DURANGO, Colo. — It's all about the Lew.
 
One day after Fort Lewis College made waves in the national media for hiring former Arkansas, Michigan State and Louisville head coach John L. Smith as its newest head football coach, one of his FLC predecessors was named the head coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Casey “Gus” Bradley, who served as a coordinator at Fort Lewis from 1992-95 and was head coach of the Skyhawks for four months during the 1995-96 offseason before resigning for family medical reasons, became the fourth head coach in Jaguars' history today.
 
The announcement capped a meteoric ride for Bradley, a popular assistant at each of his professional stops in the college and NFL ranks.  He began his NFL coaching career with Tampa Bay as a defensive quality control coach in 2006. He was the Buccaneers' linebackers coach the next two seasons before going to Seattle as defensive coordinator. He was an assistant coach in the college ranks from 1990-2005, including two stints at his alma mater, North Dakota State (1990-91 and 1996-2005) and his four years in Durango.
 
Bradley began his NFL coaching career with Tampa Bay as a defensive quality control coach in 2006. He was the Buccaneers' linebackers coach the next two seasons before going to Seattle. Bradley coached in the college ranks from 1990-2005, including two stints at his alma mater, North Dakota State, and four years at Fort Lewis College (1992-95).
 
“It was just a matter of time before Gus Bradley became a head coach in the NFL and the Jacksonville Jaguars are extremely fortunate that Gus will be on our sidelines for many years to come,” Jaguars' general manager David Caldwell said in a statement. “Gus more than met every criteria we insisted on from our new head coach, and his intangibles and leadership abilities are exceptional. Gus is who the Jaguars need now and in the future.”
 
Bradley's rise through the NFL ranks had him on several teams' radar. He also interviewed for the head coaching job in Philadelphia this week — his second interview with the Eagles since Andy Reid was fired the day after the 2012 season ended.
 
“He's got a brilliant football mind,” Seattle head coach Pete Carroll said this week. “He's got a way of reaching people and touching people and getting the best out of them, coaches and players alike. He's got everything that you're looking for.”
 
“Gus was a player's coach extraordinaire,” said Fort Lewis Athletic Hall of Fame quarterback Thad Trujillo, who played for Bradley for three seasons. “He was highly motivating and all the players loved him.”
 
Bradley played college football at North Dakota State from 1984-88, where he was a free safety and punter. In 1988, he helped the Bison win the NCAA Division II national championship. He was also a four-time Academic All-North Central Conference selection.
 
He earned bachelor's degrees in Business Administration (1989) and Physical Education (1990) from North Dakota State as well as a master's degree in Athletic Administration from NDSU in 1992.
 
He came to Durango in 1992 with Kevin Donnalley and Dave Preszler and started a coaching connection between Fort Lewis and North Dakota State that would continue for more than a decade, with former FLC players heading north to Fargo, N.D., to coach and pursue their master's degrees at NDSU and former NDSU players and graduate assistants heading south to Durango for full-time assistant coaching jobs.
 
Under Donnalley, who coached the then-Fort Lewis College Raiders in 1992 and 1993, Bradley served as special teams coordinator and linebackers coach. When Donnalley resigned at FLC and was replaced by Preszler in 1994 and 1995, Bradley became FLC's defensive coordinator.
 
“I don't think it surprised anyone who has known Gus,” said Preszler, who served stints as director of athletics and assistant director of athletics at FLC after moving on from coaching. “He was always going to be that person who is able to make that jump. The number one thing with Gus is his unbelievable passion for both football and people. His expertise in football and work ethic are off the charts. His integrity is above reproach. He's the full package.”
 
Preszler, who is the longtime athletic director at nearby Bayfield High School, said the move meant a lot to him and his family.
 
“My two boys were texting me this morning before 6 o'clock,” he said of the news about Jacksonville's coaching hire. “I can't help it but to be so unbelievably proud of Gus. He's like one of my kids.”
 
He was hired as head coach at Fort Lewis on Nov. 27, 1995, but lasted just four months in the position. On March 25, 1996, Bradley shocked the Fort Lewis campus when he resigned to return to North Dakota State as linebackers coach. The move allowed Bradley to be closer to his father, who was battling cancer at the Bradley family home in Zumbrota, Minn., at the time. For the next 10 years, he served in a variety of roles with the Bison, including assistant head coach, defensive coordinator and linebackers coach.
 
He has remained a loyal friend to the players, coaches and administrators he worked with in his four years at Fort Lewis.
 
Bradley becomes the second former Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference head coach to be a head coach in the NFL ranks. The other — Dutch Clark — coached the Portsmouth Spartans (now the Detroit Lions) in 1937 (as player-coach) and the Cleveland Rams from 1939-43. Clark, who coached at the Colorado School of Mines in 1933, went 1-5 in his lone season in the RMAC ranks. Clark is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame (and is the only Colorado-born member enshrined in Canton, Ohio), the College Football Hall of Fame, the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame and the RMAC Hall of Fame.
 
In a bizarre trivia answer, Clark and Bradley — the RMAC's only two former head coaches to advance to head coaching jobs in the NFL — went a combined 1-5 while coaching in the NCAA Division II conference.