern Illinois would win 4 of its last 5 games to finish 5-5 but finished last in the MAC in passing. Prognosticators picked the Huskies to finish sixth in the 10-team league in 1983 and a challenging schedule with only 4 of 11 games at home started with tough tests at Kansas at Wisconsin.
The signs of something big may not have been evident outside of DeKalb but they were inside the program. Mallory lauded Tyrrell’s throwing progress to the Daily Herald’s Keith Peterson and said, “Tim’s a hard-nosed, wired-up, get-after-it kind of guy.” A 37-34 upset win at Kansas opened some eyes.
“We didn’t know what we had … we just simply didn’t know,” Tyrrell said. “Our off-season work ethic had everybody insanely in shape. Looking back we had the true definition of a team. It wasn’t about one individual.
“There were so many great experiences. (Assistant coach) Buck Suhr’s leg machines, we still talk about it. Pulling tires, running ramps with something on our backs. It was just a killer workout and you couldn’t hide. And coach Mallory’s ability to put together such an amazing coaching staff. We didn’t have any superstars but played so darn well as a team. The confidence after we beat Kansas, we thought we might have something here.”
Northern Illinois scored first at Wisconsin on a TD pass from Tyrrell to fullback Lou Wicks but the Badgers won 37-9 en route to a 7-4 finish. But the Huskies started MAC play 4-0 going into a visit from Bowling Green and standout quarterback Brian McClure. Bowling Green was up big at halftime but Tyrrell rushed for all but 3 of his 147 yards in the second half and Vince Scott’s 27-yard field goal with two minutes left gave the Huskies a stunning 24-23 comeback.
“Buck Suhr had recruited him and I said, ‘Buck, how did you win that game,’” Eliasik said. “He said, ‘Tim Tyrrell wouldn’t let us lose.’”
Two weeks later would come a surprising 30-14 stumble at Central Michigan to set up a must-win home game with Toledo, which was one of three unbeaten Division I-A teams at 9-0. Tyrrell threw for 143 yards, and what he called a “wounded duck” TD to Curt Partridge after hurting his arm, and ran for 47 as the Huskies took a 17-point halftime lead and rolled to a 26-10 victory. With a minute left, some of the 27,700 - the second-largest home crowd in program history - tore down the goalposts.
A week later, the Huskies wrapped up their first MAC title at home by beating Ohio. The goalposts came down for a league-record fifth time as they were headed to their first bowl game since 1965 when they were in the (smaller) NCAA College Division and played in the Mineral Water Bowl.
“In 3 of the 4 games they tore down 5 goalposts,” Tyrrell said. “The fans were going nuts and we’re going to the Cal Bowl. It was a feeling like, ‘What the hell happened.’ We were all stunned.”
More stunning news came when Tyrrell won the MAC’s Jefferson Award as the league’s most outstanding player. He was also second-team all-MAC on offense after accounting for 1,799 yards of total offense (1,260 passing, 539 rushing) and so much more that couldn’t be measured statistically.
“He’s self-deprecating about his passing but he really improved when he was a senior,” said Korcek, who would take over as the school’s SID in 1984 after the legendary Bud Nangle retired. “Tim was the heart and soul of that team. He was special.”
Northern Illinois would play Cal State Fullerton, the champions of the Pacific Coast Athletic Association, in the California Bowl in Fresno on a fledgling four-year-old cable network called ESPN. In the week before the game there were memorable trips to Yosemite and a children’s hospital with cancer patients. Tyrrell delivered a subtle shot at Illinois’ Rose Bowl disaster that would take place a couple of weeks later against UCLA and said Mallory made it clear the purpose of the trip wasn’t just fun in the sun.
The buildup included some banquet smack talk from a Fullerton safety named Mark Pembrook, who would be drafted in the NFL. It also had a dangerous dual-threat quarterback in Damon Allen, whose brother Marcus was one of the greatest running backs in NFL history.
Tyrrell didn’t score but delivered two memorable plays as Northern Illinois capped the California Bowl dream with a 20-13 victory. Wicks earned MVP honors with 119 yards rushing, tailback Darryl Richardson scored a pair of TDs and Scott kicked 2 field goals. In an interesting turn of events, Tyrrell also found himself one-on-one with Pembrook toward the end of a long option run.
Know this about Tyrrell. He was not the type to hand off and get out of the way, slide to avoid contact or duck out of bounds. And don’t forget what Mallory told him a year earlier, even though Suhr had told him it might not be such a bad idea to avoid contact on occasion.
“That switch, I was born with it,” Tyrrell said. “I was fearless. I didn’t care. I loved it and loved that you could knock the piss out of somebody.”
And Tyrrell delivered a message that knocked Pembrook out of the game.
“People tell me all the time, ‘We were at McCabe’s (bar in DeKalb) or wherever and you ran this guy over and we were going nuts,’” Tyrrell said with a laugh.
“It was so cool because Tim broke free running on the right side,” Korcek said. “He got on the outside and in the open and (Pembrook) stood there in a stance like a wrestler’s stance. Tim just ran him over. It just typified his style of play and aggressive play.”
The confidence Mallory had in Tyrrell came with 5:25 to play with Northern Illinois clinging to the 7-point lead and facing a fourth-and-1 at its own 20. Mallory called for a sneak and Tyrrell got the first down behind freshman guard and future NFL lineman Todd Peat, which helped take nearly four more minutes off the clock to thwart any comeback attempt by Fullerton.
Tyrrell was the first player from the ‘83 team that finished 10-2 and ranked 30th in the final Associated Press poll to be inducted into the NIU Hall of Fame. Defensive tackle Scott Kellar (1993), Peat (1996), Mallory (1999), Scott (2002) and defensive coordinator and future head coach Joe Novak (2013) followed. The entire team, which featured 7 NFL draft picks and 19 pro players, was inducted in 1995 in a ceremony Korcek said was the largest with more than 450 attendees.
“I just look back at all the guys and know what it feels like to be on a team like that,” Tyrrell said. “I’ve never been part of a group of guys that was more of a definition of a team than that.”
Something Special in the NFL
Before his senior year at Northern Illinois, a job installing carpet took Tyrrell to work on the house of legendary Bears quarterback Jim McMahon. Tyrrell was “so excited” about the chance to talk to the “Punky QB” and they forged a friendship that continues today. When McMahon read in the paper that Tyrrell won the MAC’s Jefferson Award he called to congratulate him.
Fast forward to 1985 with the Falcons facing the iconic Bears Super Bowl XX team with Tyrrell meeting McMahon on the rock-hard carpet of Soldier Field.
“We’re playing the ‘85 Bears in November and I’m out there for the coin flip,” Tyrrell said. “I start to run to the sideline and McMahon’s yelling, ‘Timmy, Timmy, what are you doing here.’ I talk to kids and tell that story, that I never thought I’d be there two years earlier, and not only that I’m a captain.”
Naturally, the road to the NFL wasn’t an easy one for Tyrrell. He was a territorial pick by Marv Levy’s Chicago Blitz in the USFL but wasn’t taken in the NFL draft. He was signed by the Falcons as a free agent, was the last player cut, but then came back after 5 games and became the special teams captain.
“I like Tim Tyrrell because he’s kind of the symbol of what I like to have on special teams,” Falcons coach Dan Henning said in a column by the Daily Herald’s Mike Imrem. “He is what’s known as an all-out football player. He loves it. He likes to mix it up. He’ll back down to nobody and you need to have that atmosphere on your special teams.”
Tyrrell didn’t care who he might tick off, and that included kicker Kevin Butler and linebacker Ron Rivera during that Bears game in 1985. But he made a big enough impression to finish second in USA TODAY’s voting for the best special teams player behind the Rams’ Ron Brown, who averaged 33 yards on kickoff returns.
“Tim was one in a million. That’s why he was in the NFL,” Ayres said. “He was really a tough kid and tough in the way he just loved contact. When you saw him in the pros you worried about him, but he was exactly what they needed.”
Being a special teams standout and backup running back didn’t come with a lot of job security, however, and Eliasik thinks NFL teams missed out on not using Tyrrell as a defensive back. He was cut, brought back and cut again in November of ‘86 by the Falcons. But he had left an impression when he broke the arm of a player on the Rams while busting up the wedge on a kickoff.
He quickly found himself in Los Angeles and meeting with legendary college and NFL coach John Robinson.
“He said, ‘When we saw you were available we signed you immediately,” Tyrrell said. “‘Tim, we think you’re one of the best special teams players in the league and you're gonna be here to stay so get yourself an apartment.”
Robinson was right as Tyrrell was a first alternate to the Pro Bowl on special teams in 1987 and 1988. He even got some action at running back in ‘87 and rushed for 44 yards on 11 carries and caught 6 passes for 59 yards. Legendary NFL broadcasters like John Madden, Pat Summerall, Joe Theismann, Jack Buck and Hank Stram loved the way he played.
He signed with the Buffalo Bills and Levy in 1989 but was cut since they had special teams standout Steve Tasker. He would finish his 66-game NFL career with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Chuck Noll when his knee locked up once again.
“He’s a great young man and I’ve always always enjoyed him and see him at our games all the time,” Korcek said. “It’s amazing when you see what the average NFL career is. A guy not drafted stays in the league that long and makes all-pro. It’s utterly amazing. It really is.”
Tyrrell’s playing days weren’t quite over, however. In the mid-’90s, Eliasik had a chance to take a spring sabbatical and coach in Germany. The team lost its quarterback so Eliasik was asked if he knew anybody.
“I pick up the phone, call him and say, ‘Would you like to go to Germany and play quarterback,’” Eliasik said. “‘They’ll give you a car, they’ll give you money and you’ll get to see Europe.
“He said, ‘Let me think about it.’ Then he calls back 10 minutes later and says, ‘What’s there to think about?’”
Tyrrell has been in business and sales since his playing days ended and is now semi-retired with his own energy consulting business. He’s still active with retired NFL players and talks often with people like former Bears safety Doug Plank, McMahon and many others.
And there’s no doubt if he could get back out there today, put on the Northern Illinois uniform and get in a few shots at some Salukis, he would without any hesitation.
“I loved everything about it. I love the rush, the camaraderie and the people I got to meet,” Tyrrell said. “Harper is where that feeling started. It’s an unexplainable adrenaline rush you don’t want to end. In the business world you can’t hit any employees.
“The amount of gratitude and humility in my life - whatever I accomplished it was never anything I did. When I went to the pros I didn’t need any more discipline because I knew what it took. That’s what I love about the game. You can’t talk your way into it. It’s not because you know somebody.
“I had such a passion to be the best.”
Hey Mark, great to hear from you and thanks for the kind words! I connected with Tim on Facebook - had talked to him back when Harper tried to dump football in the 90s. It was a lot of fun and he probably only scratched the surface of great and funny stories. His career path is remarkable. How do you guys know each other?
Great story. Good writing. Your friend , Jerry G.