Riley to the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame: ‘I’m thrilled about it’

The Rileys at the Alamo in San Antonio. From left, Kate Dillon, Mark Dillon (with Cici in tow), Eli Dillon and Mike Riley (courtesy Riley family)

Updated 9/24/2023 9:20 AM

This fall is going to be an eventful one in the life of Mike Riley.

On Nov. 10 in Corvallis, the former Oregon State football coach will be inducted into the OSU Sports Hall of Fame.

Prior to that comes another honor — membership in the state of Oregon Sports Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony is set for Oct. 3 at Doubletree by Hilton/Lloyd Center in Portland.

Along with Riley in the class of ’23 are former Trail Blazer coach and captain Rick Adelman, ex-Oregon running back LaMichael James, former prep baseball coach Mike Clopton, ex-baseball umpire Dale Scott, former Oregon State athlete Sherry Sevall, golfer Lara Tennant and the baseball Portland Mavericks. Recipient of the Bill Schonely Award for service is ex-Portland State sports information director Larry Sellers.

Attending the ceremony will be a group of Riley’s teammates at Corvallis High and Ad Rutschman, for whom Riley coached for six years at Linfield.

These will be the second and third induction ceremonies for Riley, who became a member of the CFL Winnipeg Blue Bombers Hall of Fame a couple of years ago. Among family members joining him in Portland for the state of Oregon affair will be Mike’s brothers, Ed and Pete; daughter Kate and her husband Mark Dillon; son Matt and grandchildren Eli and CiCi. Dee Riley, Mike’s wife of 43 years, has dementia and will be unable to attend. Also unable to attend is Mike’s mother, Mary Riley, who is 93 and living in Penticton, B.C.

“It is a wonderful honor,” says Riley, 70, whose coaching career spans 48 years. “I’m thrilled about it. I have worked many different places all over the country and even in Canada for awhile, but I have always considered Oregon home. To be selected with this group of inductees — it is really exciting.”

Riley’s career has featured many highlights, including a pair of Grey Cup championships at Winnipeg and a three-year stint as head coach of the San Diego Chargers. But he is most well-known — at least around these parts — for his 14 seasons as head coach at Oregon State, lifting the Beavers from oblivion to respectability in the world of college football.

Riley had moved from Moscow, Idaho, to Corvallis in sixth grade after his father, Bud Riley, was hired by new Oregon State head coach Dee Andros to coach the Beavers’ secondary. Bud coached eight seasons in Corvallis — from 1965-72 under Andros and in 1979 under Craig Fertig — and Mike grew up watching and imitating players his dad coached.

“Having grown up in Corvallis, with my dad coaching with the Beavers, my family was totally invested,” Mike says. “For me to one day follow in Bud’s footsteps and coach at Oregon State was a dream come true. I cherish that time. Those were some of the best times of my coaching career. I’m thankful I got that opportunity.”

Riley is still coaching. He hopes to coach the New Jersey Generals of the USFL for a third season in 2024. He’s a lifer, and what a life it has been.

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Michael Joe Riley’s childhood in Corvallis was idyllic. It revolved around sports.

“That was the focal point of our lives,” Mike says. “We just went from one sport to the next.”

Riley and his junior high friends rode their bicycles across town to the Oregon State campus, where they watched football and basketball practice, played pickup basketball games at the Men’s Gym (when they couldn’t sneak into and play on the floor at Gill Coliseum) and played touch (or tackle) football when the opportunity arose on the grass at Parker Stadium. They had a remarkably organized wiffleball league, played indoor knee football against younger siblings and went with their mothers to meet the football team flying home from road games at the Corvallis Airport.

Those were innocent, more simple times.

At Corvallis High, Riley quarterbacked the Spartans to the state 3A championship game as a junior in Chuck Solberg’s first year as coach, then got revenge on Medford by beating the Black Tornado in the championship game the following season. Riley also played varsity basketball and baseball during a time when Corvallis won state football, basketball and baseball titles within a 15-month period.

“That set the tone for the rest of my life,” Riley says. “Growing up in Corvallis and getting to play on those great teams and with great teammates — playing for Coach Solberg and Coach (Glen) Kinney and Coach (Carl) Hutzler — that made a big impact on me.”

Riley idolized Alabama coach Bear Bryant and his flashy quarterback, Joe Namath, in part because Bud Riley was an Alabama native. Mike accepted a scholarship to play football at Alabama, where his uncle Hayden Riley was assistant athletic director and baseball coach and the former basketball coach. As a reserve defensive back, Riley soaked up all the knowledge he could under the legendary Bryant and was part of four SEC championship teams.

Riley knew before his playing career was over that he wanted to be a coach. Bryant had helped him line up a job as a “grad assistant” under Mike White at the University of California in 1975.

“I left Tuscaloosa and drove to Berkeley,” Riley says with a laugh. “Those are two of the most different places on earth, in every way.”

Riley says he was really an “associate” coach at Cal, because he didn’t take any graduate classes. Riley worked directly under linebackers coach Walt Harris — who would later be head coach at Stanford, Pittsburgh and Pacific — and coached scout-team defense. It was a heralded staff, including Paul Hackett (long-time NFL assistant who was head coach at USC from 1998-2000), Roger Theder and Ron Hudson. The Bears went 8-3, including 6-1 in Pac-8 play, and tied for the conference crown.

“It was a great experience, being around so many good coaches and an excellent program,” Riley says.

To celebrate Christmas together that year, Riley’s family met in Spokane, where younger brother Ed was a senior at Gonzaga Prep. Bud Riley — then head coach of the Blue Bombers — took the occasion to introduce Mike to Hugh Campbell, head coach at Whitworth. After the meeting, Campbell offered Riley a grad assistant position. Riley spent a year coaching the Pirates defensive backs and earned his Masters degree.

Following the season, Campbell left for the CFL and Edmonton, where he would win five straight Grey Cup titles with the Eskimos. Riley hooked on with Rutschman at Linfield for his first real job as the Wildcats’ defense coordinator.

“Might have been the best thing that ever happened to me, getting to work with Ad for six years,” Riley says. “I was very fortunate to have gotten my Masters, because I needed it to get hired at Linfield. They required a Masters for the position, because I was a member of the faculty.”

Riley taught classes in first aid, weight training, conditioning and racquetball. Every hire was expected to coach at least two sports at Linfield, so he served as the head junior varsity baseball coach under Rutschman, who also coached the baseball varsity.

“I had to grade papers, coach the defense, recruit and coach baseball,” Riley says. “That was the busiest I’ve ever been in my life.”

It may also have been the most fulfilling time in Riley’s life, which now included Dee, an Alabama native whom he had met during his college years. Dee moved to McMinnville and they were married in 1980.

“We owned half a duplex, had a garden in our backyard, were young newlyweds just enjoying each other and my time as a coach,” Riley says. “It was a great life.”

During Riley’s time at Linfield, the Wildcats went 52-7-1 overall and 29-2 in Northwest Conference football action, claiming the NAIA Division II championship while going 12-0 in 1982. It was a time for Riley to apprentice under a legend.

“Ad was the consummate teacher,” Riley says. “I’ve always admired that about him.

“All football coaches have plays and defenses and stuff they do. Ad actually taught kids how to play — how to block, how to tackle. He could coach any position on the field technically. I’ve not known many people in my life who could do that. He could talk about offensive line technique or what a cornerback is supposed to do.

“Ad’s formula for teaching and coaching was the key to our success. The focus was never on the opponent. It was on what we needed to do to execute and make this play or this defense work, on teaching guys and getting better. I loved that. I had a ball coaching at Linfield.”

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Riley might have stayed at Linfield forever had the head coaching job been open, but Rutschman stayed on until retiring after the 1991 season. Each summer during his years at Linfield, Riley would attend a CFL camp as a guest coach. Several times, it was with Campbell at Edmonton.

“Hugh was a tremendous influence on me,” Riley says. “I love Hugh. Such a great coach and family man. He has a great understanding of people. It was awesome to work underneath him and watch him operate.”

Cal Murphy had been offensive line coach for Campbell in Edmonton. In 1983, he was named Winnipeg’s head coach and extended Riley the chance to coach the secondary.

“Bud was head coach at Hamilton, and he called me about the same time,” Mike says. “He said, ‘I’m going to offer you a job, but if I were you, I wouldn’t take it.’ He knew he was in a win-or-get-fired situation.”

Indeed, Bud was fired midway through the next season. Mike accepted the job with Winnipeg and served under Murphy for three seasons, helping the Blue Bombers to a Grey Cup crown in 1984.

“Cal was the greatest guy to work for,” Riley says. “Such a good coach, and he knew how to put a CFL team together. There is a limit to how many Americans you can have on a roster, and he was very good at putting that together. He had a lot of foresight. We were the first team to run the 3-4 defense. We had four American linebackers that for years ruled the CFL; they were hell on wheels. We had the best defense in the league.”

After the 1985 season, Riley got restless.

“I had in mind wanting to be a head coach at a Linfield type of place,” he says. He figured a good step toward that would be accepting a defensive coordinator position at Northern Colorado under Ron Simonton.

“We lived right near campus,” Riley says. “I rode my bike to work every day. The program had been really down and Ron was building it up. I had fun coaching there.”

But Winnipeg beckoned, this time offering Riley the head job. The team’s general manager left and Murphy wanted that job along with his coaching duties. The franchise’s board of trustees demanded a separation of responsibilities. Murphy decided to move into the GM role and hire a coach. At 33, Riley was a head coach for the first time, and one of the youngest in CFL history.

“The media was floored,” Riley says with a laugh. He won the Fourth Estate over quickly, as he did the players. The Blue Bombers claimed a pair of Grey Cups, in his second (1988) and fourth (1990) seasons.

“Unbelievable,” Riley says. “I loved Winnipeg. I still have a great relationship with the Bombers. Our (’88 and ’90) teams were inducted into their Hall of Fame last summer. My kids were both born there. Winnipeg was a big part of our lives.”

Successful coaches often move on, though, and in 1991 Riley took the head job with the San Antonio Riders of the brand-new World League.

“I was stepping out on a limb,” Riley says, “but Tom Landry was a part owner. Initially it was scary, but it turned out to be a blast and changed my life in a lot of ways. We fell in love with central Texas and the hill country. It has been a big part of our lives ever since.”

The Rileys initially bought a 100-year-old farmhouse in Spring Ranch north of San Antonio. “We call it the “Riverhouse,” Mike says.

Through that they discovered the town of Gruene, located about 35 miles Northeast of San Antonio along the Guadalupe River. They now own another house in Gruene that they have used as a vacation home through the years.

“We fell in love with the area, with the rivers,” he says. “We found ourselves always coming to Gruene to listen to music or to go to the Gruene Market Days.”

Through the years, Riley has enjoyed watching many musical acts at Gruene Hall.

Singer-songwriter Rascal Martinez with Riley at Gruene Hall (courtesy Riley family)

“They have all sorts of music played in Gruene,” he says. “There are four places that have live music there. If Gruene Hall is sold out, you can go somewhere else.

“The music I listen to is more folk than country. One of my favorite artists to play Gruene Hall is from Portland, Todd Snider. I have Todd Snider Radio on my Pandora. My all-time favorite is John Prine, who always has a moral to the story.”

The Riders went 4-6 the first year, 7-3 in the second. The league then folded. The second year, John Robinson was a TV analyst for WFL games. He became acquainted with Riley. When Robinson was hired as head coach at Southern Cal, he brought along Riley as his offensive coordinator.

Riley had been a high school quarterback, and he called plays during his second season with the Riders. But his career as an assistant coach had been exclusively on the defensive side of the ball.

“I was honest with John about that,” Riley says, chuckling. “But he said, ‘I just want somebody I can get along with.’ We became great friends, and it was great experience for my future.”

The Trojans went to bowl games in three of Riley’s four seasons, beating Northwestern 41-32 in the 1996 Rose Bowl. He learned a lot from Robinson and relished his time there.

“Dee and I were like country bumpkins coming to L.A., but we found a great spot to live and had a great four years there,” Riley says. “I enjoyed being a part of USC football and was impressed with the traditions.

“John was a great people guy. I’ve never been around anybody better talking to a team. He was an advocate for the players, always thinking about what would make their lives better. And he was a good football guy. We had a lot of fun talking football.”

After the 1996 season, Oregon State fired Jerry Pettibone. Athletic director Mitch Barnhart offered the job to Riley. A new era was about to begin.

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Oregon State’s program was in bad shape. The Beavers were on a streak of 26 consecutive losing seasons dating to 1971.

“I’ll say this: It was eye-opening,” Riley says. “At first, it was on the verge of being scary.”

The athletic department was in the process of renovating Valley Football Center, so the football coaches offices were located in Gill Coliseum for the first six months Riley was on the job.

“When I walked in, it felt like hardly anything had changed from when I walked out of my dad’s office in the early ‘70s,” he says. “And it was at a time when things were starting to take off elsewhere. Oregon State was still in the covered wagon and Oregon had gone to the spaceship with facilities and everything.

“Renovating Valley Center was a game-changer for us. We’d take hard hats and show recruits what they could look forward to. That was great for us, great for the players.”

The coaches talked about it as a staff, Riley and offensive coordinator Paul Chryst in particular.

“We said, ‘This is to be considered nothing but a tremendous opportunity for all of us,’ ” Riley says. “Those first two years were really fulfilling. For me it was being home, so it was a labor of love.”

In 1997, the Beavers won non-conference games against North Texas, San Jose State and Utah State and went 0-8 in Pac-12 action, but the seeds for improvement were planted. OSU was 5-6 in 1998, losing a number of close conference games and beating Oregon 44-41 in double overtime in an unforgettable Civil War clash.

And then Riley was gone to San Diego.

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It wasn’t just the five-year, $3.75-million contract that enticed Riley. It was the bright lights of the NFL, the challenge of coaching on the biggest stage.

During his three years with San Diego, the Chargers went 8-8, 1-15 and 5-11, and he was fired with a cumulative 14-34 record. His quarterback crew included Jim Harbaugh, Doug Flutie, a rookie Drew Brees and the volatile Ryan Leaf, whom the Chargers took with the second pick in the 1998 draft. Leaf was a disaster, both on and off the field.

Among other players during the Riley regime were Hall of Famers Junior Seau and LaDainian Tomlinson and All-Pro safety Rodney Harrison.

“I was around some great pros, some great people,” Riley says. “I got to coach with Norv Turner, one of the all-time great people I’ve worked with. It was a great experience that way. I would not have not wanted to do it, but frankly, I didn’t enjoy the job that much. It’s supposed to be the pinnacle of our profession, but for me, it never felt that way.

“First of all, I was ill-prepared to take that job. I had not coached in the NFL. When I took the job in Winnipeg, I knew the league and almost every player. I knew the Canadian game. In San Diego, I had some great and fun moments, but a lot of what you might call learning experiences. I got on a roller coaster and rode it til it crashed.”

With his family back in California, Riley spent the 2002 season as assistant head coach and secondary coach for the New Orleans Saints.

In the meantime, Dennis Erickson had picked up where Riley left off at Oregon State. Erickson used Riley mainstays and some hot recruits to end the program’s 28-year losing streak in 1999, then went 11-1 and thrashed Notre Dame in the 2001 Fiesta Bowl in what many consider the finest season in school history.

But then, after the 2002 campaign, Erickson channeled Riley and headed for the NFL, taking the head job with the San Francisco 49ers. In later years, Erickson said many times that leaving Oregon State was the biggest mistake he made in his career. He didn’t get a second chance. Riley did, retaking the reins in 2003. This time, he stayed 12 years and got the Beavers to bowl games eight times.

“That I got a second chance, to be able to come back and spend many years coaching at Oregon State — that was so fortunate,” Riley says. “It produced some of the greatest memories of my coaching career.

“I try not to have any regrets, but I hated leaving Corvallis. That’s hard to reconcile. I have mixed emotions about it. I’ve thought about that a lot. But I’m extremely grateful and proud of the work we did after I came back.”

Riley had great quarterbacks (Derek Anderson, Matt Moore, Sean Canfield, Sean Mannion) and great running backs (Ken Simonton, Steven Jackson, Yvenson Bernard, Jacquizz Rodgers) and great receivers (Mike Hass, Brandin Cooks, Markus Wheaton, Victor Bolden, James Rodgers, Sammie Stroughter, James Newson). There were great offensive linemen (Andy Levitre, Roy Schuening, Kyle DeVan) and tight ends (Tim Euhus, Joe Newton, Marty Maurer). He had great defenders (Stephen Paea, Jordan Poyer, Inoke Breckterfield, Bill Swancutt, Richard Seigler, Nick Barnett, Sabby Piscitelli) and even one of the greatest placekickers in college football history (Alexis Serna).

Riley did it with scores of two- and three-star recruits. In 2009, Oregon State had seven players drafted — Levitre, Keenan Lewis, Victor Butler, Slade Norris, Brandon Hughes, Stroughter and Al Afalava.

“Not one of those guys was recruited by another school in the conference,” Riley says.

In 2008 and ’09, Oregon State went into the Civil War game needing a victory to get to the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1965. Both times, the Ducks rained on their Rose Bowl parade.

“That was quite a deal for the state at the time,” Riley recalls. “For us to not get there …. It was pretty darn disappointing.”

By the 2014 season, Riley’s shelf life at Oregon State was on the wane. The Beavers went 7-6 in 2013 and 5-7 in 2014, and a portion of Beaver Nation was calling for Riley’s head. Then Nebraska beckoned, and suddenly Riley was calling the shots in Big Red Nation.

It didn’t go quite like Riley had hoped. The Cornhuskers went 6-7 the first season, 9-4 the second season — losing to Tennessee in the Music City Bowl — and 4-8 the last season.

“Lincoln was a college town not unlike Corvallis,” Riley says. “I felt comfortable and at home there, and I enjoyed the work and the people. I didn’t enjoy the outcome.”

Nebraska was in what Riley calls “a weird spot” after leaving the Big Eight “and trying to find a foothold in recruiting in the Big Ten.”

“But I was energized that last year, because we had the makings of the best recruiting class Nebraska would have had in a long time,” Riley says. “Four of the defensive backs we had committed wound up at USC, Oklahoma, Auburn and Clemson. Receivers we had committed went to Ohio State and Texas. Micah Parsons had us on his short list.

“I feel to this day I was a good fit there. With time, we felt confident in what we were doing and where we were headed. I can look back on my time there with a lot of fond memories, and I reaped the benefits of that association.”

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Those with short memories, or who weren’t paying attention, might think Riley’s coaching career ended there. Not even.

Shortly after Jonathan Smith was named head coach at Oregon State in late 2017, he hired Riley as assistant head coach and to coach tight ends. Riley worked through spring practice, but then came another opportunity — to be a head coach with the fledgling Alliance of American Football’s franchise in San Antonio.

“I put that decision off for about four months,” Riley says. “I felt bad leaving Jonathan as he was just getting started. I debated it for the longest time, and I was transparent. Jonathan and I talked about it several times. In the end, I had his blessing, and I’m glad I did it. It was really fun.

“The draw for me at that stage in my life was I could live in Corvallis for part of the year, and live in Texas in our house and be close to Matt, who was living in Austin. That felt good to me. It also gave me a chance to continue in coaching, and the AAF seemed like a good idea. The people involved in the football part of it it were good. It was well-done football wise. We just didn’t realize the league didn’t have the financial backing to survive.”

The AAF season ran from February to April in 2019. There were eight teams stocked with players who were hoping to be candidates for the NFL. The San Antonio Commanders were tied for first place in the Western Conference at 5-3 after eight weeks, but then AAF officials suspended football operations, and the league folded.

“Everything I thought would happen did,” Riley says. “We enjoyed living in the house (in Gruene). It’s unfortunate the league didn’t last.”

In June 2019, Riley accepted a position as offensive coordinator (under head coach Jim Zorn) of the Seattle Dragons of the XFL. Riley went through training camp but then left the team due to the progression of his wife’s condition.

In 2022, Riley was back in the saddle as head coach of New Jersey Generals of the new USFL. The Generals were headquartered in Birmingham and played their home games in Alabama-Birmingham’s new stadium. Led by USFL MVP KaVontae Turpin and quarterback Luis Perez, the Generals finished the regular season a league-best 9-1. Though they were upset in the semifinals of the playoffs, Riley was named the league’s Coach of the Year.

Riley returned to the Generals in 2023, when they were stationed in Canton, Ohio. Without Turpin — now with the Dallas Cowboys — and Perez, they finished 3-7 with a number of close losses, missing the playoffs.

“We were not quite the same team, and the quarterback situation wasn’t as stable,” Riley says. “We never got the camaraderie going with the QBs and receivers like we did the year before.”

The USFL takes up a four-month block for its coaches. That left plenty of time the past two years for Riley to spend time with Matt — who now lives in Albany — Kate and her children.

Mike and Matt Riley relaxing at their vacation home in Gruene, Texas (courtesy Riley family)

“It provides me a chance to continue to coach but also have time to be a granddad and do some things with my wife that are important but different than we ever expected,” he says.

Eli, now a sixth-grader, spent a good portion of last season with the Generals, serving as ballboy on the sidelines and spending time with Grandpa.

“We were roommates for seven weeks,” Riley says. “It was one of the highlights of my coaching career.”

The USFL and XFL are in negotiations for a merger, so the future is up in the air. USFL owners want him back as a coach and he would like for that to happen again in 2024.

“I always tell people it’s day by day for me, but I’m going forward as if I’m returning,” he says. “I plan on returning unless my personal life doesn’t allow it.”

Riley is now living in a condo in downtown Corvallis. Soon he will be a member of two important halls of fame. If only Dee could enjoy it with him.

“There are so many layers to that as far as what we could be sharing right now,” Riley says, taking a deep breath. “I wish we could have been living our old life together right now and she could have shared in going to Birmingham and the USFL.

“When she was well, she was the Hall of Famer in our family. She is the best person I’ve known in my life. She had such a great perspective on life and on football.”

Riley’s voice quivers. He pauses, then continues.

“I remember in Winnipeg in 1989,” he says. “we lost our quarterback and we were awful. I thought I was going to get fired. She had such a great perspective about it. She said, ‘We’ll find our place, wherever it is. We’ll be all right. Our family is healthy.’

“There were so many ups and downs during my career, but she was always the same. She was most of all a great wife and mother, and was willing to do whatever we needed to make our family thrive. She was always front and center, loved meeting the people I worked with. We would have recruiting parties at our house and she was thrilled to host them. It’s really sad for me that she won’t be with us (at the induction ceremonies) and won’t understand all of this.”

Riley has coached for nearly a half-century. He has taught many lessons, and he has learned some, too.

“What I’ve learned more than anything through the years is the importance of relationships,” he says. “It’s fun to look back at victories and championships and bowl games, but the real value is the relationships you make with people.”

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