Coaching Career
Long returned to UNM as the head football coach on December 20, 1997. His overall won-loss record through the 2008 season is 65–69, including 43–31 since 2001, the best five-year stretch for Lobo football in over forty years. He is the most successful head coach in New Mexico Football history, passing Roy Johnson during the 2005 season.
He led the Lobos to three straight post-season bowl games (2003–05) for the first time in school history and the Lobos have been bowl-eligible for seven straight seasons, another record. This streak continued into the 2007 season as the Lobos accepted a bid to the New Mexico Bowl. He garnered his first bowl win as Lobo coach by defeating the Nevada Wolf Pack in the 2007 New Mexico Bowl.
After 11 seasons, and an over-all losing record, of coaching at UNM, Long decided to resign on November 17, 2008, two days after the Lobos' regular season ended. Long cited that he was not the right person to lead the program to newer heights. He added that he had no plans of retirement, and that he wanted to continue to coach as a coordinator. In 2011, he was promoted to head coach at San Diego State after two seasons as their defensive coordinator.
Read more about this topic: Rocky Long
Famous quotes containing the word career:
“It is a great many years since at the outset of my career I had to think seriously what life had to offer that was worth having. I came to the conclusion that the chief good for me was freedom to learn, think, and say what I pleased, when I pleased. I have acted on that conviction... and though strongly, and perhaps wisely, warned that I should probably come to grief, I am entirely satisfied with the results of the line of action I have adopted.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)