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Texas football Coach Tom Herman was once fired from Subway for eating too much pastrami

February 22, 2017 at 1:51 a.m. EST
Tom Herman was once hooked (ahem) on pastrami. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Despite his relative youth, let it never be said that Tom Herman didn’t work his way up to being head football coach at Texas. The 41-year-old has previously had stints at Texas Lutheran, Sam Houston State, Texas State, Rice, Iowa State, Ohio State and Houston.

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Herman, in his first season with the Longhorns, also held a number of odd jobs as a younger, much poorer man. He shared some of those experiences in a story published Tuesday by the Dallas Morning News, including an amusing tale of a high school gig at a Subway sandwich shop that was cut short because of his fondness for a certain deli meat.

“When people said, ‘Hey, what do you do?’ I would say, ‘I’m a subcontractor. Or submarine contractor,” Herman told the newspaper.
“I used to love the pastrami,” he said. “They had those big walk-in refrigerators. I was standing in there one day, with the door shut, just throwing pastrami in my mouth.
“It was like something out of a movie. I’ve got this bin of meat, throwing meat in my mouth, the door swings open and it’s the owner.
“He goes, ‘Get out. Don’t come back.’ “

Way to go out in a blaze of heartburn, Tom. But who can blame him? Pastrami is pretty hard to resist, especially for a teenager with access to a “bin of meat.”

https://twitter.com/CoachTomHerman/status/834224011739529216

Most of Herman’s other jobs listed in the Morning News were media-related and date to his college days at Cal Lutheran and UC-Davis. They included gigs with a local sports-radio station and the “NFL on Fox,” but he also made some money during high school working in a batting cage and at a tuxedo shop.

Taking over from Charlie Strong, Herman is now hoping to have an extended stay in Austin. If he succeeds in bringing the Longhorns back to national prominence, boosters will be happy to supply him with all the Texas barbecue he can handle — or pastrami, if Herman prefers.