GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- Dan Mullen has made it a point to build his programs around family. We see it with Megan Mullen's involvement with the team. We see it with how he interacts with his players and recruits.

And this week the Gators head coach had to lean on his family and on his extended family.

Shortly after concluding the scrimmage last Thursday, Mullen boarded a plane to mourn the death of his father, Robert Mullen.

"It’s been tough," Mullen said. "I was very fortunate. I got to go up and say goodbye. He lasted a couple of days after that. I found out right on the way to practice on Saturday morning, a couple of Saturdays ago, that he passed away that morning.

"Obviously, it’s a really tough deal. My mom’s still around, I haven’t lost a parent before. It’s a tough deal. It was a beautiful service. I was thankful I was able to go and attend his funeral and get to spend some time with the family. So that was very nice."

The death was not unexpected, however, it was clear on that Mullen shared a special bond with his father.

"I credit him, he was a great dad. He was a really good person," said Mullen. Megan and I both did the eulogy at the mass. One thing she said, boy, I never hear him say an unkind word. And if you go back and look when I was like 6 or 7 years old playing in Little League, he was there to try help coach the team. He was always a huge fan, a huge supporter."

Supporter.

Thats a good description of Mullen's approach to being a head coach.

One only has to speak to players, recruits or any staff member to understand that the Mullens have tried to inspire a family atmosphere in Gainesville.

An atmosphere that can be tough to create with the demands placed on a college coach.

"Recruiting keeps changing that way it makes it really hard to have much of a quality of life," said Mullen. "They added a dead period in July which I think is good for the health of coaches."

It is hard to juggle the recruiting calendar to fit not only high school vacation dates to college schedules across the board. It is simply not possible.

"I do think it is a big challenge to affect quality of life. You got to live with it, you got to try to adapt to it as best as possible because you'd be hypocritical right to sit out there and say we believe in family, we believe in teaching these young men that come to our program not just to be a great football player but be great men and be successful in life and how to live your life a certain way, how to be a great husband and how to be a great father, and then we don't do that in our lives is pretty hypocritical. So I work hard on scheduling to make sure our coaches get to be husbands and fathers as well."

A good example was Mullen's decision to give his staff a few days off after last week's scrimmage. Alachua County schools were on spring break this past week, however, the University of Florida had its spring break a few weeks ago.

Mullen did not hesitate. His coaches deserved some time with their kids.

"I wanted to make sure we give our coaches some time off when our players aren't here on their spring break get away, but if you have kids, your kids are in school," he explained. "Well this week your kids aren’t in school and we’re in the middle of practice, so we gave everybody a couple of days off so they could have a long weekend and go spend time and be a husband and a father.”

This is not something new to Mullen. A father to two children himself, Mullen understands the difficulty the college football schedule can present.

"I just try to remember what it’s like being an assistant coach and try to remember what’s important," he explained. "We don’t usually work on Halloween night. That’s interesting for guys that are new that have worked for me, like, ‘Holy Cow. I have never taken my kids trick or treating.’ Well, my dad took me trick or treating, and kind of remember that. I don’t remember a lot of things from childhood, and I don’t remember a specific night of it. I just remember that happening.

"There’s a lot of little things like that I want to make sure our coaches’ kids remember. I want my kids when they get older, I certainly don’t want them to say my dad was never, ever around," he added. "Obviously our job makes that difficult already, so my job as a head coach is try, as best we can, to ease that and let everybody be Dads once in a while.”

His staff appreciates it. Florida defensive coordinator, Todd Grantham, told reporters his was one of the reasons he decided to turn down a job with the Cincinnatti Bengals was because of Mullen's goal to create an environment perfect for families.

"My family likes it here," Grantham said. "You’ve always got to factor in everything. When you do that, it was a pretty easy decision.”

It all goes back to Robert Mullen. A man, Dan Mullen said enjoyed life to the fullest. A man that Mullen wants to strive to match.

"He just genuinely was a good person. I don’t think he ever walked into a room, as I said, every room he ever walked into he left with a lot more friends than he walked in (with)," said Mullen. "I don’t know if he had many bad days. He enjoyed life. He had a great time. It’s a great way to live life. You’re enjoying every day of it. You wake up every day and you’re happy, and if you’re not boy that’s a shame. It’d be a tragedy going through life not waking up every day and just enjoy what you’re doing.”