You wonder how football coach’s wives can take it sometimes.

Their husband is out of the house about 80 hours a week. The son is playing for dad so he’s gone. And then, there’s the grandfather, a former coach himself, who is helping his son and coaching his grandson.

That pretty much sums up the life of the Eanes family. Tommy, 44, is the head coach at East Rowan. Bill — known affectionately as Pop — is four months shy of 70 and is his assistant. Drew, 16, is Tommy’s son and a prospect at quarterback.

So the question is, Why isn’t Carol Eanes in the nuthouse yet?

“She’s a good woman to put up with the moving and everything that goes with it,” understated Tommy, who has moved 11 times. “Fans can be irritable with coaches. So I told her it wouldn’t hurt my feelings if she sat on the visitor’s side . At least, they’ll be praising me for messing up.”

Drew even seemed to feel a little sorry for Mom, saying, “She copes as well as she can.”

And sometimes, she does gets the last laugh.

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Tommy loves to tell the story of 16 years ago when Carol was pregnant with Drew.

“My wife asked me, “What are you doing in late January? I’m going to have this baby during the Super Bowl.’”

Just as planned, her water broke the morning that the Raiders and Redskins were preparing for — you guessed it — the Super Bowl.

“I thought for sure she’d (deliver) before kickoff,” Tommy laughs. “But she piddled around.”

The game began and the doctor and Eanes had their hands out waiting for Drew, all the while sneaking a peek at the TVscreen. Drew was finally born as Marcus Allen made his now-famous cutback run for a touchdown.

“My dad was having trouble paying attention to me,” Drew chuckles.

Tommy just sighed. That was her revenge for all of the football.”

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And there has been plenty of football and football games and football meetings and football tapes...

Oh, the tapes.

Both Drew and Tommy roll their eyes when asked how many tapes are in the house. There’s too many boxes to count.

And that all goes back to Pop, who began his coaching career back in 1955, the year Tommy was born. He was the one who turned Tommy into a football monster at an early age by running those tapes back and forth, back and forth.

“He’d say, ‘C’mon, let’s watch film,’” Tommy remembers. “To me, I thought it was great. I loved being the son of a football coach. Now, my son may feel different.”

“I didn’t force anything on him,” says Pop, who resides in Davie County and drives to East each day for practice. “He took to it as a little kid. He’d come out with things you wouldn’t expect from a 4,5,6-year old. I never asked him. He went wherever I went.”

Like most coach’s sons, Tommy immediately became a quarterback. Thanks in part to a receiver named Billy Clark, he became Davie County’s first 1,000-yard passer in 1973 under Bill Peeler.

“He was always a quarterback,” Pop said. “Even as a young kid, he had great technique.”

Why are coach’s sons always quarterbacks?

“They’re around it, listening to what you say,” explained Pop. Other kids aren’t exposed to that.”

So there’s no wonder Drew is a QB. Tommy sees himself.

“That’s all you’ve done since you were born,” Drew said. “You love it. I was always there as a ballboy or keeping stats. If he goes anywhere to watch a game, I go with him. And my mom knows that if I’ve gone somewhere, it’s usually football-related.”

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Pop coached at several places, including with East Carolina’ legend Clarence Stassovich. If he tries to teach Drew anything, it’s about life, not football.

“Kids are different today,” he said. “Tommy’s not as rough as I was. Back then, you could be meaner. Now, you have to get the kids to do it without them knowing they’re doing it.”

And he has not had to prod any of the Mustangs to work hard or show respect. It’s like going back in time for him.

“This keeps me young,” he said before draping a towel around his shoulders and heading out into the 95-degree heat to coach the fullbacks. “These kids have been brought up right. no one is saying huh or yeah. “It’s all yes sir. No sir.”

And it is obvious he is proud as can be of his boy.

“There was no doubt in my mind that Tom would be a coach. He has a knack to get a kid to grasp what he wants.”

Tommy smiles as his father starts rambling about schools like Hildebran in Burke County, East Carolina, Wallace Wade at Duke, going to Newton-Conover.

“I loved being the son of a coach,” he said. “When I was growing up, the three people you looked up to were the preacher, the doctor and the head football coach ... not necessarily in that order.

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to add the wife in that category.

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Ronnie Gallagher is the sports editor of the Post.