Dick MacPherson slides on his headset. He leans into the microphone placed on the table in front of him. And in his deep, booming voice, MacPherson begins to pontificate about Syracuse football. The team heads into this weekend’s matchup against No. 13 West Virginia with a 1-4 record, and MacPherson discusses how to right the woes of the Orange football program.

It’s been 15 years since the 76-year-old MacPherson last coached a football game. Seventeen years have passed since MacPherson finished up his celebrated tenure as head coach at Syracuse.

Nevertheless, as he bellows into the microphone for his weekly Syracuse football radio show, MacPherson still seems like the prototypical head coach. He’s still loved liked one, too.

MacPherson, or Coach Mac as he’s called by all who know him, coached SU football from 1981-1990. He took the program to heights it had not reached since the late 1950s.

The most memorable season came in 1987, when MacPherson led the Orange to an undefeated 11-0-1 record. That year, MacPherson took home the honor of college football’s Walter Camp Coach of the Year Award. With that, he cemented himself as a Syracuse legend.

On Saturday, Syracuse will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 1987 season at halftime of the West Virginia game at the Carrier Dome.

Now, when MacPherson returns to Syracuse – always during football season – the coach finds he remains a star.

Right now, MacPherson is hosting ‘Mondays with Mac’ at a Red Robin restaurant in Fayetteville. Behind MacPherson’s booth, some Syracuse cheerleaders start a chant of ‘Let’s Go Orange,’ while the SU mascot Otto dances wildly. The veteran coach stays unfazed as he reveals his insight into Orange football.

There’s a reason he looks like a natural.

‘I just answer questions,’ MacPherson said. ‘That’s all. You don’t know what the questions are, you just be prepared that way. It’s nothing I haven’t done before when I was a head coach. You just go with the flow.’

Throughout the hour-long show, MacPherson responds to callers and restaurant patrons alongside his co-hosts, local radio personality Glenn ‘Gomez’ Adams and SU play-by-play announcer Matt Park.

When he’s off the air, MacPherson shows the gregarious personality he was famous for while coaching.

MacPherson signs autographs for fans before the start of the show. After he’s done, MacPherson grabs the hand of Otto the Orange guides him to a table where a family eats dinner, introducing Otto to the family’s youngest daughter.

Following the show’s first commercial break, MacPherson grabs his grandson, Macky, and guides him to a table where another family eats dinner. MacPherson introduces Macky to Gary Gait – the legendary SU lacrosse player and recently hired head coach of the Syracuse women’s lacrosse team.

‘I grew up around here,’ Adams said. ‘And anybody who was around here when he was a coach remembers him. He’s a legend. And people like to hear his voice and see him, and (at Red Robin), you’ve already seen people who want to meet him. He’s a celebrity in this town.’

After taking a long road to the top, MacPherson has earned his celebrity status. He started off playing football at Springfield College (Mass.). He immediately joined the coaching business after graduating. MacPherson floated around the college and pro ranks as an assistant coach for 13 years before receiving his first head coaching job at Massachusetts.

After a successful seven-year stint with the Minutemen, where he went 45-27-1, MacPherson returned to the pros as a linebacker coach for the Cleveland Browns. Two years later, in 1981, he got his first head coaching shot at a Division-I program: Syracuse. And in 1984, MacPherson made his big statement when the SU upset No. 1 Nebraska at the Carrier Dome.

He built on the momentum, bringing in future stars like Ted Gregory, Paul Frase and 1987 Heisman Trophy runner-up Don McPherson.

In Frase’s first recruiting trip to Syracuse, MacPherson sat down the defensive tackle in his office and let him know the Orangemen were destined for greatness.

He asked Frase: ‘Do you want to be a part of something that’s growing?’ Then the coach added, ‘We can take (Syracuse) to the highest point.’

Frase could sense the exhilaration in MacPherson’s voice. Frase was sold on the coach’s emotional pitch.

‘He never held back,’ Frase said. ‘He always said what was on his mind. He always wanted to do what you need to become a winning program.’

With Gregory, Frase and McPherson as captains in 1987, the head coach took Syracuse to its highest point (a No. 4 final national ranking) since the school’s only national championship in 1959. The one blemish on the perfect season came in the postseason against Auburn in the Sugar Bowl.

Syracuse led 16-13 with just seconds remaining. But Auburn had driven to the SU 13-yard line. No overtime existed in college football at that time, and everybody expected Tigers head coach Pat Dye to take one shot toward the endzone for an all-or-nothing gamble. Instead, Dye opted to play it safe. Auburn kicked the tying field goal.

MacPherson and the rest of his team were furious.

‘I wanted to punch him in the face,’ MacPherson said of Dye – they’ve since made up.

The tie did not prevent MacPherson from fortifying his legacy with that season. The success at Syracuse also led MacPherson to his lone failure in the realm of coaching. In 1991, MacPherson left Syracuse to accept the position of head coach with the New England Patriots. He resigned after two seasons and a record 8-24.

His coaching days were over. He retired from football and moved to Maine. Still, MacPherson remained tempted by SU football. When the Syracuse athletic department came calling in 2001, the head coach made a transition into the radio booth as SU’s color announcer. MacPherson never leaves Syracuse anymore during the fall. Part of the reason is the MacPhersons’ two daughters and grandchildren live in Central New York, said Sandra, MacPherson’s wife of 48 years.

Of course, the head coach’s other motive for staying in Syracuse for the fall is football season. MacPherson stays technically retired since all the work he does for the university is done for free.

Sometimes, though, it appeared MacPherson enjoys the team almost too much. MacPherson said he ultimately decided to step down from his announcing position because he would become too riled up on the air.

‘I was scared to death he was going to swear,’ Sandra said.

Now he sticks to doing Syracuse pregame and postgame shows. Yet MacPherson is hardly out of the spotlight at the school. During Syracuse’s season opener against Washington, MacPherson led the team onto the field as an honorary captain in front of a deafening Carrier Dome crowd.

Against the Mountaineers on Saturday, about 40 members of the 1987 team will return to the Dome for the tribute, including Frase and McPherson.

‘To have the chance to be together with these guys again is going to be fantastic,’ MacPherson said.

The coach continues to stick with the current Orange as the program endures its roughest stretch in decades. Syracuse football has floundered since the turn of the millennium.

‘He just suffers for them with both the coaches and the players,’ Sandra said. ‘When things don’t go well, he has a lot of empathy.’

On the Sunday after Syracuse shocked Big East favorite Louisville for the team’s sole win so far this season, MacPherson spoke up at the press conference, giddily claiming his pastor declared that morning that church on Saturday afternoons would be canceled because Syracuse football was back.

‘(Coach Mac’s)just always there,’ said SU head football coach Greg Robinson. ‘Early in the morning as he pops around the building, and he doesn’t know I hear all the time, but I hear him.I think it’s important that he knows that for the last two years, and up to this point this season, we’ve definitely appreciated his support.’

MacPherson keeps the intensity going all the time. Despite almost two decades removed from coaching at Syracuse, MacPherson knows his facts about the school. On a recent broadcast of ‘Mondays with Mac,’ MacPherson mixed it up with a caller who proclaimed Syracuse soon would no longer be capable of recruiting in New York City with the rise the Rutgers football program, Adams said.

MacPherson fired back with a barrage of stats about recruiting in New York State, silencing the caller.

‘We got to the commercial break,’ Adams said. ‘And he took his headphones off and gave me a little wink.’

The coach hasn’t lost it yet. MacPherson does not plan to leave the gig any time soon, either. Perhaps he could still roam the sidelines like legendary coaches Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno. However it seems MacPherson is following in the footsteps of a SU coaching idol from a past generation.

When MacPherson coached Syracuse to glory in the 1980s, former SU coach Ben Schwartzwalder, dressed in orange and blue, observed from the stands. Schwartzwalder took Syracuse to its only national championship, and he also left MacPherson with a favorite piece of advice.

‘Ben Schwartzwalder said it best,’ MacPherson said. ”(Syracuse) is the greatest place to live in the world. Just remember May 1 to Dec. 1 and get the hell out for the winter.’ That’s what Ben told me. He’s right.’

Published on October 3, 2007 at 12:00 pm