2012-GameRelease-Divisional

But he eagerly left coaching when he had the chance. He got a job selling medical supplies for Thera-
Kinetics, which quickly had him in a two-story house on two acres overlooking a lake in North Carolina.
FOUR JOBS AT ONE TIME
Money couldn't make an unexpectedly powerful pull inside him disappear, however. Whatever satisfaction
he found in selling Pulsed-Galvanic stimulators paled in comparison to the camaraderie he'd felt in
football.
With Julie's blessing, they left the good life after their honeymoon and, as Tomsula puts it, took up
residence in a “questionable apartment” in Charleston, S.C., in 1992.
Tomsula's job as an assistant coach at Charleston Southern University was also less than extravagant.
His office was a dorm room, the practice field was a grassy area of the quad and his salary was $9,100,
which presented a problem.
“Once we paid the car payment and the rent,” Tomsula said, “we were out of money.”
Tomsula responded by collecting various job titles. He had no choice. Britney, now 18, and Brooke, 16,
were born during their three years in Charleston and Julie stayed home to care for them (their son, Bear,
is 3).
At one point, Tomsula had four jobs: football coach, janitor at an insurance agency, newspaper deliverer
for The Charleston Post and Courier and, finally, he cut firewood, earning $55 for every third truckload.
His schedule was seemingly impossible to maintain: running a chainsaw late into the night, picking up
newspapers at the Piggly-Wiggly at 3:30 a.m., scrubbing toilets and vacuuming after throwing his last
Post and Courier, coaching football, running a chainsaw ...
It was a struggle with a smile. He was coaching football, man.
“I was just so excited,” he said. “A bill came and you had to pay it. I never saw it as working. I saw it as a
living.”
‘HE WAS DYING A SLOW DEATH'
But Tomsula's dad wasn't so thrilled with his son's paycheck-to-paycheck existence. He urged him to get
out of coaching — a hobby, in his mind — and properly provide for his family.
The words weighed heavily on Tomsula, whose devotion to his wife and children has always
overwhelmed his love of football. During his nine-year stint in NFL Europe, Tomsula twice turned down
promotions with life-altering raises because Britney and Brooke, both younger than 10, didn't want to stop
spending half the year overseas. Tomsula's motto: If it's not good for one of us, it's not good for none of
us.
He eventually agreed with his dad — his coaching lifestyle wasn't good for his family. He left Charleston
Southern, moved his family to Pennsylvania and began working as a sales rep for Cisco Foods.
He was a natural. His family settled into a white-picket-fence life in Ligonier, Pa., and Julie Tomsula
watched as her husband's pager went off at all hours with “side-of-beef emergencies.”
“I felt like he was dying a slow death,” Julie said. “ ... I told him, ‘This is no way to live.'”
So Tomsula began living ... in his red Cadillac with Harley and Cali.