Ohio State coordinator Jim Knowles’ path to success started on a ‘stoop’ in North Philly

Jim Knowles remembers it fondly.

The offer of a lifetime: A chance to live in the basement of a Cornell University assistant football coach. It beat the side room next to the Cornell visitor’s locker room, where six Big Red assistants slept on cots during the 1988 season.

That’s where Knowles, who would become a defensive Zen master began formulating his Jedi tricks.

Knowles, 57, was raised on the “stoop” of a North Philadelphia row home, who at the insistence of a grade school teacher took an entrance test for St. Joseph’s Prep. A standout linebacker and center under then Prep coach Jack Branka with a football acumen that belied his age, Knowles wound up at Cornell playing for former Philadelphia Eagles Hall of Famer Maxie Baughan. It would be Baughan who opened doors for Knowles after he decided to toss his suit jacket and briefcase — making well over double his age in the corporate investment world — for the rock-bottom realm of coaching.

Now in Columbus, Ohio, as defensive coordinator for Ohio State, Knowles is called “the mad scientist” for his imaginative schemes that confuse opposing quarterbacks.

On Saturday in Happy Valley against Penn State (noon, Fox) he’s going to be called a lot more imaginative things by thousands in blue and white each time the Nittany Lions’ offense and coach James Franklin attempt to predict what Knowles will do next.

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There’s a lot at stake for the No. 2 Buckeyes (7-0) and No. 13 Penn State (6-1), possibly beyond a Big Ten championship.

One of the important decision-makers in this game will be Knowles, who has spent over half his life coaching. A 1983 St. Joe’s Prep graduate who is considered one of the best defensive minds in college football. It’s what prompted Ohio State head coach Ryan Day to pluck Knowles, who spent most of his young life in Lawncrest, steps from Rising Sun Avenue, from Oklahoma State, where in the previous two years he had transformed the Cowboys defense into one of the best in the country.

“I played for Maxie, and I was there in the business world when I wrote him a letter about coaching at Cornell,” said Knowles, who graduated from Cornell with his bachelor’s degree from the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. “He called me right away, and with his thick Southern accent, I can remember him saying, ‘Hey boy, you all wanna come back and be a coach?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, coach, that sounds good.’ I was having dreams at the time thinking I would one day be 30 with a wife and kids and wouldn’t have the time to try it.”

Baughan offered Knowles a $3,000 annual salary, free meals at the school cafeteria, and a cot in the visitor’s locker room. Before Knowles could blink, he took it.

That’s when he opted, at 22, to trade his world of making close to $100,000 working for Prudential for a wake-up call, and a cot for $3,000.

“I knew I had the football in my blood, but I was tired of being poor, when you grow up with nothing and then you go to college, and still don’t have anything, you grab anything you can,” Knowles said. “I had saved a little to hold me by when I got in at Cornell and I wound up staying there for eight years. By the time I left Cornell, I took a pay cut in 1997 from Western Michigan, for $37,000, because I knew I had to get out of the Ivy League and branch out.”

Knowles doesn’t have to worry about sleeping on cots anymore. His annual salary at Ohio State? $1.9 million.

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Back in Philadelphia on Saturday, former St. Joseph’s Prep coach Jack Branka, 84, will be sitting on the edge of his sofa, watching Penn State and Ohio State with his wife Mary Ellen seated next to him in the family room holding her rosary. Each year, usually sometime around July, Branka, Knowles, along with Knowles’ former Prep teammates Rich Gannon, the 2002 NFL MVP, and Clayton Carlin, the defensive coordinator at Sam Houston State, get together for a golf outing.

The Prep program was at a far different stage in the early-1980s than it is today. The Hawks used to be the annual homecoming game for Cardinal O’Hara, then a state-level powerhouse. Often the O’Hara band had more members than the Prep had players.

To show where the Hawks were then as to the program’s national prominence now, the Buckeyes currently have two major former Prep stars, sophomore wide receiver and budding star Marvin Harrison Jr. and sophomore backup quarterback Kyle McCord.

“Jimmy was a special kid, a special kid; they’re all kids to me,” said Branka, who sounds like he’s 54. “He was our center and our linebacker. He’s a smart kid. He knew not only academics, but he knew football. Jimmy is like a son to my wife. Through the years, despite all his success, he hasn’t changed. He loves what he does. He would coach for free if he could.”

» READ MORE: Marvin Harrison Jr.’s attention to detail is propelling his Ohio State legacy

Against Penn State Knowles will try and make Nittany Lions’ offense see ghosts. The Buckeyes will line up with one look to disguise another.

“Ohio State football is first class and everything that’s done here is geared around the success of the players and the program,” Knowles said. “For me, who’s someone that’s come through the ranks, they have it all here at Ohio State. I spent four years in Oklahoma, and now I’m right in the middle of Columbus, and it’s that great feeling you get in a big city. When I went to Prep, I took the subway to school every day. I used to sit out on the stoop every night watching my dad and his friends drinking Schaefer beer and listening to the Phillies. What’s the saying, you can take the kid out of Philly, but you can’t take the Philly out of the kid. I’ll relive those memories forever.”