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Matt Luke Left the Toils of College Coaching to Be a Dad—and He Won’t Be the Last

Year-round recruiting, nonstop demands and exorbitant salaries have NCAA football coaches leaving the industry.

Matt Luke is dressed in a blue polo shirt, khaki shorts and flip-flops. He’s sipping coffee and munching on breakfast at a place called Mama’s Boy in Athens, Ga. Soon, he’ll go for a workout and then scoop up his youngest son from school and drive him to an arcade across town. Tomorrow, he might play some golf, and over the weekend, he’ll watch his boys play travel baseball.

At the age of 45, in the midst of what some might describe as the peak of his college coaching career, fresh off helping lead Georgia to the national championship as one of the highest-paid offensive line coaches in the country, Luke is, basically, retired.