Kirby Wilson was ready. He believed he'd toiled long enough coaching running backs in the NFL and that the time was right for him to move up, become an offensive coordinator, and call plays at the highest level of the sport.
Then disaster struck. A fire that began Jan. 6, 2012, at his townhouse in Seven Fields left him with burns over nearly 50% of his body and rocked a Steelers team that was heading into the AFC playoffs a few days later.
"It's been 10 years since that moment, and what a tough, difficult time in my life that I might not have ever overcome had it not been for my family, the Steelers organization and Mike Tomlin in particular," Wilson was saying last week. "They were by my side — I can't even begin to tell you. Night, day, 24/7, throughout the entire process."
That allowed Wilson to return to coaching the Steelers running backs as early as the next season and for another year after that, but what happened in the meantime says more about the next step of his coaching journey. About six months after announcing his retirement from the NFL, Wilson is already back, and he'll be the head coach of the Pittsburgh Maulers in the new USFL, a spring league set to begin in April with all games held in Birmingham, Ala.
After 23 seasons as an NFL running backs coach with eight teams and 36 years overall in the profession, Wilson finally has the kind of gig he always worked toward. He'll call the plays on offense, too, a responsibility that eluded him in 2012 when the Steelers moved on from Bruce Arians as offensive coordinator. Todd Haley was hired instead, and Tomlin told the Post-Gazette early last year that Wilson would've been in the running.
"Timing is everything, and it didn't catch me," said Wilson, now 60. "I didn't strike the lightning in the bottle for that opportunity. That's something that always set in my mind because that's always been my dream job, city, all of those things mixed into one. So when it didn't happen, of course you go through a lot of emotions, internally. 'What if?' 'I wonder why?' And you just move on from that. Because, eventually, everything happens for a reason. My whole life has been overcoming adversity and obstacles and that was just another challenge to overcome."
It was widely believed at the time of his accident that if the Steelers were to promote someone on staff to replace Arians, Wilson was the top candidate. He was an original member of Tomlin's staff and he developed a certain reputation in the locker room.
Former Steelers ball-carrier Isaac Redman, an undrafted underdog who became one of the team's success stories under Wilson, remembers his position coach as the hardest worker in the building. As far as Redman knew, Wilson would arrive between 4 and 5 a.m. each day, but he was still the last coach to leave. So when Redman returned to Pittsburgh for offseason workouts ahead of the 2012 season, he was surprised by what he saw — but probably shouldn't have been.
"I wanted to see who was going to be in the running backs room, what coach was going to be there, and he was in the office, sitting there at his desk," Redman recalled. "I said, 'Yo, what are you doing here?' And he said, 'Man, they can't hold me down.'"
And Wilson couldn't hold himself out of football. He spent the two seasons before this one as running backs coach for the Raiders, then sat out the 2021 campaign. But when the USFL sprung up to fill the springtime football void, a few people — especially former Steelers executive Doug Whaley — were instrumental in getting Wilson to enter the mix.
Among the eight head coaches for this new iteration of the league — including Haley, coincidentally, for the Tampa Bay Bandits — Wilson is the only first-timer. That's not lost on him, and neither is the fact that the franchise he's leading is from the same city as where he spent more time than anywhere else in his NFL tenure, a fitting reboot of the team that brandished the Maulers name and logo in the 1984 version of the USFL.
"It's the best football city in America, bar none," said Wilson, whose family still lives in the North Hills area. "I've been in a bunch of them, and it's not even close."
At this point, Wilson has turned his focus to building his playbook and preparing for the USFL draft Feb. 22. There's a large player pool that's bolstered by an eligibility requirement of being just two years removed from high school to participate in the league, and Wilson promises that he wants players who are "on the way up, not on the way down."
He's also put together a coaching staff with some local connections. His defensive coordinator will be Jarren Horton, whose father is Ray Horton, Steelers secondary coach for Wilson's first four seasons in Pittsburgh. Horton spent the last three years coaching college ball at Connecticut. The offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach is John Tomlinson, who most recently held the same role at Juniata College in central Pennsylvania, and the special teams coordinator is Marc Hull, who joins Wilson after seven seasons at Slippery Rock.
"I already know he's more than equipped to handle this," Tomlinson said of Wilson. "Everyone in this profession needs that mentor, and he's definitely been that from the standpoint of X's and O's and preparation."
All three of Wilson's coordinators are Black, which isn't something that he jumps to point out. But in light of questions about the NFL's efforts when it comes to improving the process for interviewing minority candidates for head coaching jobs, Wilson — who said he's had three offensive coordinator interviews over his career but hasn't had a chance to dive into the Brian Flores lawsuit — has a staff that's thrilled to take this leap of faith with him.
"It is tough to watch some of the things [in the NFL]," said Tomlinson, who has held several pro coaching internships with Wilson and others since 2010. "Because I've had a chance to meet some of these coaches you hope get opportunities to interview over the years, and sat in rooms with these guys. ... When you get a chance to meet those coaches and know that sometimes they get slighted, it does feel good to have an opportunity."
That's what it's all about for Wilson, who joked that he'd love to see support for the league from his former players but isn't expecting to reunite with Le'Veon Bell or Antonio Brown ... or lure Ben Roethlisberger out of retirement.
Asked if his goal is for this foray back into coaching to lead him into the NFL again, Wilson calls himself "a short-term dreamer" who's just taking it day by day. Most of all, he's just happy to be a Mauler and wants to win a championship — because that's what Pittsburgh teams always strive to do.
"Pittsburgh is an unforgiving city, now; you better take care of business," Wilson said with a laugh. "I plan to do my part, the Maulers plan to do our part. We're going to make you guys proud, and we want to be the greatest spring football league there's ever been."
