Canton man’s journey to Miami’s coaching staff is stuff movies are made of

Canton will be proudly represented at Monday night’s College Football Championship game by a coach whose journey is equal parts improbable and inspiring.

Patrolling the University of Miami sidelines will be Ferras Isa, an assistant special teams coach for the  Hurricanes, who didn’t step on a football field until his senior year at Canton High School.

“I tried out for Canton’s soccer team a couple times, but I didn’t make it,” Isa reflected Monday afternoon, a few minutes after attending a meeting in preparation for Monday’s clash against Indiana. “The summer before my senior year, a couple friends suggested I try out for the football team as a kicker.

“During the first workout (in the summer of 2011), I found out the team already had two really good kickers, but I stayed with it because I wanted to be part of a team.”

‘Disney moment’

Isa spent the entire 2011 regular season on the sidelines, cheering on his teammates with robust enthusiasm — until his number was called during the second round of the MHSAA playoffs.

“Both of our kickers were also on Canton’s soccer team,” Isa explained. “They were playing in the soccer state championship game the same day as our district final football game against Catholic Central, so I was promoted to first-string kicker.”

Isa successfully made both of his extra-point attempts and did a stellar job kicking off in the Chiefs’ 21-14 setback to the Shamrocks.

“That was the only high school game I ever played in,” Isa recounted. “It was like a crazy Disney moment for me.”

After graduating from Canton in 2012, Isa attended Wayne State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering. He followed that up by earning a Bachelor of Science degree at Eastern Michigan University in 2017, the year he was hired by Fiat Chrysler as a quality control engineer.

Coaching 101

While an undergraduate at EMU in 2015, Isa reached out to Canton football coach Tim Baechler to inquire about joining his staff as an assistant coach.

“I was living at home, commuting to Eastern, and I lived right around the corner from the high school,” Isa said. “I was video game nerd. But I asked myself: ‘Do you want to be inside all the time playing games, or do you want to be outdoors, doing something where you could be meeting people and having fun?”

Baechler ultimately brought Isa aboard as the Chiefs’ kicking coach.

“The thing is, our kicker was also on the soccer team, so he’d only attend football practice for 10 to 15 minutes,” Isa said. “Instead of leaving when he did, I hung around and helped out our secondary coach, Dave Smilo.

“I learned so much about football that first year; I mean, just being around people like Coach Baechler, who is a hall of famer, Tony Boucher, Dave Smilo, Bob Williams, Tom Garrett and Craig Hnatuk — I would pick their brains about everything football-related.

“I still remember sitting down with Coach Garrett, filling out scouting cards. He’d say, ‘Now this is a post pattern’, and I’d draw it on a card, ‘and here’s an inside zone’. What helped, too, was that the varsity coaches also coached the junior varsity, so I got double the reps I would have if I only coached varsity. That’s when I really started to fall in love with coaching.”

Passion to coach

Isa said the coaching stint at Canton was invaluable when it came to public speaking — something he wasn’t comfortable doing during his pre-coaching days.

“I had a little bit of a speech impediment, so talking in front of a bunch of people wasn’t my thing,” he said. “But when you’re coaching 60-some guys every day, you get used to it and more comfortable.”

During the latter part of his five-year coaching stint at Canton, Isa’s career at Fiat Chrysler was going great, he emphasized.

“I was making good money and I enjoyed my job,” he said. “But one day I realized my greatest passion was coaching football. I called Coach Baechler to see if he had any college football coaching connections. Coach Baechler hooked me up with Chris Creighton, the head coach at Eastern Michigan.

“I thought, ‘Hey, if it works out, great. If it doesn’t, at least I tried’.”

It worked out well, to say the least.

Onward and upward

Following one successful season as a graduate assistant coach at EMU, Isa spent one season as a quality control special teams coach for the University of Minnesota.

He was hired as an analyst/assistant special teams coach at Miami in June of 2022.

“It’s been an incredible experience here at Miami,” Isa said. “I can’t even begin to tell you how amazing these players and coaches are as human beings. And their love of football runs deep. We have one player, Keionte Scott, who last summer talked a bunch of his teammates into sleeping at the facility on air mattresses so they could work out together and bond.”

Isa revealed he’s received several calls and texts from longtime friends who see him on TV during nationally-televised Miami games.

‘Was that you?!’

“They’ll ask me, ‘Was that you?!’ and I’ll say, ‘Yep, that’s me.’ It’s been a surreal experience and I’m so appreciative of the University of Miami for giving me this opportunity.”

Baechler said he isn’t surprised by his former assistant coach’s meteoric ascent in the coaching ranks.

“Ferras makes himself irreplaceable,” Baechler said. “He works so hard, he’s so smart and he has no ego.

“That first year he came out to help our kickers and he got addicted to coaching. He learned to coach the game at a high level and he eventually became my defensive backs coach.”

Baechler said “it’s a thrill” to see Isa on the sidelines on nationally-televised games.

“My whole family loves him,” Baechler said. “He’s like a third son to my wife Julie and I, and an older brother to my two boys.”

Staying in the moment

Isa said he has to maintain a calm presence on the sidelines during games, in spite of the occasional craziness that unfolds on the field.

“I have to stay even-keeled,” he said. “Like Coach (Mario) Cristobal says, we’re working the game. We can watch the game later. There’s not time to be a rah-rah type of coach while the game is going on because I’m responsible for making sure all 11 players are out there for all the special-teams units.

“I love coaching special teams because I get to work with all the players except the quarterbacks.”

Isa said the Hurricanes’ run to the championship game has been surreal.

“With two losses, we were on the outside (of the CFB playoffs) until the selection show came on and we found out we were in,” he said. “We dominated our last four (regular-season) opponents which helped and we made it as the last team in.

“To start the playoffs beating a really good Texas A&M team on the road, then beating defending champion Ohio State and a really good Ole Miss team, it just shows you how resilient these players are.”

About as resilient as their assistant special teams coach, whose journey from Canton to Miami is the stuff movies are made of.

Ed Wright can be reached at 734-664-4657 or edwright@socialhousenews.com.