It was a full-circle moment for Ray Horton when he was offered the head coaching job for the Maulers back in January.
He was originally drafted by the Los Angeles Express back in 1983 during the USFL draft. Horton was picked by the Cincinnati Bengals in the NFL draft just three months later and decided to go that route instead.
He was at the Rose Bowl game when the president of the USFL, Daryl Johnston, asked if Horton wanted to make the return to coaching.
The Maulers play in Canton, Ohio, which is in the center of a triangle of teams Horton used to work for — Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Cincinnati — so location helped.
His former teammate offering him a chance to coach with his son was what sealed the deal.
“It was kind of a hard decision but an easy one at the same time,” Horton said. “It was hard because I was enjoying what I was doing. And it was easy because my son’s here and he’s the defensive coordinator.”
Horton jokes that coaching alongside Jarren Horton was the only way he was going to give up his days of golfing in Phoenix.
“I think it’s a special thing to go back to a little bit of childhood, spending some more time with him,” Ray said. “It’s the moments I get to spend with them. You can’t get those back because now he’s grown. He has his own kids. I’m stealing moments of the past.”
Jarren doesn’t really remember much of his father’s playing career, having been born at the end of it. Ray played for the Bengals for five years and then the Dallas Cowboys from 1989-92 before moving to coaching.
Ray then moved to coaching defensive backs and eventually became a defensive coordinator during his 25-year coaching career in the NFL. Six years of that was spent with the Steelers, where Jarren really fell in love with the sport.
He served as the team’s ball boy at the age of 11.
Jarren was always around the facility. He’d sit in on meetings, hang out in the locker room and simply be around everything football. It was a chance he relished as a kid and shaped his coaching today.
He watched his father interact with players. He learned from Steelers coaches Dick LeBeau and Mike Tomlin. Just by being around the team, he started to understand how to coach a team.
“When I was in Pittsburgh as a ball boy, I knew I wanted to one day be the coordinator; he’d be the head coach,” Jarren said. “I don’t know that I manifested it, but it’s definitely been a dream of mine growing up.”
The father-son duo were able to coach briefly together in 2016 when Ray was serving as the defensive coordinator for the Browns. Jarren was a quality control assistant coach.
Now, he has a lot more power as the defensive coordinator for the Maulers at just 31.
“It’s a sense of pride,” Ray said. “I’ve said this a number of times: He’s 31. I couldn’t do what he was doing at his age. I was still playing. His knowledge is so much further than I was at the same time. So is he a better coach than I was at that time? Yeah. One, I wasn’t coaching, but it took me a long time to get where he’s at right now. He’s much further ahead than I ever was as a coach.”
Ray likened coaching alongside Jarren to the bond many fathers and sons have within sports — the Earnhardts in NASCAR, the Griffeys in MLB, the Belichicks in the NFL, eventually the Jameses in the NBA and the Hortons in the USFL.
And with the league only making its resurgence a year ago, it’s an opportunity to have their fingerprints on a program.
“It’s great to kind of talk with him outside of the building about what we want to do as far as this team,” Jarren said, “where we want to take the team, what we want to do on offense, defense and special teams and how we want to look and make the team what we want it to be.”
They sometimes have little disagreements like any coach would have with a coordinator.
Jarren had to show Ray the ropes a little bit with the USFL being so new. It has some similarities to college football and the NFL, but it’s also very unique.
“He’s a coach first, if that makes sense,” Ray said. “I treat him like a coach and I value his opinion. We have arguments and they’re always well thought out on both sides. And mine is more of a big picture and his is more of a micro.”
Jarren still calls Ray “dad.” He said it’d feel weird to call him “coach.”
Ray doesn’t care what Jarren calls him. He’s just happy for the moments he gets to spend with his son.
“It’s been a blessing for me to be with him personally but then also to watch him coach on the field,” Ray said, “to see how mature and how good of a coach he is. Knowing that this kid grew up from a little kid always around football and now, it’s cool watching. It’s like a butterfly out of the cocoon. He’s sprouted wings. And he’s a good coach.”
Abby Schnable: aschnable@post-gazette.com and Twitter @AbbySchnable
First Published: May 18, 2023, 4:31 p.m.
