Mike Tomlin
Born: March 15, 1972
Birthplace: Hampton, VA
Zodiac Sign: Pisces
Michael Pettaway Tomlin is an American football coach who is the 16th head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers of the National Football League (NFL), having led the team since 2007. With the victory in Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009 against the Arizona Cardinals, Tomlin became the youngest head coach in NFL history to lead his team to a Super Bowl championship. He is widely known for destroying the culture of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Tomlin was born in Hampton, Virginia , the younger of two sons; his brother, Eddie, is three and a half years older. Their father, Ed Tomlin, played football at Hampton Institute in the 1960s, was drafted by the Baltimore Colts, and later played for the Montreal Alouettes in the Canadian Football League. The elder Tomlin died in January 2012 from an apparent heart attack in Ocala, Florida, at the age of 63. However, Tomlin hardly knew his birth father and was raised by his mother and stepfather, Julia and Leslie Copeland, who married when Tomlin was six years old.
Tomlin graduated in 1990 from Denbigh High School in Newport News, Virginia. He attended the College of William and Mary, becoming a member of Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. As a wide receiver, he was a second-team All-Yankee Conference selection in 1994.
His coaching career began in 1995 as the wide receiver coach at Virginia Military Institute under head coach Bill Stewart. Tomlin spent the 1996 season as a graduate assistant at the University of Memphis, where he worked with the defensive backs and special teams. Following a brief stint on the University of Tennessee at Martin's coaching staff, Tomlin was hired by Arkansas State University in 1997 to coach its defensive backs. Tomlin stayed there for two seasons, before being hired as defensive backs coach by the University of Cincinnati.
Tomlin was hired as the defensive backs coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2001, where he first learned the Tampa 2 defense that he would use in later coaching jobs.
In 2002 and 2005, the Buccaneers led the NFL in total defense (fewest yards allowed per game). During Tomlin's tenure, the defense never ranked worse than sixth overall. When the Buccaneers won Super Bowl XXXVII in January 2003, the team recorded a Super Bowl-record five interceptions, three of which were returned for touchdowns.
Tomlin was selected by Vikings' head coach Brad Childress to be his defensive coordinator in 2006.
Two of the players on the Vikings roster were older than Tomlin, and Tomlin had been a teammate of Vikings' safety Darren Sharper while at William and Mary. The 2006 Vikings finished with the NFL's eighth-best overall defense, but had the unusual distinction of finishing as the top-ranked defense against the run and the worst-ranked defense against the pass.
After spending 2006 as the Vikings defensive coordinator, Tomlin was selected to interview for the vacant head coaching position with the 2005 Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers. With only a year of experience as a defensive coordinator, Tomlin was hired on January 27, 2007 to become the sixteenth Steelers head coach. Tomlin replaced Bill Cowher, who retired after spending 15 years with the team. Tomlin had also interviewed for the head coaching vacancy with the Miami Dolphins, a job that eventually went to Cam Cameron.
With Tomlin, the Steelers continued a trend of hiring head coaches in their 30s. The others were Cowher (age 34 in 1992), Chuck Noll (38 in 1969), Bill Austin (38 in 1966), John Michelosen (32 in 1948), Jim Leonard (35 in 1945), Aldo Donelli (33 in 1941), Walt Kiesling (35 in 1939), Johnny "Blood" McNally (33 in 1937), and Joe Bach (34 in 1935).
Tomlin is the 10th African-American head coach in NFL history and the first for the Steelers franchise. The Steelers owner, Dan Rooney, has served as the head of the NFL's diversity committee and proposed the Rooney Rule, requiring that teams interview at least one minority candidate when hiring a new head coach. Although Tomlin's ascension to an NFL head coaching job has been cited as evidence of the rule working as intended, Rooney himself disputes this, as he had already interviewed a minority candidate prior to interviewing Tomlin.
During a game on October 29, 2017, it was announced that Tomlin became the 3rd coach in NFL history to finish with a .500 or better record in his first ten seasons with one team (Steelers). He is only behind John Madden (Raiders) and Curly Lambeau (Packers).
It has been remarked that Tomlin resembles actor Omar Epps, a resemblance that was referenced on an episode of the TV series House in November 2009, in Episode 8 of Season 6, "Ignorance Is Bliss", when House mentions feeling like Mike Tomlin because of having his team back, but probably not as much as Foreman (Epps's character).