Here in the Midwest, with its high-school football majesty, Josh McDaniels was toughened to handle one of the greatest quarterback-coach spats in NFL history. McDaniels could never have known this, of course, as he played quarterback in a demanding town for a legendary high school coach who happened to be his father. Playing for dad meant proving every day to everybody else that a starting position was something earned, not inherited. In starting his first head coaching job with the Broncos, McDaniels' preference would have been to use his fertile background on more menial tasks, such as rebuilding the organization. But to revisit McDaniels' youth, to see the millions of dollars poured into the local prep football programs in Northern Ohio, to understand the grave pressure that accompanies upscale accommodations and the expectations from those who funded them, is to realize former Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler never had a chance. It may not be easily detectable but there is a tough skin covering the boyish looks of the Broncos' 33-year-old head coach, who this week leads the team into training camp. Rookies, quarterbacks and injured players report on Monday. 'People out there will never understand the pressure Josh was under his whole high school career,' said Jack Rose, who coached against McDaniels' McKinley High School at rival Massillon Washington High School. 'The people of McKinley were tough to play for. I'm going to tell you right now, that Cutler guy never went through what Josh McDaniels went through in high school. He was really a good player, had a great winning record at McKinley and people were always (complaining) about him. 'It toughened him. It made him stronger for what he's facing today. How he handled it back then, it's not surprising how he handled what's been going on out there now.' Tough? When Josh was in fifth grade, he and his brother Ben, who was in the second grade, didn't just ride the bus to school. They rode the bus with a police car following. And once the McDaniels boys stepped inside the hallways, the police would secure the school behind them. Canton police felt they had to take such precautions after McDaniels' father, Thom, received a death-threat letter that made mention of kidnapping his boys. Later in his coaching career, Thom and his family would occasionally wake up to find menacing signs in his yard demanding he be fired. All this hostility for a coach who would go 197-63 in 23 years of coaching at McKinley and Warren Harding high schools. 'I wasn't the most well-liked person in Canton,' Josh McDaniels said. 'I was a coach's son who played quarterback. It was tough at times.' The greatest misconception of the NFL offseason was the belief McDaniels was untrained to handle Cutler's uncooperative behavior. Rarely, if ever, has a kid coach been more conditioned to handle such a monumental crisis that, despite some periodic bouts of contention, ended decisively with Cutler traded to the Chicago Bears. 'Of all the things people have taught me regarding life lessons or anything that would benefit me, I don't think anything helped me learn more about life than football,' McDaniels said. 'You go through so many different things: Adversity, how to handle adversity, how to handle success, how to lead, how to be a teammate, how to communicate. There's so many things you learned by being part of a football team. And I saw a tremendous amount of negativity, too. In this town, if you don't win, it's terrible.' Wearing shorts, a T-shirt and sandals, McDaniels never appeared more relaxed as he sat on his parents' living room sofa. Since he was hired to replace Mike Shanahan as Broncos coach on Jan. 11, McDaniels had worked from dawn to well past dinner, six or seven days a week, for five months, to transform the organization into his own image. He overhauled the coaching staff, implemented his shotgun-driven offense, switched the defense from a 4-3 to a 3-4 system, signed more than a dozen free agents, briefly delved into trade talks for Matt Cassel, his former quarterback at New England, executed an even bigger trade involving Cutler, ran his new team through a series of offseason practices, and attempted to soothe the contract protest of Brandon Marshall by holding regular conversations with the receiver's agent. Once the regular season starts, McDaniels says he will get to his office around 5 or 5:30 in the morning, and leave around 10 or 11 at night. Thursdays he'll depart around 9 or 9:30. 'I'm not sleeping in the office,' said McDaniels, who has two children with his wife, Laura. 'I don't want to start that practice.' In late June, it was time to get away with his family and clear a mind that constantly is in gear. Although he's young and looks even younger, McDaniels has a presence that exudes authority. He is confident and serious-minded, and like practically everyone inside an athletic arena, he can bust the chops of his friends and associates. 'What I love about him, and what I don't necessarily love, is sometimes he can be so serious,' said longtime friend Matt Cunningham. 'It's hard to get him to let that down, to let loose. When we go on vacation he'll let go a little bit, but he's the first one to bed, the first one up in the morning. He's never been a big partier or anything. But he does have a sense of humor. He is very fun-loving.' McDaniels had just returned from his annual family vacation in Florida and was spending a few days at his folks' house, which is up a class from the large A-frame house near downtown Canton where Thom and Christine raised their boys. Christmas shopping was simple at the McDaniels' house. The boys were easy to please. 'I never had a car in high school and I never had a car in college,' Josh said. 'I wasn't much of a run-around.' A new football, though, was something else. Every Christmas morning, the McDaniels' boys knew they could count on a new ball with their name monogrammed on the side. The joy of the once-a-year present only magnified. 'I would run down in the middle of the night on Christmas morning, grab that, go right back up to bed,' McDaniels said. 'That's what I slept with until Laura came around.' At 3 Brothers Corner Tavern, the patrons are mixed on the success of their native son. The surprise is which side the feelings fall. 'Good football player, great guy,' said Brian Finnicum, whose father was a 28-year season ticket holder at Massillon. 'Real good quarterback. I haven't heard a bad thing about him.' Finnicum's good friend, Sean Sanford, is a McKinley alum. 'I would say 80 to 90 percent of the people I talk to, there's jealousy in what Josh has accomplished,' Sanford said. 'You'd think everyone around here would be proud of him, but any time someone's successful, there's jealousy.' Strange how society works. McDaniels' opponents, who view from an objective distance, honor him with respect. The people supposedly on his side feel pangs of resentment. Call it the lottery-winner syndrome: Why him and not us? 'I grew up that way,' Josh said. 'People cried nepotism every time I was on the field. But I played for a lot of coaches before I played for my father and I started for everybody. He wasn't the first person who all the sudden put me in the starting lineup.' Even for a coach and father accustomed to living under pressure of an intense local spotlight, the McJaygate controversy crimped Thom McDaniels' nerve endings. A father will suffer for his son as the boy endures scathing criticism. Then again, as a coach, Thom understands how tough times often create better times. 'At first I was concerned,' Thom McDaniels said. 'But then at one particular point I remember telling Josh, 'You know what? The honeymoon's over.' Sometimes the season doesn't work out the way you want it to because you've been on a honeymoon too daggum long. Now, it was, 'OK, now you can go about doing your job.' ' The hangover effect from the Cutler controversy was McDaniels' integrity being impugned. Cutler demanded a trade, then later said he never wanted a trade. Yet, it was McDaniels' virtue that has been questioned. 'It was frustrating to watch Josh get somewhat vilified for that,' said Broncos chief operating officer Joe Ellis, who helped owner Pat Bowlen in the coaching search that landed McDaniels. 'Because I know his communication and any effort he made to communicate with the other party was straightforward and very clear. I would defend him to the end on how he approached it. I'll tell you right now, if you have a problem with Josh McDaniels' honesty then that's your problem, not his.' McDaniels said he has no regrets with how it all turned out. He likes his new quarterback, Kyle Orton. He likes his team. He was prepared from an early age to handle the onerous challenge that was the Cutler saga. 'Everybody who's close to me and everybody who either depends on me, or I depend on them, knows they can trust me,' he said. 'And that's what's important.' 