Names matter to Jonathan Gannon. The Eagles defensive coordinator wants to know the names of his co-workers — from the analytics department to the video staff to the cafeteria attendants. When garbage is collected from his office three times a day, it’s not “Hey, bro.” It’s Troy.
Gannon goes as far as to study headshots of the staff to match faces and names, a trick he learned from Emmitt Thomas in Atlanta when Gannon started in the NFL. But the emphasis on calling everyone by their name is a characteristic Gannon valued before he ever envisioned coaching the Eagles defense.
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His father, James Gannon, didn’t work in football. He painted and wallpapered houses. He taught his son when he shakes someone’s hand, listen to the person’s name and take the time to remember it. “It’s not that hard, Jonathan,” Gannon still remembers him saying. More importantly, it’s the right thing to do — the type of small gesture to show you care.
As a teenager playing point guard at Saint Ignatius in Cleveland, Gannon marveled teammates with his recall. There aren’t many 17-year-olds addressing a referee by name before a side-inbounds play.
“When you meet Jonathan Gannon,” said Brian Becker, his high school basketball coach, “you always remember meeting him.”
Gannon, 38, entered coaching after a devastating hip injury during his freshman year of football at Louisville. The facts are true, but there’s a simplistic nature to the narrative that makes it seem as if Gannon’s qualification for coaching was that he could no longer play. The truth is the qualities and the values that made Gannon a sought-after coordinator candidate in January were fermenting before a surgeon told him he would never play football again.
“No one’s surprised by his success,” said Pat Massey, his high school teammate who went on to play football at Michigan. “We saw the qualities from a young age. It was more, how is that going to manifest?”
If you played CYO sports or AAU basketball in the Cleveland area in the 1990s, Gannon probably knew you. He was always the one organizing teams, trying to learn who would play for Saint Ignatius. There are parts of Gannon’s story that he’ll downplay or defer to the characterizations of others. There’s one attribute that he won’t be too coy to acknowledge. Gannon realized from a young age that he possessed leadership qualities.
“Probably when I was in grade school,” Gannon said. “I feel like I have the ability to influence people.”
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He had certain core values that translated to team sports. He placed a premium on how to treat teammates, how to speak to teammates, how to act in practice, how to respond after good or bad games.
“I cannot imagine (Gannon) not being part of a team in some capacity — a player, a coach, an athletic director,” Massey said. “He has so much knowledge, so much passion, such a leader.”
“I love being part of a team,” Gannon said. “If you say you’re a team guy, your actions will show it.”
He recites concepts that apply whether playing against Cleveland Heights or the Cleveland Browns — do your job so your teammate can have success doing his. Darius Slay must play a perimeter screen a certain way to allow Avonte Maddox to make the tackle.
Gannon remains an avid reader of books on leadership, team dynamics and social dynamics, trying to refine the ability to influence others. But part of it might simply be his nature.
“He just brought people together,” said Ryan Franzinger, his high school football teammate who went on to play at Ohio State. “He was approachable, he cared about you. That was the biggest thing that stood out — this is a guy that cares about you, no matter my status on the team.”
During Gannon’s sophomore year, his coaches told him he had a shot at reaching the NFL but he wouldn’t play in the NBA. That prompted him to run track in the spring instead of playing AAU basketball.
Gannon quickly admits he was not the best player on his teams. This says more about his teams than Gannon, considering Gannon is in the school’s athletic Hall of Fame and received multiple scholarship offers in football and basketball. But Lloyd Carr and Phil Fulmer visited to watch his teammates. Yet Gannon was viewed as the leader.
“Those were the types of guys looking up to Jon because of the way he approached every day,” Becker said. “I would bet a thousand bucks right now that he’s the most organized guy coming into practice, the most prepared guy coming into practice. That’s how he is. That’s the way he does things.”
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Part of it comes from his father, who died in 2009 at age 58 when Gannon was age 26. He preached two principles above all: Treat people the right way and try your hardest. Gannon had friends and teammates with older brothers and parents who cast undue pressure, whether it was influence or expectations. Gannon did not experience helicopter parenting. His father would pick him up from practice after youth sports and ask if he listened to coaches, if he was a good teammate, if he tried his best. Short of offending those sensibilities, his father remained calm.
Gannon has an expression he uses with his players: “Calm is contagious.” That’s an attribute he believes comes from his father, although “calm” should not be misinterpreted.
“By no means is Jonathan Gannon a chill guy,” Massey said. “He is focused. But always in control.”
The sense of control came through in a moment that’s become associated with Gannon. He was fouled in the final seconds of the state championship game with Saint Ignatius leading by one point. “Don’t screw it up,” one of his teammates said on the bench to break the ice. Gannon, who did not excel as a free-throw shooter, sank both free throws to cement the first state championship in school history.
“The moment embodied everything I talk about,” Massey said. “It was him out there and nobody else, him icing those free throws, all that pressure, being the leader of the team, all eyeballs on him, to seal the state championship.”
“Just stepped up there, took a deep breath and shot it,” said Gannon, who downplayed the significance of the free throws. “You don’t think about the consequences. You just think about the process.”
If that sounds like coachspeak, it might be because Becker considered Gannon his “right hand” on the court. Becker was the head coach for 28 years and had enough players become head coaches who possessed those qualities from the time they were teenagers. “You can spot those guys right away,” he said.
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However, it was not a topic of conversation 20 years ago for one particular reason.
“If we had mentioned (coaching) to him, he would have been upset with us for thinking that he wouldn’t be an NFL player,” Franzinger said. “But his skills and his gifts fit that profession. Looking back now, there’s no surprise.”
Gannon asked the question to his surgeon awaiting a standard answer: “When am I going to be back?”
“I don’t know if you’re ever going to play again,” the doctor responded.
Gannon, a defensive back, had earned a growing role by the time Louisville played a nationally televised game against Cincinnati in November 2002. He dropped into coverage on a third down and rubbed shoulders with another player — that was the extent of the contact — when his body collapsed with the type of injury often reserved for trauma specialists. There was a posterior dislocation of his hip and his femur went through the hip socket.
Gannon was startled in the hospital room. He reasoned that Bo Jackson returned from a dislocated hip.
“This injury, when I do this surgery, it’s (from) car wrecks,” the doctor told Gannon.
The plan was for Gannon to sit out the next season and try to play the following spring, which would have been about 16 months after the injury. Bobby Petrino, who was in his first year at Louisville, allowed Gannon to wear a headset throughout his sophomore year. Gannon grew his hair out, vowing that he wouldn’t return to his close crop until he played again. His hair flowed near his shoulders. By the spring, Gannon still struggled walking.
“It was devastating,” said Antoine Harris, who played safety at Louisville and in the NFL. “Coming in, he had a nice little buzz behind him, but then once he got out there and he started practicing with us, you could see that he was a little different. There weren’t very many white DBs around, and (there was) Jason Sehorn … so we used to call him that because … he had game.”
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Gannon thought he would be Eric Weddle before anyone knew Eric Weddle. His goal had been clear: Play 10 years in the NFL, gain financial freedom and then return to Saint Ignatius to coach high school football. But he was never going to play football again.
“I’m done,” Gannon said in a phone call to his father.
“Can you still breathe?” his father responded. “It’s not the worst thing in the world. Go figure something else out.”
Gannon still had two more years before he graduated. Petrino asked him if he ever thought about coaching. Gannon revealed the initial plan of a decade in the NFL.
“You’re not going to do that anymore,” Petrino told him. “Why don’t you start student assisting, graduate, and if you’re good enough, I’ll hire you as the defensive (graduate assistant).”
Gannon quickly realized he enjoyed coaching — and he was good at it. The same qualities that made him effective as a leader as a player applied in his new role. “His mindset never really changed,” Harris said. “He always focused on getting better and getting the guys around him better.”
Louisville kept winning, and Petrino was hired by the Falcons in 2007. He brought Gannon with him as a quality control coach. Gannon was 24 and coaching in the NFL. He learned from Thomas and Mike Zimmer. But Michael Vick went to prison, Petrino resigned after 13 games to go to Arkansas and the coaching staff was fired.
Before the year in Atlanta, Gannon figured he would ascend the college coaching ladder. Even during a miserable Falcons season, the NFL was intoxicating. Gannon didn’t want to leave. Petrino discussed bringing Gannon to Arkansas, where he could be a 25-year-old coach in the SEC, and warned that Gannon hadn’t yet built a network in the NFL. Thomas told him if he just wanted to coach, go to Arkansas. But if he wanted to coach in the NFL, stay in the NFL.
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Gannon eventually landed a job in the Rams’ scouting department and spent three years there evaluating talent — a period he considers instrumental in his understanding of personnel — before joining the Titans’ coaching staff in 2012. He has climbed the ladder ever since.
He thought he would be coaching on Friday nights in Cleveland by this age. Instead, he’ll be in charge of the Eagles defense on Sunday.
“If I don’t get hurt, I’m not coaching in the NFL at 24,” Gannon said. “I think everything happens for a reason. You’ve got to trust that even if you don’t know the reasons at the time.”
Gannon was the type of high school student who didn’t need to seek out extracurriculars. You wouldn’t have rolled your eyes when he shared ambitions about a college scholarship or even becoming a professional athlete. One Friday while Gannon walked through the courtyard during his sophomore year, the president of the school stopped him.
“Jonathan, what are you doing for this school?” he asked.
Gannon figured his participation in athletics sufficed. He spent two hours after school at practice, then lifted weights and needed to finish three hours of homework after dinner. Wasn’t translating “The Odyssey” enough?
“What free time do you have?” the president asked.
“Not a lot, Father,” Gannon replied, before mentioning he had a small break in his schedule Saturday mornings.
One week later, the president came with an offer.
“I found something you can do on a Saturday morning: The chess club meets every Saturday morning at 7 a.m.,” he said. “You’re a little late joining, but you can join the chess club.”
Gannon showed up the next Saturday prepared to play chess. It didn’t matter that his new colleagues might have looked at him the way he looked at Saint Ignatius football stars LeCharles Bentley or Dave Ragone in the hallways. He was invested. When he reviews his high school yearbook, Gannon sees chess along with varsity basketball and varsity football.
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“I’m kind of proud of that,” Gannon said. “I know you play all these sports, but what else? How can you add value?”
There could probably be a coaching parallel to becoming versatile and finding ways to help the team. But this also went beyond coaching. Gannon had a strength coach who once told him to write down 100 goals. It’s a list he still keeps and he’s exceeded 50 percent of the original goals. Some were unattainable because they involved playing football. He needed to adjust, to find joy where he didn’t expect. Just like joining the chess club.
The same coach once scolded Gannon when he wore a tinted visor on his helmet during his senior year upon being voted captain. “Everything you’ve done to get where you are right now has been about other people, and now you want to single yourself out and look different?” the coach said.
“That brought me back down, chill out a little bit,” Gannon said.
Nonetheless, Gannon’s teammates knew him for his sense of style. He cut his jersey to look like Charles Woodson and wore Woodson’s No. 2. His black cleats always shined. His wristbands needed to be arranged just right.
“He has a little flash to him,” Massey said. “That was kind of a differentiator. Part of him was blue collar … no one was going to outwork him, but he has a certain style. … Always makes sure he’s looking good.”
The precise nature even extends to his name. He goes by Jonathan or “JG” — he joked in his initial press conference that his wife might not like it if he’s called “Jon.” Some of his old teammates can understand.
“He was too swaggy to just be ‘Jon,’” Harris said.
The distinction should matter. When it comes to Jonathan Gannon, you always remember the name.
(Top photo: Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)
