Jeff Reinebold was named one of the nation's top 25 recruiters last year by rivals.com (photo by SMU athletics).

One glance at Jeff Reinebold makes it obvious he was one of the SMU assistant coaches who came with June Jones from Hawaii. The sun-bleached blond hair, the ornate tattoos, the tan so deep it looks almost genetic … talk to the Mustangs’ new wide receivers coach and recruiting coordinator, and you almost expect him to start channeling his inner Jeff Spicoli. At least one reporter in Hawaii refers to him only as “the sun god.”

“My heart was, is and always will be in Hawaii,” Reinebold said. “That’s home to me, and it has been since the first time I stepped off the plane.”

Reinebold is a versatile coach who spent the last two years working for Jones as the Hawaii Warriors’ defensive line coach, and has more than a quarter of a century of experience coaching at the college and professional levels, including head coaching experience in college at Rocky Mountain (Mont.) College and in the Canadian Football League with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

Perhaps as valuable as his coaching ability — to UH for the last two seasons and to SMU now — is his ability as an ace recruiter. Consider the writeup by rivals.com’s Jeremy Crabtree when the website named Reinebold one of the top 25 recruiters in the nation in 2007:

“Reinebold has been a hot target with several NFL teams, and it's no surprise after he helped Hawaii assemble its best recruiting class in almost 20 years. The Warriors finished third in the WAC behind traditional powers Boise State and Fresno State, and Reinebold's efforts were a key. He landed all but two of Hawaii’s players in this year’s class … What was most impressive about his efforts is that he was able to pull players from totally different parts of the country. He got signees from California, Illinois and even Texas.”

Yet for all of the players Reinebold has recruited along the way, and all the games he has won, he remains unimpressed with himself, deferring any accolades to Jones, or more importantly, to those outside of football.

“I’ve been really fortunate that in all the places I’ve coached, all the stops I’ve made, I’ve been around some really outstanding coaches: Dick Vermiel, Galen Hall, Wes Chandler, June Jones,” Reinebold said. “There really are no original thoughts in this game. The geniuses are the people who find the cure for cancer — that kind of thing.”

One of those he admires so much factored heavily into his decision to follow Jones from the islands to Dallas: his wife, Ellie.

“My wife was a director of a pediatric hospital, so she did much more work to make the place better than I did,” Reinebold said.

But while he clings to his Hawaiian ties, the decision to move to Dallas was the right one for the Reinebolds, because of the chance to have one of their seven children transfer to SMU and because of the desire for Reinebold to continue working with Jones.

“June told us at the Sugar Bowl that it (the move to Dallas) might happen,” Reinebold said. “Then, after we got home, he called at 4 a.m. (Hawaii time) to tell me about his decision. Initially, he told me he wanted me to stay there in Hawaii, because there were a lot of projects we had started as a staff there. But after a lot of soul-searching and talking with my wife, we knew it was the right thing for me to come to SMU with him. Besides, our daughter, Megan, is a student at Hawaii, and this gives us the opportunity to get her to SMU.”

A native of South Bend, Ind., Reinebold readily admits he misses the islands, but acknowledges a sense of excitement about what awaits him in Dallas.

“I miss the water, I miss the surfing, I miss the people — the Polynesian people are amazing people,” he said. “But I’m thrilled to be here in this football environment. There’s an amazing amount of talent here (in Texas), and June has done an amazing job putting together this staff. Dick Vermiel once told me that (new SMU special teams coach) Frank Gansz is the best special teams coach anywhere, and he’s right. Then you’ve got (defensive line coach) Bert Hill who has been with the (Miami) Dolphins and Detroit Lions, so he’s got that NFL experience, too. (Defensive coordinator) Tom Mason, (linebackers coach) Tim Hundley, (secondary coach) Derrick Odum — you go up and down the hallway here, and it’s an all-star staff.”

Reinebold was one of several coaches on the Hawaii staff who had the option of following Jones to Dallas or staying in Hawaii to work with Greg McMackin, the former Warrior defensive coordinator who replaced Jones at the helm of the UH program. Reinebold, quarterbacks coach Dan Morrison, running backs coach Wes Suan and offensive line coach Dennis McKnight followed Jones to Dallas.

“The situation in Hawaii is that Greg is a very good football coach, but he needs to have his own guys in there,” Reinebold said. “The problem is, I’m a ‘June Jones guy.’ For me to work in Hawaii for anyone other than June — it ain’t happening. I love the kids we coached there, and I love the people of Hawaii, but I’m a ‘June Jones guy.’

“There’s something really special when you find someone you enjoy working with and you find a mutual loyalty. You find someone you want to work with, and work for, and someone you trust, and you end up putting that ahead of personal issues. It’s more important than how much money you make, or what the title is on your door. It’s about making a contribution, and in the right way. Dick Vermiel says if you want credit, you go to a bank. It’s not about who did something, it’s a matter of if something got done. That’s all that matters, and that attitude really permeates this entire organization.”

Reinebold came to SMU in part, he says, because "I'm a 'June Jones guy.'" (photo by Webmaster).

One of the themes that resonates through the comments of observers who saw the new SMU staff conduct practices this spring is the change in culture on the practice field. Gone is the loud, oft-repeated mantra of challenging players’ toughness on every play and in every drill. In its place is an atmosphere of constant teaching and encouragement. That, Reinebold said, is a large part of what has made Jones’ teams so successful.

“June has something that’s rare in leaders,” Reinebold said. “He’s not a guy who’s going to stand up and say ‘me’ and ‘I’ all day. It’s always ‘we’ and ‘us’ to him. Watch an interview, and watch how many times he says ‘I’ during it — it’s not often. That’s why guys usually play so hard for him. They know he respects them, and they respect him.

“I laugh when I see a head coach wearing a different-colored shirt than the rest of his staff on the sideline. It’s a team performance, win or lose. He doesn’t dog-cuss guys, and it seems to work — people have an incredibly high tolerance for praise.”

The son of a professional baseball coach, Reinebold developed his appreciation for teaching at a young age.

“His greatest gift was probably that he was a ‘teacher’s teacher’ — he’s the greatest ‘teaching coach’ I’ve ever seen,” Reinebold said of his father. “He’s been in the different organizations — the Diamondbacks, the A’s, the Cubs — and I loved watching him in the minors, because that’s where he could really teach. At that level, you’re teaching guys how to get to the majors, and he was great at it. I was always amazed to watch how he worked with a middle infielder — they were kind of his specialty — and then watch how what he taught them translated to the field.”

That desire and ability to impart knowledge, and his already-strong appreciation for his new school, give Reinebold every confidence he can continue to recruit successfully at SMU.

“My first day here, in January, was kind of a dreary day, and even then, I couldn’t get past the beauty of the campus,” he said. “I’ve met so many people here who are desperate to see SMU succeed, and if I can help give them that — that’s what I want.”

Reinebold said the talent the new staff has inherited far exceeded what he thought he’d find in Dallas.

“I’ve been pleasantly surprised,” he said. “I had no preconceived notions, because you come to a team that was 1-11 last year and you think there must be no real players — that’s not true here. There are some guys here who would have played for us at Hawaii. Aldrick Robinson reminds me of (former UH receiver and current San Francisco 49er) Ashley Lelie, running like he does. Emmanuel Sanders has a chance to be an outstanding player. Mitch Enright is going to be an excellent center. Bryan McCann has NFL tools. Serge Elizee has that kind of talent.

“The best thing is that we’ve been trying to instill a culture change, and the kids are trusting us, they’re buying into it. That speaks volumes about June — I call it ‘the June Jones effect.’ He creates an environment in which guys can succeed, and they know they can succeed. Dick Vermiel did the same thing, Galen Hall did the same thing. Every great coach creates an environment that is conducive to winning. If you want to work at the highest level, you have to master that.”

Part of the talent that has Reinebold excited is at his position, where he says Emmanuel Sanders and Aldrick Robinson have the potential to shine in the Mustangs’ new offense. In their first recruiting class at SMU, the new coaches did little to discount the notion that they covet only shorter receivers, signing five receivers, and only one — 6-foot-6 E.J. Drewery — stands taller than six feet. However, Reinebold said, smaller doesn’t mean better. On the contrary, height is less not what the coaches look at first, starting instead with a look at the player’s running ability.

“All things being equal, you’d like big over small, but in the history of this offense, we’ve had great success with small guys with quick feet,” he said. “You want guys who can run, but their top speed isn’t as important as what we call ‘suddenness’ — that burst when you first make the catch that helps create separation and get into open space. Emmanuel Sanders has that, Aldrick Robinson has that. That’s what we look for first. The big guys who have that — everyone in the country wants those guys. We’ve had greater access to smaller guys with quick feet, and we’ve had a lot of success with them.”

Besides, he said, it is the first accomplishment of each player that outshines anything he does at the high school or college level. Getting players to get past their earlier accomplishments and put in the necessary work to get the job is key to developing their talent to its highest level.

“These guys have done the hardest part already,” he said. “What’s the greatest physical accomplishment they’re going to do in their lives — make all-state? Wrong. It’s the day they got on their feet and walked for the first time. How many times did they fail before they did that? A lot, but with the right encouragement, they kept trying, and they did it. If you can put your ego aside and work at something, with the right teaching and the right encouragement and enough effort, you can do a lot of impressive things.

“(Former Hawaii wide receiver) Ryan Grice-Mullins is a perfect example of that,” Reinebold said. “He couldn’t catch consistently when he got to Hawaii, but he stayed after and worked with the JUGS machine — a lot. He was a high school quarterback, but he stayed with it, and he became a great player. He learned the position and ended up getting invited to an NFL camp (by the Houston Texans).”

Jeff Reinebold called the coaches hired by June Jones "an all-star staff." (photo by Webmaster).

Reinebold is an accomplished coach and a proven recruiter whose addition to the SMU staff should accelerate the Mustangs’ improvement — on the field, and on the recruiting trail. Yet he stubbornly deflects any praise to those around him.

“Nothing that I’ve done is original — I’ve just been smart enough along the way to keep my mouth shut and my ears open, and I’ve learned a lot from some great coaches. Now I pass along what they’ve taught me,” he said. “This offense is all June Jones. We’re just the facilitators of the message, and what we’ve got to do is get it to the point where they don’t think, they just go do it.”

Reinebold is fiercely loyal — to his family, to Jones, to the Hawaiian people he openly admits he misses … and now to SMU.

“Mao Tse Tung had a five-year plan — I don’t,” Reinebold said. “I just want to turn this around. “The level of interest we’ve gotten has been great, and it’s clear that people desperately want this place to succeed, and how many times in your life do you get the chance to give people that? There’s a lot of pride in SMU alumni who want SMU football to be fun, and to win. Making that happen — that’s the exciting part.”