Chance to work with son brought former Steelers assistant Ray Horton to USFL as coach of Maulers

Out of football since 2019, Ray Horton wasn’t itching to return to the sideline.

Horton, the former Pittsburgh Steelers defensive backs coach, was content with the life he created in Phoenix. A private pilot, he took to the air to fly his Cirrus single-engine plane as often as his free time permitted.

On the ground, Horton’s fixation with a ball was confined to the little white one with dimples that he would knock around the golf course three days a week.

Then, a chance to run a team — a goal that eluded him for three decades in college and the NFL and led to his inclusion in a historic racial discrimination lawsuit — arose this winter for the 62-year-old Horton. The opportunity, which included a chance to work with his son, Jarren, was too good to pass up.

Named head coach of the USFL’s Pittsburgh Maulers last week, Horton gets a chance to turn around the league’s worst team while working side-by-side with Jarren, the Maulers’ defensive coordinator in 2022.

“If you ask me (if I took the job) to be a head coach or to work with my son,” Horton said Wednesday, “it was to work with my son and not to be a head coach.”

At a press conference Wednesday to announce the Maulers will be playing home games this season in Canton, Ohio, Horton talked of wanting to establish a coaching legacy with Jarren, the defensive coordinator at UConn before joining the USFL in its 2022 rebirth.

He mentioned father-son duos such as Bill and Steve Belichick and Mike and Kyle Shanahan.

“To give me — a guy who looks like me — an opportunity to have a legacy with my son, that is important,” Horton said. “When you have a child, whether it’s a son or daughter, who follows in your footsteps, you look back and say, ‘He’s just like me.’

“(Jarren) is way ahead of me. He’s going to kick me out of the league. He’s that good.”

Ray Horton, who coached under Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin on the Steelers from 2004 to 10, last was employed in the NFL in 2019, when he wrapped up a one-year stint as Washington’s defensive backs coach.

After leaving the Steelers, he had been hired as defensive coordinator in Arizona, Cleveland (twice) and Tennessee. He never ascended to the head coaching position, however, and, when he joined the Brian Flores lawsuit in April, he contended his interview in 2016 with Tennessee was a “sham,” done to comply with the Rooney Rule.

Since filing the suit in February, Flores was hired by the Steelers as a senior defensive assistant and has interviewed for several head coaching vacancies. Steve Wilks, who joined the lawsuit with Horton in April, was Carolina’s interim head coach this season.

Horton was the only one of the trio to remain out of the spotlight until the USFL came calling.

The lawsuit was never an issue, Horton said.

“I thought it stood on its own merit of trying to correct something that is perceived as a wrong,” he said. “That’s it. It stands by itself. … The USFL was very gracious with me. This is about an opportunity to build a legacy. I’m very grateful the USFL did that for me.”

USFL executive director of football operations Daryl “Moose” Johnston was Horton’s teammate in Dallas when the Cowboys won Super Bowl XXVII. He offered Horton a chance to join forces with Jarren, who remained on staff after head coach Kirby Wilson resigned following a 1-9 season.

“We had two positions open this year,” Johnston said. “When we talked about internal hires, Jarren Horton was No. 1 on that list by far. His day will come to fulfill that legacy.”

The challenge for the Hortons is bringing the type of winning formula to the Maulers that Ray enjoyed as an assistant under Cowher and Tomlin. He was part of two Super Bowl championship teams, and his last game as a member of the organization was the Super Bowl XLV loss to Green Bay.

Not only did the Maulers finish with the USFL’s worst record in 2022, they went 5-13 in 1984 in their only season playing in the original upstart spring league.

“Winning covers a lot of bases, and, when you have that, you don’t have to worry about a lot of things,” Horton said. “You have to be smart and disciplined — what every other team aspires to be. We’ll instill that in them and strive for that.”

Horton believes a winning team will attract Pittsburgh fans to make the two-hour drive to Canton. He hopes some of his more decorated former players take notice of what he’s trying to build.

“If I could get the Ryan Clarks, the Troy Polamalus, the James Harrisons, Ben Roethlisbergers and Brett Keisels to come out and support us — yes, yes, yes and yes,” Horton said. “People are drawn to winners. We have to do our part to make the job easier. We have to win.”

If that doesn’t happen or if the USFL doesn’t make it to a third season, Horton will be fulfilled knowing he got a chance to run a team alongside his son.

“I live a remarkable life,” Horton said. “I’ve played in Super Bowls, coached in Super Bowls, I’ve met outstanding people in all walks of life. I’ve been truly blessed. If I don’t do another thing, boy, have I lived a great life.

“Was I content? Yes, but the opportunity to work with my son overrode everything I could even imagine.”