The softer side of Fedora
New Southern Miss coaching family makes many adjustments
Ten-year-old Peyton cozies up to Dad while munching on an afternoon snack. Peyton eyes sister Sydney, 13, as she taps away a text message on her cell phone. Peyton’s had enough, and it’s time to playfully whine. She wants a cell phone, too.
“But what happens if I’m at the zoo and get caught in a tiger cage?” she asks Dad.
“You wouldn’t have time to call anyway,” he teases back with a smile. “The rule is you have to be 13, but you have to be 13 and make straight A’s,” he says.
For Peyton, it’s a game she knows she can’t win, so the fun is in the teasing. After all, she’s trying to create putty out of rock. Dad is Larry Fedora, who is the head football coach at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.
Fedora is intense, focused, efficient. He’s used to giving orders and having them followed without hesitation. But at home, there’s a softer side. Peyton doesn’t have to do pushups for questioning his authority. She gets a hug.
In fact, his family provides much-needed respite from the rigors of a college football coach. In addition to Peyton and Sydney, there’s Dillon, 16, and Hallie, 6. He met Christi, his wife of 20 years, while they were students at Austin College in Sherman, Texas.
Fedora calls Christi “the backbone” of the family. A native of Dallas, Christi is a teacher by profession, artist by training, mother by instinct, wife by choice and football assistant by necessity. Fedora gives her plaudits for “holding the family together” because of his demanding schedule. “Christi is the only one who can keep everybody going in the right direction and knows what’s going on with everybody. … Wherever we go, she’s made it home.”
She simply smiles and doesn’t argue the point.
Moving has been part of the Fedora family lifestyle since 1986 when Fedora began as a graduate assistant coach at Austin College. Fedora was hired by Southern Miss in December 2007. Christi moved the family in early June from Stillwater, Okla. Just five days after relocating, the girls had already joined gymnastic teams and started practicing. Dillon had found a job mucking out horse stalls and other odd jobs. He also started workouts, getting ready for the new football season as a wide receiver at Oak Grove High School. Those workouts, as it turned out, included taking passes from Brett Favre.
Like military families, the Fedoras have learned to get involved and get things done quickly when they move to a new place. Part of what makes a house become a home for Christi is “bringing things around us that we are used to,” such as some of her artwork (bluebonnets are a regular theme and a large acrylic painting of the flowers hangs over their bedroom mantle). She has an art studio on the third floor where she can escape.
Their pets are a big part of a necessary consistency: Gracie, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel — “not very smart,” says Dillon, (but really sweet natured); and 8-year-old Roxanne, a big loveable, huggable boxer.
“It takes a while before it feels like a home, not just with the house, but in the town we are living,” Christi says. It’s important, she adds, to make good friends outside the football family. Her connections with gymnastics and Bible studies are good sources.
Their three-story house in the Canebrake community on the west side of Hattiesburg is spacious, with wood floors and exposed brick archways separating the formal dining room from the great room, a favorite hangout. The house is fronted by huge columns and a cool brick-floored porch overlooking their tree-lined front yard.
“We really liked the layout and wanted to be in this neighborhood,” Christi says. “We’ve done a lot of work — from floor to ceiling — that’s why it’s taking a while to get settled.”
On the third floor is the poolroom, another nice place for a little family friendly competition. It brings out the competitive juices. Even an impromptu shoot around has Dad and son at friendly odds.
“If we do something as a family, it’s usually something competitive,” Christi says over the smacks of billiard balls. “Bowling, it doesn’t matter. It becomes a competition in whatever it is.”
Christi jokes, with a hint of seriousness, that she would love the NCAA to set a limit on number of hours a coach works. But she knows it’s not a reality.
“We’re always thinking, ‘What if,’ ” Fedora says. “That’s the biggest thing — the strain you put on your family. But I don’t care what profession you’re in, if you’re going to be successful, you are going to work hard.”
If there is any time for family events, it’s in the summer and a few days here and there throughout the year. But during the meat of the football season, there’s hardly a moment together. “Most of the time they are asleep when I leave and asleep when I come home,” Fedora says. “That’s the way it is.”