The Sickos Committee explores Journeyman Coaches - Part 5 - Norm Chow

At the Sickos Committee, we tend to find ourselves digging through Wikipedia looking for weird and niche information. One of our favorite past times is to look at Journeyman coaches and just go through their stops in their careers while trying to figure out how and why they took this path in their playing and coaching careers. We will do this all throughout the college football off-season, so come along with us on this Wikipedia journey. Also, we will try to map out the path on Google Maps (if at all possible) and track the mileage each coach has journeyed. Follow us on our many deep dives where we try to find “Where in the world is this coach??”

The Norm Chow Coaching Journey - Playing Career. 

Norm Chow was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and played his high school ball at the Punahou School in the same city. He then played offensive guard for the University of Utah from 1965-1967. Honolulu to Salt Lake is a flight of 6 hours and 5 minutes, covering 2,992 miles. 

Norm then went to the Canadian Football League, briefly playing for the Saskatchewan Rough Riders before a career-ending injury. He then stepped away from football for a few years, getting a bachelor’s in physical education in 1968 followed by a master’s in special ed in 1970, both from Utah. He would eventually receive a doctorate in educational psychology from BYU in 1978. None of these stops will be counted toward his coaching journey, but this writer just wanted to include the idea of Dr. Norm Chow, Ed.D.

To match Norm’s playing career, you’d have to fly 2,992 miles and 6 hours and drive 17 hours and 1,096 miles. 

Norm Chow - Early Career

Norm returned to Hawaii in 1970 to coach at Waialua High and Intermediate School on the north shore of Oahu. Assuming a direct flight, that’s a 10 hour flight covering 3444 miles. 

Waialua High and Intermediate School Beveled Logo

He remained for three seasons, earning a 5-25 record before leaving to be a graduate assistant at BYU. Google won’t allow us to fly him direct from Honolulu to Provo, so we’ll fly him back to Salt Lake and drive down to Provo.

He’s made this flight before, so let’s chalk up another 6 hours and 2992 miles of flying. While at BYU, he called plays for Steve Young, Ty Detmer, and Steve Sarkisian, and won the consensus national championship in 1984. He held a wide array of titles during his 17 years at BYU, topping out as Assistant Head Coach/Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach/Wide Receivers Coach from 1996 to 1999. In 2000, he took a job as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for NC State, helping a freshman Phillip Rivers to break seven school passing records. After one year in Raleigh, Chow took the opportunity to become the offensive coordinator at USC, where he would coach Heisman winners Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart and win the 2004 BCS title. In the spring of 2005, Norm headed back east to become the offensive coordinator for the Tennessee Titans. Two years later, he returned to southern California as the UCLA offensive coordinator, where he would stay until 2011. He then spent one season as the offensive coordinator of his alma mater Utah before being named as the head coach of the University of Hawaii before the 2012 season. 

To cover the full circle, with retraced steps, of Norm’s coaching career within the continental US would take 138 hours of driving, for 9,451 miles. He then takes the Salt Lake/Honolulu flight for the third time in his career, adding another 6 hours and 2992 miles.

Norm Chow - Late Career

Norm stayed with Hawaii for four seasons, before being fired near the end of the 2015 season. 

He then returned to Los Angeles (5 hr, 20 minute flight, 2553 miles) to take a job as an assistant at Van Nuys High School for the summer of 2016 before moving to nearby Mira Costa High School for the 2016 season. His next coaching appearance was in 2019 as the offensive coordinator of the XFL’s Los Angeles Wildcats.

Norm’s three stops in Los Angeles only require 58 minutes of driving, covering 34.8 miles. 

The Los Angeles Wildcats Beveled Logo

He is currently the head coach of the European League of Football’s Helvetic Guards, located in Zurich, Switzerland.

The Helvetic Guards Logo beveled.

 Los Angeles to Zurich is a nearly 11 hour flight, covering 5,924 miles.

Norm Chow Journeyman Totals

(Just to and from destinations, not the actual travel during each job) 

Playing Career

• Fly 6 hours and 5 minutes, 2992 miles.

• Drive 17 hours, 1096 miles.

Coaching Career

• Fly 6 hours and 5 minutes, 2992 miles

• Drive 138 hours, 9451 miles

• Fly 6 hours and 5 minutes, 2992 miles

• Fly 5 hours and 20 minutes, 2553 miles

• Drive 58 minutes and 34.8 miles

• Fly 10 hours and 55 minutes, 5924 miles

Journeyman Travel Totals

• 34 hours, 30 minutes of flight time covering 17,453 miles.

• 156 Hours of Driving and 10,582 miles driven.

• Total Travel: 190.5 hours and 28,035 miles

Norm Chow followed the June Jones model of taking multiple jobs in Hawaii to beef up his flight mileage, but it wasn’t enough to unseat June in the end.  

Dennis Erickson maintains the Journeyman Coach travel lead for driving with 261 Hours of driving and 17,040 miles. June Jones maintains the lead with most hours flying and most flight mileage of 63 hours and 28,557 miles. June Jones also maintains the most combined flight & driving with 307 travel hours and 44,906 miles traveled total.