It has been reported that the San Francisco 49ers have hired defensive line coach Jim Tomsula to be the team’s new head coach.
Now official: 49ers have informed Adam Gase they're going in a different direction. Jim Tomsula will be 49ers new HC.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 14, 2015
This will represent Tomsula’s first crack at a head coaching gig but he’s a very familiar presence within the organization. He survived the Mike Singletary era and Jim Harbaugh kept him on staff when he took over the 49ers in 2011. The Niners run defense has been spectacular since Tomsula took over the defensive line coach job. The Niners ranked 5th in run defense in 2007, 8th in 2008, 3rd in 2009, 2nd in 2010, 1st in 2011, 3rd in 2012, 9th in 2013 and 7th in 2014.
But enough with the stats, here’s five random facts about Jim Tomsula which will hopefully give you a better idea of the history of the man.
1. Although he’s held the 49ers defensive line coach job for eight years, Jim Tomsula has coached one game as the 49ers head coach. Following the firing of Mike Singletary, Tomsula got to coach the final game of the 49ers 2010 season, where the Niners beat the Cardinals 38-7.
2. Tomsula’s other head coaching experience comes from his 2006 stint with the Rhein Fire of NFL Europe. Prior to that, Tomsula had steady work throughout NFL Europe. He was the defensive line coach for both the London Monarchs (1998) and the Scottish Claymores (1999-2003). He was also the defensive coordinator of the Berlin Thunder from 2004-05.
3. He has 28 years of coaching experience (spread across high school, college and professional football). The only seasons since 1989 that Jim Tomsula has not held a coaching job in some capacity has been in 1991 and 1996.
4. In 1991, Tomsula took on a job as a medical equipment sales representative for Thera-Kinetics before he landed an assistant coaching job at Charleston Southern University.
5. Following his work at Charleston Southern University in 1995, Tomsula took on odd-jobs to pay the bills, including that of a newspaper deliverer, a night janitor and a firewood cutter. His next football coaching job came in 1997 as a voluntary defensive line coach at Catawba. Since the job was voluntary (and thus, did not pay), Tomsula took on a part-time job as a carpeting salesman and sometimes lived out of his own car.
So, yeah. In nothing else, one can’t say that Jim Tomsula doesn’t have a passion for football.
