GULF SHORES, Ala. — Former college football coach and longtime ESPN college football analyst Mike Gottfried was in Gulf Shores Monday as guest speaker for the 2009 kick-off meeting of the Gulf Coast Athletic Club at Craft Farms.

Gottfried did his weekly radio show from a room inside the Craft Farms Clubhouse, before coming out to entertain the GCAC members with his preseason football analysis and stories of his work with ESPN.

“I got fired from my last coaching job in 1989 and got hired by ESPN, but I never wanted to be the story,” Gottfried said. “One thing I have noticed on ESPN and FOX with all these announcers is that sometimes you have to realize they have connections with some coaches, and they are trying to build some up and they are trying to tear some down. Some of them actually have an agenda. Not all of them, but some of them do.”

Gottfried said he never wanted to be classified as that kind of guy, but wanted to have a good relationship with all of the coaches and schools.

Gottfried brought the house down with the story of a game he did years ago after Arkansas had fired Coach Danny Ford, and Jack Crowe was the interim coach.

The Razorbacks were scheduled to play Texas A&M the next week.

“I flew into Texas and was watching A&M practice, and noticed that their defense was practicing to defend the Wishbone offense. I knew that Arkansas was a drop-back passing team, and figured they were just practicing for another team later in the schedule,” Gottfried recalled.

The next afternoon, Arkansas flew in and the ESPN crew met with the coaches.

“Jack Crowe walked over and asked if he could talk to me alone,” Gottfried said.

Gottfried then said Crowe told him not to tell anyone, but they “had decided to run the Wishbone against Texas A&M.”

“I was thinking to myself that I couldn’t say anything to him, but that he was going to get drilled,” Gottfried said. “Texas A&M won that game 58-0.”

He included stories of Alabama and Auburn, including the time former Alabama head coach Gene Stallings went off on him because fellow ESPN announcer and former coach Lee Corso, who had a deplorable record as a college coach, made the statement that Alabama couldn’t beat a high school team. Gottfried also laughed about the time that his wife had packed his clothes for him before an Iron Bowl game and how he was verbally attacked by Auburn fans as he walked across campus.

“I was trying to think, ‘What did I say that would have the Auburn people so upset with me?’ Then a fellow announcer told me that it was probably the red sweater I was wearing,” he said.

On a more serious note, Gottfried talked about Team Focus, a cost free community outreach program, that he and his wife Mickey founded in 2000, aimed at young men without fathers.

The goal of the program is to give opportunities for all team members to be motivated, encouraged and challenged. Gottfried felt drawn to start Team Focus because he lost his father at age 11, giving him firsthand experience understanding the difficulty and hardships young men without fathers face

As an NCAA Division I coach from 1978 until 1989 at Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Kansas and Murray State, Gottfried had a 75-56-4 record. While at Pittsburgh, he coached two bowl games and had an opportunity to coach Heisman candidate “Ironhead” Craig Heyward.

The GCAC meets twice per month during football season and monthly six other times during the year. The club also hosts an annual December golf tourney. Over the past 10 years, the GCAC has raised more than $120,000 to buy equipment for the Gulf Shores High School football programs and sponsor scholarships for Foley and Gulf Shores high school students.