Utah DC Morgan Scalley Reacts To Passing Of Friend, Mentor John Pease
Aug 18, 2021, 1:21 PM
(Photo courtesy of Utah Athletics)
(Photo courtesy of Utah Athletics)
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – Utah football defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley remembered his friend and mentor John Pease who passed away on Monday morning.
John Pease passed away at the age of 77 on Monday morning and it was hard to process for Morgan Scalley and the Utah coaching staff.
“Man that was tough,” Scalley said on Wednesday after practice. “Amazing man. He’s the Utah man. That’s the guy right there. Amazing mentor to me. I take a lot of my coaching style from John. You talk about a player oriented coach. It was all about the player, very humble, never took credit for anything. I love him. I love Chris his wife and his family and just can’t say enough good things about him. I love that dude.”
Utah DC Morgan Scalley talked about the passing of John Pease. #GoUtes pic.twitter.com/MApCyrOLNu
— KSL Sports (@kslsports) August 18, 2021
Pease was the defensive coordinator for the 2015 season as he helped prepare Scalley to take over the position in the 2016 season. Scalley loved how calm Pease was on gameday.
“Just his demeanor and his calm on game day,” Scalley mentioned. “He was a master at just ignoring the big play against you and just the next play mentality. He was just nails up there in the booth. Nothing fazed him and I love that about him, his calm with the players on gameday.”
Scalley found out about Pease’s passing just before practice on Monday.
“It was a tough one,” Scalley said. “I heard it right before practice and you know took some time obviously, you have to focus on the players at that point, but afterwards we spent a lot of time in the defensive staff room just talking about memories. Memories about John Pease. The funny stuff, he was always a guy that provided the laugh. I can remember being on a coach’s retreat at Snowbird, early in the morning at 6am. He’s on the board, writing stuff down and all of a sudden you hear this loud squealing from outside and he stops mid sentence and turns he says ‘well it’s either really, really good or really, really bad.’ He just provided the laughs.”
Trevor Allen is a Utah Utes Insider for sports.ksl.com and host of the Crimson Corner podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @TrevorASports. You can download and listen to the podcast, here.
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