Panthers assistant coach resigns, ready to watch his favorite receivers - his sons

Ricky Proehl summed up his decision to step down as the Carolina Panthers’ receivers coach in eight words:

“I’m just trying to be a good dad.”

Being a good dad means different things for different people. But at a minimum, it means being around for your kids and their activities - in Proehl’s case, sports.

Coaching in the NFL doesn’t leave much time for watching other football games, something Proehl learned the hard way the past three seasons while his older son, Austin, was developing into one of North Carolina’s best receivers.

Proehl told his son when he left for Chapel Hill that if Austin became a starter and impact player for the Tar Heels, he would give up his coaching gig so he could watch him play.

On Monday -- after a two-hour meeting with Panthers owner Jerry Richardson and a sit-down with coach Ron Rivera -- Proehl made good on his promise.

“Your kid’s playing ball and they score that first touchdown and the first thing they do is look up at Mom and Dad. However old they are, that never changes,” Proehl said Tuesday. “And for the last three years, Austin’s looked up and I ain’t been there.”

“I just want to be true to my word,” Proehl added. “It’s as important to me as it is him. I get more enjoyment than he does, probably. I just want to go see him play his last season.”

There’s another Proehl receiver in the pipeline behind Ricky, who played 17 NFL seasons (including three with the Panthers), and Austin, who caught 43 passes for 597 yards and three touchdowns in 2016 for the Tar Heels.

Blake Proehl, who starred at Providence High in the fall, is an East Carolina commitment.

So Ricky Proehl’s coaching hiatus figures to last at least four seasons.

Proehl said leaving the Panthers’ relatively young receiving corps wasn’t easy. He looks at Kelvin Benjamin, Devin Funchess and the rest of the wideouts as family, too.

“That’s the hardest thing is them, because they’re still young guys and they’ve still got a lot to learn,” Proehl said. “Kind of walking away from them was tough.”

Proehl said Rivera initially was “shocked” because he didn’t see Proehl’s departure coming. But Rivera, a father of two, understood where he was coming from.

“Everybody’s been gracious,” Proehl said. “As hard as it was, how can you get mad at me for wanting to go see my son play?”

Proehl, 48, missed his daughter’s brief but productive college soccer career. Alex Proehl played one season for the Savannah College of Art and Design before hanging up her cleats and later transferring to Wake Forest, her father’s alma mater.

“Scored a ton of goals,” Ricky said of Alex, “but I never saw her play.”

Proehl attended three of the Tar Heels’ games this past season, although two of them were frantic, rush jobs in which he had to zip across I-85 to the Triangle and back to make it to the Panthers’ Saturday night team meeting.

But attending the Tar Heels’ October game at Virginia, which fell during the Panthers’ bye week, gave Proehl a taste of what he was missing.

While his dad watched from the sideline at Scott Stadium, Austin hauled in a 46-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Mitch Trubisky for the final score in North Carolina’s 35-14 victory.

“I can’t even tell you the joy it brought me. It was awesome,” Proehl said. “To see him living his dream and having the success at the highest level in college football was just so much fun to see in person and to be there up close. And to be there after the game when he came out of the locker room.”

Proehl and his wife, Kelly, are secure enough financially to allow him to leave a lucrative job -- albeit one with long hours and low security -- to follow his sons’ football careers.

But Proehl’s decision is one that hits home with every father who’s ever bolted out of a work meeting and darted through rush-hour traffic trying to make a Little League game, piano recital or parent-teacher conference.

Chuck Thompson, a former co-worker at the Macon Telegraph, gave up his sports-writing position about 17 years ago to work for the paper’s features department. It seemed like a strange move for those of us who love sports - until Chuck explained it.

Chuck said he’d been watching and writing about other people’s kids his entire career. He wanted to start going to his own kids’ games.

The Tar Heels open the 2017 season at home against California, and Ricky Proehl isn’t going to miss it.

This story was originally published January 17, 2017 at 5:59 PM with the headline "Panthers assistant coach resigns, ready to watch his favorite receivers - his sons."