Ken Dorsey at work on his coaching future

The transition of Ken Dorsey from player to coach was both gradual and inevitable, the prototypical tale of the brainiac quarterback running the game from the sideline instead of the huddle.

Dorsey, a former seventh-round pick of the 49ers and one of college football's most decorated winners at Miami of Florida, retired after spending the 2010 season with the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League.

Now Dorsey is the offensive coordinator of Riverview High in Sarasota, Fla., and is installing an offensive system for first-year head coach Todd Johnson, a former NFL safety. He also is quarterbacks coach at IMG Madden Football Academy in nearby Bradenton, working with athletes as young as 9 years old all the way up to Cam Newton, the No. 1 pick in this year's NFL draft.

"We get kids you are teaching the basics to, all the way up to those who are refining their game," said Dorsey, a Miramonte High graduate.

When pressed, Dorsey acknowledges that he would some day like to be the offensive coordinator at a major college or in the NFL, with his "dream job" returning to the Bay Area to run the offense at Cal.

After that?

"We'll see what happens," Dorsey said.

Dorsey, 30, is still at an age where could be in the prime of a successful NFL career, something he envisioned while leading the Hurricanes to a 38-2 record and victories in the Rose and Sugar bowls as a sophomore and junior.

Drafted in the seventh round by the 49ers in 2003, Dorsey spent three years with a once-proud franchise that was in a down cycle. Then he was traded to the Cleveland Browns for Trent Dilfer, joining a team looking for an identity and some gifted athletes.

The NFL is full of stories of quarterbacks short on arm strength and athleticism who find themselves in the right situation and flourish, most notably New England quarterback Tom Brady. As a sixth-round pick, Brady's reputation wasn't much different from Dorsey's.

Floyd Burnsed, Dorsey's coach at Miramonte, admittedly is biased but wonders how things could have been different with a coach and system like Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots.

"I think he could have been like a Tom Brady in the NFL had he been with the right team," said Burnsed, now the coach at Solano College. "When he was with the Niners, he told me once he got hit 21 straight times -- even when he was handing the ball off. You saw what he could do at Miami when he was surrounded by good players."

In five NFL seasons, Dorsey was 2-11 as a starter and completed 52.5 percent of his passes for 2,082 yards, eight touchdowns and 18 interceptions. His passer rating was 55.2.

So, yes, Dorsey has cast an admiring glance at Brady and the environment that helped make him a three-time Super Bowl champion bound for the Hall of Fame.

"There's a little bit of that ... a small amount," Dorsey said. "But at the same time, I'm proud of what I did. You play the cards you're dealt. No matter what system you're in, no matter the talent around you, you come in, work your butt off every day and you're the one that has to look in the mirror. I feel like I can do that."

Two things happened during Dorsey's professional career that he believes will pay dividends in the long run.

First, he got one season under 49ers offensive coordinator Mike McCarthy in 2005, the year before McCarthy landed the head coaching job in Green Bay and eventually ascended to coach of a Super Bowl champion.

"He's been a huge influence on me, and I know a lot of stuff I learned from him is exactly what I'm going to be teaching to the guys I'm coaching," Dorsey said.

After a difficult time in Cleveland, where Dorsey had little faith in the direction of the organization, he spent a final season in Toronto. He never played a regular-season game for the Argonauts, backing up Cleo Lemon, but he rediscovered his love for football.

"I was in offensive staff meetings, almost a player-coach without the title," Dorsey said. "It really started my transition into being a coach."
Jamie Elizondo, the Toronto quarterbacks coach, said Dorsey helped with running backs as well as the passing game.

"He's got the whole pedigree from who he's been around," Elizondo said. "He's been there and seen it. I joked that he'd be passing me by very quickly. I would expect he's going to have a very fast ascent up the coaching ranks."

Burnsed remembers Dorsey approaching situations like a coach in high school. Confronted with some confusing defensive packages one day by coordinator Paul Yriberri at Miramonte, Dorsey threw three interceptions in practice. He immediately marched Yriberri to the chalkboard after practice for a breakdown.

"I don't think he ever had another problem with the coverage," Burnsed said. "He was a kid that would make mistakes, ask questions to get the right answers and never make the same mistake again."

Burnsed thinks Dorsey's background makes him ideally suited to instruct ultra-talented youngsters on the nuances of the sport. Dorsey, after all, had to rely on fundamentals and study to succeed.

Elizondo thinks that is selling Dorsey short.

"To say he would be good with players with great physical gifts is to undervalue him," Elizondo said. "He's going to be great with whoever he works with."

Dorsey said he has to guard against being impatient with players "who don't put as much time in as I did.

"I had to outthink a defense because if things broke down and it wasn't perfect, I couldn't break off a 15- or 20-yard run," Dorsey said. "It's just not the way I was built. I think that's what coaching is about -- putting guys in the right position to come up with the right play.

"Sometimes the other team is going to have a better call, but I tried to be right more often than I was wrong."


(mercurynews.com)