Family has kept Kyle Whittingham coaching. Now it brings the Utah legend closer to the end.

The Teton Range towers over Jackson Hole, Wyoming, while the laughter of children mixes with the clip-clopping of horse hooves at a rodeo.

Kyle Whittingham, donning a tan cowboy hat and pink-hued shades, moves the gaze of his ocean-blue eyes onto his family — children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces — thriving in the cool, mountain air.

The 64-year-old knows moments like these with his family are fleeting. His late father, Fred Whittingham, died in 2003 at nearly the same age Kyle, his oldest son, is now.

Kyle doesn’t notice, but a few seats over, his younger brother Brady is watching him closely. It’s a memory from the summer that still sticks in his mind. Fifteen years ago, Brady says, you wouldn’t find the Utes coach like this: calm and disconnected and truly savoring the moment away from Salt Lake City, where he’s created one of the winningest legacies in all of college football, just weeks before fall camp opens.

But family is the other half of Kyle Whittingham’s legacy.

It’s moments like these when Kyle regrets the time he missed with his kids. When he thinks about the time he has left with his grandchildren. As the coach readies for another rodeo — potentially his last with the Utes — his family brings him greater peace amid the chaos of college football.

And it’s family that also inches him closer to retirement.

“It’s a reality,” Kyle told The Salt Lake Tribune about his impending retirement. “I have 10 grandkids and probably more to come and the oldest one is 8 years old. I missed a great deal of my own kids’ lives because of this job, and I don’t want to repeat it with the grandkids.

“I want to be in their lives and be part of it. I’m not that old, but I’m 64, and I’ll be turning 65 toward the end of this season, so it’s time to start thinking along those lines.”

His family, especially his daughter, Melissa Whittingham Kent, would like that.

“To be honest, I’m always like ‘Dad, you can retire this time,’” Melissa said. “I wouldn’t mind having more of my dad around.”

Through the years, Kyle has made it a priority to have his family by his side. His grandchildren run around the Spence and Cleone Eccles Football Center during game weeks. In his office, pictures of his kids and their children sit atop his cluttered desk. Toward the north window, red and black Utes’ hats lay in an orderly stack while a bright red Kansas City cap sits alone. It’s a reminder of his son, Alex, the special teams coordinator for the NFL team.

Outside that window, the 2024 season and a new conference in the Big 12 await. And Kyle might be leading his best team yet.

Seventh-year quarterback Cam Rising and senior tight end Brant Kuithe are back from injury. The Utes’ defense, a mainstay of Kyle’s own personality, dating back to when he was a gritty linebacker under his father, is expected to be one of the best in college football.

Utah controls its destiny in the first season of the new 12-team College Football Playoff, giving Kyle a chance to accomplish one of the few things he’s never done in his career: compete for a shot at the national title.

“I don’t think there’s any way he would feel comfortable walking away if he feels like he left something on the table,” Brady says. “I do think it’s a factor how they do in the Big 12 this year, maybe next year.”

“He’s never been so close to the point where it’s like, ‘Well, should I? Is this it?’” Melissa says. “That’s the million-dollar question for all of us. It’s definitely on his mind.”

As Brady watches Kyle for a few more moments, he sees resemblances of their father. As tough and intense as he was, Brady knows Fred was happiest when sitting back and soaking in the joy of his family.

“That, to Kyle, is happiness,” Brady says, “Every time I see him around just his own immediate family or more of us, it’s apparent on his face.”

‘Football was literally our life’

As red and yellow confetti billowed from the roof of Allegiant Stadium on Feb. 11, Kyle and his wife, Jamie, sat perched in the end zone looking for their son.

Alex Whittingham had just won his third Super Bowl, the latest as an assistant coach in Kansas City. When Kyle met Alex on the field, he had a grin and tears in his eyes before giving him a hug.

It was a moment Alex will never forget. And, as Kyle’s career winds down, it’s the type of memory he wishes he could experience more.

“It just meant so much to have him there,” Alex said, tearing up. “Sharing that with me, it was special. I can’t even put it into words. Every son wants their dad to be proud of them.”

Throughout his career, Kyle has balanced — and even merged — family and football. His brother, Freddie Whittingham, is Utah’s tight ends coach. As Kyle once did for his father at BYU, his sons Alex, a linebacker from 2013-17, and Tyler, a defensive back from 2009-11, played under him with the Utes.

When you ask him about the roots of his program — which is inherently tough and straightforward — Kyle always finds a way to bring up his father. Fred, nicknamed Mad Dog, commanded respect and even more esteem from Kyle, who played under him as a linebacker from 1978-81 and later coached with him for six years on the Utes’ staff.

“Our dad passed 20 years ago, and I think the mantle kind of fell on Kyle,” Brady said.

Kyle was by his father’s side every step of the way from when he played in the NFL from 1963-1971 and transitioned to coaching from 1973-2000. Even after his father’s death, Kyle has kept his memory living on in how he coaches on the field.

“That foundation was laid by our dad,” Brady said. “People do respect our dad Big Fred. But I think if you really say who respects him the most, I would say it is Kyle, because he experienced it from all those levels, playing under him and coaching with him.”

Football is family, too.

“He worshiped his dad,” said Nancy Whittingham, Kyle’s mother. “If Fred was down practicing somewhere, and I wouldn’t know where Kyle was, I had to look first where the practice was going because he was usually right there on the sideline.”

That’s continued in his own coaching career, as Kyle has included his family in football. When he first took the Utah job in 2004, following practices or games, he’d take his four children out for bike rides, to the ballpark or on walks. Following intense rivalry games vs. BYU, the family made it a tradition to gather at In-and-Out for a greasy postgame burger.

But on Saturdays, they never missed a game.

“Football was literally our life,” Melissa said. “You don’t want to do anything bad to get in trouble during football season, because you don’t want to add to that stress.

“All of us planned our weddings around the football season and the bye week to make sure Dad can come. With our kids, which are his grandkids, on their birthday parties, it’s like ‘OK check with Dad when he gets time off.’”

With Kyle running the football program, Jamie ran the family, taking the kids to school, making dinner and racing Alex to football practices. That dynamic has significantly changed with the births of his grandchildren.

“He’s definitely mellowed out over the years for sure,” Melissa said. “Things came into perspective more. When we lose, like, he’s fine having the family and grandkids over instead of just wanting to be by himself and be mad.”

The love for football, though, is still there. Sometimes family members question if he’ll actually ever give up the game. After all, he still shows the same passion and energy he had when he first took the job.

This summer, during his annual trip to Hawaii late in July, Kyle was still working the phones, making sure Utah’s recruiting visits were set. He constantly discussed strategy for the upcoming season with his assistants. And when Alex watched him prepare for a team meeting over Zoom, Utah’s head coach had a notebook filled with notes and questions in their hotel.

‘Wants to take Utah as far as he possibly can’

Urban Meyer returned to Salt Lake City to catch up with his former colleague this spring.

The Utes hosted a 20-year reunion for the 2004 Utah team, which went 12-0 and became college football’s first “BCS buster,” defeating Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl. It was a significant turning point in the program’s history, both for the breakthrough it represented and for what came next. While reminiscing with Utes whose impact remains felt, Meyer took some time to share perspective with the man who succeeded him as head coach about six weeks after that game.

Meyer, like the current Utes coach, once dedicated his life to football with a single-minded fervor. In 2023, after winning three national titles — two with Florida and one with Ohio State — Meyer called it quits after being fired by the Jacksonville Jaguars.

“I found out there’s a heck of a life outside of football,” Meyer told The Tribune. “I’ve shared that with Kyle. I still speak to him frequently.

“In my life, it was time to go concentrate on my wife Shelley, the children, the grandchildren, and go enjoy life, because I just never would take a day off ever. I’ve figured it out. It’s a pretty good life.”

Meyer has had long talks with Kyle since then, discussing the dynamics of life after football, their families, growing old and reminiscing on their days working together.

It’s funny how one’s perspective changes over time, and that’s true with their relationship, too. In 2002, when Meyer became Utah’s head coach, he almost didn’t retain Kyle as defensive coordinator. It was Meyer’s wife who convinced him otherwise after the two couples went to dinner together in Salt Lake City.

Two years later, Meyer was off to Florida and found himself cheering with Utah athletic director Chris Hill when Kyle chose to be Utah’s head coach over BYU in 2004.

“He called me and told me he’s going to take the Utah job,” Meyer said. “We celebrated like we won the national title. I knew that he would elevate that place.”

All these years later, it’s hard to imagine the red and black without Kyle. He’s been one of the guiding forces for their ascension from the Western Athletic Conference to the Mountain West Conference to the Pac-12 Conference and now the Big 12. From 1994 to 2024.

There were times when he mulled leaving the Utes for other jobs, most notably Tennessee in 2010.

When Fred was an NFL player, the Whittingham family moved six times in eight years — Los Angeles to Philadelphia to New Orleans to Dallas to Boston and finally back to Philadelphia. Each time, they’d load the family in a van, drive to the next city and Kyle and his siblings would again switch schools.

By sixth grade, Kyle had attended six schools.

When the Tennessee job came open, Kyle weighed all the factors. How often would he fly his family to Knoxville? How much would those plane tickets cost? Where would he live?

In the end, the answers to all those questions led the Provo native back to Utah, just like everything always has. It’s where he can be found on the slopes of Park City each winter. Or knee-deep in the Provo River fly fishing for the next rainbow trout. It’s, simply, home.

And he’s a man who wants to keep family close.

“I think that he found his sweet spot here,” Hill told The Tribune. “I think he found a chance to combine everything that was important to him. He hit the sweet spot where his family, recruiting, winning, watching the team grow made it clear that this was a great place for him.”

He’s also been here long enough that many question what more he could achieve with the Utes. Last season, in particular, was hard. Rising’s knee injury turned into a season-ender, other key players went down and the Utes, after winning back-to-back Pac-12 titles, lost four three of their final four games of the season.

“Last season, there were some rough times,” Melissa said. “He was like ‘I just don’t know how much longer I can do this.’ That’s probably the closest I’ve heard him say anything (about retirement). But, then we’d win the next week, and we’re back on top, and then it’s always like he can do it a little bit longer.”

Paired with the love he has for Utah’s program, its players and the want to win, Kyle’s urgency to come back for another rodeo is rooted in winning. And, as the preseason Big 12 favorite in a season in which the expanded playoff debuts, Kyle and the Utes have a clear avenue to compete for a national championship.

For the man whose life has been synonymous with football since tagging along to his dad’s practices as a child, that’s incredibly hard to give up.

“He loves football,” Melissa said. “He eats, breathes and sleeps football. It’s like, we can’t even not have a football game on TV when he’s home.

“He wants to win, and he wants to take Utah as far as he possibly can. I just don’t feel like he feels like they’ve done that yet.”

‘Here today and gone tomorrow’

On Thursday night under the lights of Rice-Eccles Stadium, Kyle looked like anything but a man taking his last ride.

He strolled the sideline in a sleek white shirt and signature black Utes hat he loves, as intense as he looked in 2004. In the postgame news conference, with his mother and brother Cary looking on, he answered questions sharply and concisely.

Even with the lingering thought of retirement, the 64-year-old head coach still has the CFP in his crosshairs.

It leaves one with the feeling even Utah’s head coach doesn’t know when it will end.

One thing, though is for certain: He will not be one of those coaches who overstays his welcome.

“I don’t want to stay too long,” Kyle said. “I’ve seen some bad outcomes. But, I don’t know if I can ever tell you when it will be just right. I take everything day by day and as long as I have the passion and the energy and really enjoy what I’m doing still, then I’ll keep doing it.”

He also isn’t the type to end his career with a send-off. Heck, he hates it when people give him credit for building Utah’s program. It’s about the players. It’s about the coaches. It’s about his family.

“I’ll be here today and gone tomorrow,” he said. “There’ll be no farewell tour. It’s not about me. It drives me nuts when coaches announce ‘Oh, this is my last year and I want a gift from the city. I want a gift from the team.’ That annoys the crap out of me. There will be (no) mention of it until the day it ends.”

His family knows that time is coming.

“There will come a day when it’s over,” Brady says. “When he does finally hang it up and go into retirement mode, I think that next day he probably will think, ‘Man, I sure loved what I was doing.’”

That love, however, leaves some more skeptical than others.

“He’ll never be through with football,” his mother Nancy said jokingly. “Fred never was. I can’t see that with Kyle. What would he do if he wasn’t coaching football?”

His daughter has an idea.

Melissa’s 7-year-old son, Jude, has taken a liking to the sport. On off days, Kyle often tosses a football in Melissa’s living room or backyard with his grandson, while tuning into NFL games across the country.

Melissa thinks he’d be a perfect youth football coach.

But for now, Kyle is focused on the season. A resounding season-opening victory over Southern Utah is behind him, and a game against Baylor is dead ahead. Looking beyond that, he has dreams of winning the Big 12, making the playoff and ultimately hoisting a national championship trophy.

All good things eventually come to an end. When the time comes, he doesn’t want to waver.

“I just have the belief and confidence that I will know when the time is right,” Kyle said. “I’m just hoping that it becomes very clear to me, and that it’s not agonizing.”

And when this ride is done, and he walks off the field at Rice-Eccles for the last time as coach, he knows another rodeo awaits.

One packed with his wife’s smile. His children’s hugs. His grandkids’ laughter. And, perhaps, a little more football.

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