by Fred Seely
Editorial Director
The Jacksonville Jaguars coach’s family now has moved 29 times. No. 30 is coming, but where? Don’t know yet, says Linda Del Rio. She’s still looking.
“I have two appointments this afternoon,” she said during a visit at Alltel Stadium midday Wednesday. “I’ve seen a couple of houses that I liked, but there were problems. One would have to almost be gutted. Another, the owner said he’d sell for a half-million more.
“Frustrating, but I’ve been though it.”
Linda, husband Jack and three of their four children now are in a rental house in a Southside development. The fourth is a senior at Louisiana State University.
“Rental house, rental silverware, rental everything,” she said. “Our stuff is in storage in Charlotte. We still haven’t sold our home there.”
She moved from Charlotte — he was an assistant coach there — just three weeks after he signed on here Jan. 17.
“I wanted to get down here, get the kids in school and start meeting people.”
That, she’s done. The children — Hope, 14; Aubrey, 9; and Luke, 8 — are enrolled in a local private school and she’s been on the move.
And she has a major project: organizing the Jaguars wives into a hit-the-floor-running group for community activities, and planning what she calls the “Jaguar Children’s League” for the team youngsters to get involved, too.
“It’s sort of traditional in the National Football League that the coach’s wife heads the wives’ organization,” she said. “Jack and I laugh about it — while he’s spent 17 years making notes on what he would do as a head coach, I’ve spent 17 years making notes on what I’d do with wives.”
For the wives, there will be community activities, charity work and a cookbook, which she hopes to have by Christmas.
They’ll also be there to support each other.
“The husbands are gone a lot,” she said. “I don’t care how much money you make, $10 million or whatever, if you’re in a strange city, sitting in an apartment with a baby, you can be miserable.
“Lots of us went through that. We can help.”
For the children, it will be a chance to get out and meet others.
“We have a young coaching staff, a lot of kids,” she said. “A children’s league would get them out in the community, doing projects and the like.”
Her house-hunting has taken her around town and she likes what she sees.
“We’re boat people,” she said. “He’s from San Francisco, I’m from Louisiana. Lots of water in both places. When we can get away, we have a beach house in Pensacola. Heaven!
“Our dream has been to live in a city with a river. Charlotte, no. Baltimore, great, with the Inner Harbor area. Dallas, a desert. There was water in Minneapolis, but who can get in it . . . too cold! Jacksonville, perfect.”
The 29 moves weren’t always city-to-city, of course. Many were, as she says, “self-inflicted” for family reasons. For instance, when Jack played in Minneapolis, they kept a home in New Orleans and paid year-round tuition there, returning immediately after the football season so the children could get in most of the school year with their friends.
New Orleans has been somewhat of a family base, too. Linda and Jack met there, and she’s from Lafayette, La., and he was highly regarded by the community as a player there.
They almost didn’t meet. By her choice.
“A friend asked me to go out with him and I said, ‘No football players,’ ” said the tall blond. “She said, ‘Aw, just for a pizza.’ And I said, ‘No football players.’ ”
And she said, “He has the prettiest smile.”
So I said, “OK, just a pizza.”
Twenty-nine moves later, they’re still together and are reasonably settled here.
And, they’ve found the price of fame. The arrival of the bright young coach has been trumpeted by the team and the fans — weary of the dour Tom Coughlin, the only coach we ever knew — as an event worthy of loud hosannas, and his smiling face is seen at every turn.
For instance, Jacksonville magazine got on the bandwagon with an interview and two different covers, one in full color (better for sale at the grocery stores) and one in an artsy sepia tone (for subscribers, said Editor Joe White.)
“When he’s working late, I tell the kids, ‘This is our chance to go out and eat and not be interrupted,’” Linda said with a laugh. “We can’t even get a taco at Taco Bell without people knowing him.”
The house hunting continues. If you’re a realtor, pay attention.
“We want to be near the water, and we need a big house because we have kids and they’ll have a lot of friends,” she said. “I don’t like to drive far to work, so I drew a circle with downtown at the center. That circle, for instance, includes Avondale but doesn’t go as far as Ortega.”
No beach. No Marsh Landing, where the Jaguars play?
“Some of the other coaches are out there, but not us,” she said. “The beach isn’t inside my circle.”