Tom Herman edit
Mon, Aug 12, 2024 3:23PM • 40:59
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
coaching, coach, good, year, people, big, talent, play, players, emotion, program, head coach, learned, culture, position, great, underdog, intimate relationships, houston, season
SPEAKERS
Tom Herman, Hugh McCutcheon, Paul Barnett
Paul Barnett 00:00
Coach. Herman, good morning, and welcome to the great coaches podcast.
Tom Herman 00:05
Thanks, Paul. Appreciate you having me.
Paul Barnett 00:07
Thank you for coming along and making the time. And of course, I'm joined tonight by another great coach who'll be my co interviewer tonight. Hugh McCutcheon, how are you? Hugh, good
Hugh McCutcheon 00:16
day. Paul, yeah, doing well. Thank you. And evening for you, I'd imagine morning for us. But there you go. The joys of time zones. Yes, getting global podcast,
Paul Barnett 00:26
global podcast, getting close to midnight here. But it's not about me, Coach Herman, it's about you. Could you tell us where you are in the world and what you've been doing so far today?
Tom Herman 00:37
Yes, sir, I am in Boca Raton, Florida, here in South Florida, about 40 miles north of Miami, and I'm the head football coach at Florida Atlantic University in the American Conference.
Paul Barnett 00:53
Looking forward to hearing all about that. But could I start by going back a little bit in your history, because you've, you've been with some pretty good coaches in your apprenticeship. I can see there's Greg Davis in there, and, of course, David Shaw, who's well known to a lot of us. But could I start by asking you, what is it you think the great coaches do differently that sets them apart?
Tom Herman 01:17
Whoa, how much time do we have? I think the answer is probably that they all have something, maybe unique and or different, you know, than most people. But I think all of that, you know, if there was a silver bullet answer, we would all bottle it up and sell it, right? And what makes Nick Saban great is different than what makes Barack Obama great, you know?
And so I think it depends a lot in the field that you're in, but I think a few things translate. One, you know, relationships with people. I think although leaders are certainly in charge, that they've got a pulse and a great relationship with people, they find a way to connect. You know, we talk about the three C's of trust, character, competency and connection. So one that for somebody to trust you as a leader, let's say you've got to have good character. You got to show them that you have their best interest in mind and the organization's best interest in mind, competency, that the people that you lead have to believe that you know what you're doing and you have a track record to prove it. And then probably the most important CE is connection, as I mentioned as my first one, just the ability to whether it be through communicative skills or non verbal skills. You know, all the different methods that we have to communicate, just a way to reach deep inside the people that you're leading, not just their brain, but but their heart. And it's hard to quantify, it's hard to even define, but that probably the best word is connection[PB1]
Hugh McCutcheon 03:16
well and not to mess up the alliteration there, but, but I think to your earlier question or earlier point around, you know, everybody's got their own special source. It's authentic connection is probably what you're speaking to is, you know, we, we've got to connect with our athletes in a way that works for Yeah, yeah. That doesn't work for you, right? So
Tom Herman 03:39
that's the deal that you that is very unique as well. That's a good point here that you know, depending on how many people you lead and the scope of your organization, you know, especially nowadays, and you know, as I get more and more gray hair in this little beard of mine and the kids I coach, or seem, the kids I coach, seem to get younger and younger, you know, they it's gotta be tailor made a little bit, you know, it's gotta be very individualized. And, you know, there can't be kind of this cattle call of connection, if you will. It's very intimate relationship. I think that's probably the thing I miss the most about being a position coach. You know, when you go from being a position coach, especially the position I coach quarterbacks, you know, I'm coaching five, six guys, you know, one of them only plays in the game at a time. And so you develop very, very deep, meaningful, intimate relationships with those guys. And then you go become the head coach. And now you've got a staff of, you know, 10 assisted. Coaches and 40 support staff members a roster of 120 it's much different than than leading six people. You go from leading you know six people, or even as the offensive coordinator, leading an entire side of the ball, then you go to leading 150 individuals, and it's very, very difficult to get those intimate relationships when the scope is so so big,
Hugh McCutcheon 05:26
right? Well, and the power dynamic is different as well. Obviously, you know, as the head coach, you're making decisions. As the Assistant, you're making suggestions. And that's
Tom Herman 05:34
a very good adage, no, that's spoken very well. Very good adage is, yeah, assistant coaches make suggestions, head coaches make decisions, and that that's difficult because, you know, in in reading online, and the different things I read, you know, talk about the price of leadership, and oftentimes you have to, you know, it's, it's a great study in ethics. Even, you know, I took ethics classes in college, and, you know the I think it's Kant. Emmanuel Kant talked about the greater good. I might be getting my philosophers wrong, but, you know, sometimes you you, often times you have to make decisions that's best for the organization that may not be in alignment with people that you love and you care about but yeah, you know that test that relationship, and that is a difficult burden of leadership, if you will.
Hugh McCutcheon 06:31
No question, yeah, when you're the assistant coach, everyone will sit next to you on the bus. When the head coach, no one's going to sit next to you. But anyways,
Tom Herman 06:39
probably, probably the epitome of the expression it's lonely at the top right? Yeah, you go from drinking beers and you know everybody you know hanging out with you to, hey, it's five o'clock in the off season. Where's everybody at? Oh, they're, they're going chicken wings and red. Coach, yeah, I get it. I get it.
Hugh McCutcheon 07:07
But listen, you started, you know, it takes us. Lutheran, wide receivers. Coach, you know, salary, we don't, it wasn't, it wasn't significant, shall we say? So I think that's, that's a really important litmus test, you know, why do we get into coaching? I think a lot of people get wrapped up, and it's easy to and maybe even get enamored with the salary side of things, because people do make extraordinarily good livings from coaching. However, I think if, if the goal is to make money, you know, go to Wall Street, start a hedge fund, maybe,
07:40
no doubt,
Hugh McCutcheon 07:41
if the goal is to help people, then you know, how you get in probably matters. And tell us a little bit about that start. And also, given that, maybe financially, it wasn't, you know, great. Did you ever think about, man, I gotta go do something else.
Tom Herman 08:03
Yeah, I'll try to give you as best the Cliff Notes version as I can. But sure, no. So I was really bad at football, but really loved it. And, you know, I played non scholarship football at a small division three private school that, you know, I tell people I was so bad at football I had to pay a university $30,000 a year just to play it in college. So, but I fell in love with it. I wanted a job where I woke up before the alarm clock, and I thought I was going to go into broadcasting, and it just I I wasn't ready to leave the locker room. I was the only child of a single mom. You know, coaches were my dad's teammates were my brothers, and I just wasn't ready. And my coaches kind of said, Hey, we you know, you've been a captain. You know, as they counseled me on on my future, they said you might want to try your hand at this. And I kind of knew I for some reason, it always stuck with me that, hey, I've got to do this while I'm young, because and I gave myself some goals, getting to your your next question. And basically what I said was, if I can't do this in reverse, I can't go take a job, get married, start earning a decent wage, and at 30 wake up and say, I screwed up. I want to go coach, you know, and then go be a graduate assistant or some grunt at 30 years old, with a wife and kid depending on right, you know. And so I got in. I took the only job I had, which was a division three job halfway across the country for $5,000 a year in a meal card to the cafeteria. My mom thought I was crazy. Still all the student loans and whatnot, and so I gave myself a goal. I said, if I wasn't a FB position coach or. Or an FCS, what they call now, coordinator. By the time I was 30 that we were we were going to probably move back to California and chase my wife's dream. At that point, because I I loved football, I made it my life. But I love my wife and kids more, and I didn't want to be chasing around some some dream, knowing because in that chasing process, by the time I got I was 30 years old. By the time I made $30,000 and that was 30,000 on the.so you know, my wife was my sugar mama for, oh, I don't, you know, seven, eight years until I made a livable salary in this and so there's a lot of sacrifices that that your family makes, and I didn't want them to have to make them for life for me to chase this dream. So you asked if I ever thought about not doing it, certainly, but I had a plan, and once I had that plan, I never thought about it again. You know, I, you know, I did get very close to that deadline, though, and of that 30 year old deadline to reach those, those couple goals, but I made it in the nick of time, and kind of kind of took off from there
Paul Barnett 11:22
Tom I'm always intrigued in American football about the role the coach plays in calling the plays in real time, and I'm wondering what you've learned on your journey about this line between controlling, calling the plays and empowering and giving people the room to make their own decisions.
Tom Herman 11:46
Well, I grew up in this profession, coaching quarterbacks, and so I gravitated to that position.
In my opinion, it's the most leadership driven, intangible dependent position in all of sports. So much goes into playing that position that cannot be measured with a stopwatch or a tape measure, and so I gravitated towards it. And you know the yes about the freedom versus the structure? I think one I learned as a play caller very early. It's not about X's and O's, it's about Jimmy's and Joe's, meaning my great play design with really bad players is not going to work nearly as often as a simple play design with really good players. So it's always going to be about the players, certainly in crunch time, finding a way to feature them, to get them the ball to, you know, have them on defense, you know, the ball get to them by whatever you call and so I think that was a big one that kind of went into, you know, just philosophically throughout the course of the game, is our best players, are they involved in the game, throughout the course of the game, and then we put a lot on the quarterback at the line of scrimmage, probably more than any college program, very similar to an NFL offense in kind of what we ask the quarterback to do, and we give him tools, we teach him, you know, religiously, of kind of the indicators of what to look for, and then we kind of allow him in many situations to quote, unquote, get us in the right play or a better play than the one that was called. And I think there's a lot of trust that's involved in that process as well.[PB2]
Paul Barnett 13:54
Tom, your early career progressed very quickly. I know you talked about getting to 30 and having $30,000 but from there it goes. There, it goes exponentially. And there's a time there where you're working for Urban Meyer, and then from there, you're appointed to your first head coaching role at the University of Houston. Now there was a really interesting article in the Wall Street Journal just after you were hired, and you say, and this is a really interesting quote, you say, people can say that I'm just copying Urban Meyer. You're damn right, I'm copying Urban Meyer. But I'm wondering now, years on, with more experience, I'm wondering what advice you'd give to other coaches when it comes to copying someone else? Yeah, I
Tom Herman 14:35
think that what I meant by that was the the philosoph philosophy, that that kind of the program was built on, and just the way the organization was run. In my time there, I thought was was brilliant, and it's hard to argue. You know, in three years, we were 38 and three. Uh, you know, and won a national championship, and so so much of of what we do as a program mirrors what I learned. There a lot, you know, a sprinkling of probably every head coach that I've, that I've worked for, you can find throughout our program. But you asked about, you know, when you get your first kind of big role like that, for me, it was being a head coach.
I think the biggest thing is internally, though, as much as you want to emulate all of the great things of the programs that you've been around, and steer clear of some of the pitfalls that maybe got some of the not so good programs that you're involved in as well. You want to make sure that you're yourself right internally, the way that you communicate, the way that you think, the way that your gut, the way that your gut talks to you. I think you know, if you're not careful, you know you can change who you are internally as a person, because you think this is what that role should look like. And I always, you know, kind of think you got that role, or you got to that position by being yourself. Why would you, you know, screw around and change that part of it. So we're we're always as leaders, learning, evolving, growing, maturing, but at the end of the day, you know who you are at the core, what you believe in, what you wake up passionate about every day. I hope you stay true to that as you try to mirror and mix and match all the great stuff that maybe you've learned or been a part of.[PB3]
Hugh McCutcheon 16:56
I think that's right, Paul. I think we all pick up stuff along the way, but those, those elements of leadership or coaching, I mean, they have to be expressed through, through you. You know,
Tom Herman 17:07
no doubt, yeah, we're all unique. We're all different. And, you know, there's a lot of ways to skin a cat, right? And there's been just like I see all the time. You know, culture, each strategy for lunch, right? Like on our sport, World Championships, national championships, have been won with 1000, hundreds of different offenses or defensive schemes or what have you. It's not about the plays, it's the players, the talent that you have and the culture that you surround that talent with, that's that's what, that's what wins, not plays. Plays don't matter. You know, they might
Hugh McCutcheon 17:56
help. But man, the better players you get, the better coach you become. That's for sure. Amen,
Tom Herman 17:59
you know, it's funny we were, when I was at Iowa State, my first Power Five coordinator job. I was there for three years, and we were, like, 50th in the country, 40th in the country in offense. But it is very respectable at a place like, like Iowa State, because of the talent that we knew that we could recruit compared to what we had to play against every week. And then I get blessed to get the offensive coordinator job at Ohio State, and I'm coaching a young man named Braxton Miller, and my first two years with him, he's the Big 10 Conference Player of the Year, and I didn't become a magically better coach that I can promise you, you know, in my my time at Iowa, between Iowa State and Ohio State, what, what changed was the player, and he was a phenomenal, phenomenal player, and he made me look like a really good coach. Now, without being too self deprecating, there's a lot of great players that have had poor coaching that have never reached their right
Hugh McCutcheon 19:11
but you added value. I think we're got me better. I
Tom Herman 19:14
don't. I don't want to discount the value of coaching by by any stretch, but I don't I wasn't a quote, unquote, different or better coach the day I signed right the contract at Ohio State, versus the day prior to when I was coaching the 48th best offense in the in the country. I just happened to sign a contract with a lot better players at my disposal.
Hugh McCutcheon 19:42
Yeah, yeah. I mean, coaching is really important. Talent is not rare. You know that there are lots of people sitting in bars all over the country that will tell you how good they could have been. So it's about talent and and, and the coaching piece is, hey, can we? Can we? How. Help you to express that talent and realize your potential, you know, can we get you to become the best you can be on and off the field of play? That's, that's the role of coaching, and that's a really critical thing. But without talent, it doesn't really matter, you know. So it's not talented alone, but, but you need the coaching piece too. That's, it's,
Tom Herman 20:15
it's well said, and I have often it's like first round draft picks, if you will. We're coming off the heels of the the NFL Draft, yeah, here in the States. And, you know, I've always said mom, dad and God, make first round. Make first Rounders, you know, like, that's genetics. Make first round, right? Yeah, you know, you you could resurrect, you know, Vince Lombardi and pull Nick Saban and Bill Belichick out of retirement, put them on the same staff, and they're not going to make an average lead, talented player, elite first round not and so, you know, as as much as I train at this point in My life, I'm not going to run a four, 340, 4.3 seconds.
Hugh McCutcheon 21:04
It's unlikely, yeah, yeah, probably not going to have I
Tom Herman 21:07
get to what we call genetic potential. And I think that is the role of a coach to maximize. God has blessed all of us with different ceilings, if you will, for a multitude of things, for speed, quickness, sure, for intelligence, for empathy, whatever that is, right. And our job as a coach, as a leader, is to help those underneath us reach as close to that ceiling of their genetic potential in all of those areas as we can[PB4]
Hugh McCutcheon 21:43
well. And that's a nice segue, because, you know, you go to Houston for a couple of seasons, you go 22, and four, and I'm not too much into the label of underdog or that whole narrative, but, but clearly you you were achieving beyond what was expected of you. I think that's safe to say, right? So, you know, was there anything
Tom Herman 22:04
underdog, if you want, that's fine.
Hugh McCutcheon 22:07
But you know, what did that teach you about? You know that whole idea of of whatever underdogs and and kind of out punting your coverage, and all that you know, was there anything from that? You think that's a healthy narrative to have that chip on your shoulder is, does that help or does it not matter?
Tom Herman 22:26
Yeah. Well, I think it really does speak to the the adage of, you know, talent eats or culture eats talent for lunch. Yeah? Because we in two years there, we played six power five schools, which, for those unfamiliar with American football, you know that we were fighting above our weight class, if you will, and we went six and Oh, in two years, three of those wins were against top 10 teams, two of them were against top five teams. And I think probably the best way I have to answer that question, Hugh is I used to say all the time, I would compare myself to, then the coaches of those top five, top 10 teams, and say, you know, they wouldn't trade rosters with us. They have better players than us. We have a better culture. And I and I stopped saying that they have better players, and I said they have better talent than us. Yep, we have a better culture with better football players, because I think there's a difference between being a great player football player. And I was saying it wrong, and I didn't I wanted to say it very specifically that, no, I
Hugh McCutcheon 23:42
think that's the right way to phrase it, yes, but they
Tom Herman 23:44
did not have better football players than us. Yes, that, that you said, you know, kind of embracing the underdog. I I think it's more a belief in your way of doing things. Now, we had good players. We had a first round corner at Houston my first year there, our middle linebacker was a late round draft pick, but started as a rookie for the New England Patriots. So we had really good players, don't get me wrong, really talented players, right? So I think there was a belief, a real belief, that, you know, because of the way that we do things, because we're we're different, and we do things a little bit harder, and we embrace that, that we can, we can overcome so many deficiencies in talent with our love for each other, With our purpose, right? And then our, our culture, our toughness, you know? I just, I really believe that that belief was what drove that more so than kind of chip on the shoulder or whatever, right? No, no, I[PB5]
Hugh McCutcheon 24:54
love it. I think, yeah, you got, you got a fourth seed.
Tom Herman 24:57
We got good enough players. We're not some division two school that has no chance when we line up. Yeah, right enough that if we put our culture and our way of doing things on display the right way, we can play with and beat anybody in the country. And we believe that, right?
Hugh McCutcheon 25:15
I was going to say you've got a fourth C. You can add conviction to the list, because I think that's a real thing too. Yeah, onwards. But anyway, and then you go to Texas, and I'm really interested to hear your, your take on all this. And, you know, I don't know how you, how you feel about it all, but obviously, on paper, it looked like a pretty successful campaign, you know, four balls and lots of good stuff going on, but what were the lessons? And, you know, what were the, what were the opportunities for growth from all of that? Yeah,
Tom Herman 25:49
I was proud of much of our time there. And I'm sure there's, there's a book waiting to be printed someday, when I finally retire, that'll that'll get into a lot, lot juicier details, but no, I need to juice that fact I was proud of, and still am, the fact that when, when we took over that place, it, you know, three straight losing Seasons for the only time in the 120 years they've been playing football there, and that is that is a tough, tough task to weed out that mentality and that those kind of people, to be quite honest with you, because I think at that point there was a lot that were unconvertible, if you will. You know, they were, we didn't. We would not have enough time. So it's like, you just gotta move on. And so I was proud of the fact that we squeaked by, you know, with seven wins in our first season. But we really laid the foundation for then, you know, year two, when we beat our rival, Oklahoma, beat number five Georgia in the sugar bowl. And
Hugh McCutcheon 27:02
I learned nighttime wins. I mean, those are real outcomes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so,
Tom Herman 27:11
you know what I learned for, for probably the most, for this time around, one fit is important for my job and for any leader's job, you know, whether you've got a CEO that's listening, right? Not all CEO jobs are the same, right and fit personality, fit and all of that with, you know, we all got bosses, right? Even the boss has a boss. And so, you know, fit is important. But also I realized that I've given myself a little bit of grace this season at FAU for having my own you know, so first time as a head coach, I haven't been to a bowl game, and after this past season and so, but I remember because this situation was a lot different than Houston. You know, Houston was an eight win team that we took over, that they were very, very close, right where, much like at Texas, this program had had suffered three straight losing seasons and had had a lot of work to do. And so we're excited about year two. But I think I learned that a full culture shift from from really, really bad to what you want probably takes more than a year, you know, as as evidenced by, you know what, what I've gone through now three, three different times taking over programs. Yeah,
Hugh McCutcheon 28:41
I agree. It's, it's, uh, you can change systems, technical, tactical, sure. But the culture probably takes, you know, two or three, yeah, it takes, takes a while, no doubt.
Tom Herman 28:51
Anyway. Oh, very good. Tom, I
Paul Barnett 28:54
want to talk to you about the culture and the the way you describe it. It's very interesting. But could we just take a few more little, small steps before we get there, because there's some other stuff I'd like to get into, and I've got this other terrific quote from you I'd like to play back to you before I ask the question, and you say, if you want to achieve the things that you want to return internally achieve, you've got to have fortitude, and you've got to be able to compartmentalize your life and not let the negative things that may be happening in one sector of your life bleeding to the jobs that you have to do in other parts of your life. It's a great it's a really great quote. It's a really great idea, really hard to do, really hard to do. For many of us, I'm wondering if there's anything that you found that's more effective in doing that when, when it comes to trying to achieve this compartmentalization,
Tom Herman 29:51
well, it's, it's, I pride myself in that. I pride myself in kind of a. Certain stoicism on the sideline during games. I fully subscribe to the adage that emotion is the enemy of great decision making, and I really do believe that Great Decisions are made very emotionless. And you know, I I've never understood and so maybe I'm the wrong person to ask about the how, but I've never understood, you know, I've coached 1000s of young men, and they've all had good practices, bad practices. And I use the example like, Hey, son, you had a bad practice. What's going on? Well, my girlfriend broke up with me last night, and it's like, What the hell does that have to do with football? Like, why did you know, like, for two and a half hours your girlfriend's not out here? Like, and I think we, you know, the the biggest mantra we have in our, our pillars of the program, in our in our program are it just simply says, want to know, and that's more than kind of taking it week by week, or whatever I want. I want our guys competing every second of every day, you know, on the task at hand. And you know, the only thing that can deter them from that is distraction. And so I think it's more so the belief that there's enough room, there's enough time, there's enough room in your bandwidth, there's enough time in the day to deal with everything that you need to deal with separately. And if there's not, then you go to bed and you wake up and you deal with the less urgent things the next day. But when we start letting areas of our life seep into other areas, it especially negatively. It certainly it affects everything. And I think again, it's you have to believe that to be the case one, in order to then create some habits or tools, maybe that can allow you to be singularly focused in a moment where you may your body, your chemistry, whatever it is your physiology says, I want to be nervous, I want to be anxious, I want to be emotional. There's gotta be a way, a deep breath, a mantra, whatever it is for you to be able to recenter yourself and kind of put whatever it is back in its box for to be dealt with at the proper time. Now is the time to deal with whatever it is.[PB6]
Hugh McCutcheon 32:41
I think that's a good point, but I because I completely agree, you know, I think we all have emotions. That's fine, but, but I think generally, we're pretty poor at acknowledging emotional control as a thing and even as a really important tool relative to elite performance. You know that we're going to have emotions, we're going to have these responses, but being able to, as you said, take a breath and respond to that response, I mean, that's that's the magic right there, so that instead of acting out of emotion, which at times may be good but But oftentimes, I don't think it is optimal, we can be in a more rational space to Make the right choice at the right time. So I think in some ways, that kind of emotional control and compartmentalization is also about, hey, you know, whatever is going on outside right now, we need you to be here. So that's about being present. So they're connected, but they're but they're different things you're speaking to, but they're both really, really critical and like, you know, I don't think you hear a lot of coaches talking about it, because a lot of coaches will rely on emotion to try to generate energy. I prefer to talk about, hey, we're trying to create energy which is an intention and something we can control, versus an emotion which is a response, yeah. And I know I really like what you're saying there.
Tom Herman 33:54
And again, I don't think either of us or anybody wants when you score a touchdown, not to feel happy about it, or when you drop a pass, not to be frustrated or or upset. But it's the ability to reset that exactly right, that mechanism in your brain, good, bad and different by the time you get to whatever it is the next thing you have to do for us, it's a play. You know, within 40 seconds or so, you've got to be able to reset and compartmentalize this play and understand that the prior play has no bearing here. So why would I let it, even, you know, enter my mind at this point? Yeah, we're
Hugh McCutcheon 34:36
not talking about emotional suppression. We're talking about emotional control. Those are different things. We're not trying to push the emotion down and like that. Down and like they don't exist. They exist. They're a thing. But that doesn't mean we have to succumb to them very good. Well, listen, you know, you've been to Houston, Texas, now you're at FAU, and what do you think now? You're in a reset or a cultural shift? And you know, you've had all these lessons along the way, you know, what are the, what are the big rocks, what are the things that you're that you're trying to get in place right away? And in year one, you know, you maybe you had, we got to get these things going. And year two, you got some more. Like, is there anything to that, or is it? And I understand these things aren't prescriptive, but generally, we know, like, Hey, we got to have these things in place for us to have a chance. So can you give us any insight into that process for you?
Tom Herman 35:27
Yeah, I think you know that getting the staff together was was a critical piece, and then obviously, going into year two, maintaining continuity in that staff and making sure that they, you know, have spent the year growing as coaches and as support staff members, what have you. And then it's about, you know, player evaluation, whether it be your current roster and who fits and who doesn't. And then recruiting wise, what do we need, and what kind of position do we need, and what kind of person do we need as well? And so I think it has certainly made year two, going into year two, feel a lot more rhythmic, maybe is the best way to put it. You know that, that there's a system in place, and we're, we're all kind of, we understand what, what each day is is going to bring now it's not, hey, what, what's tomorrow going to look like? Kind of thing? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hugh McCutcheon 36:39
You're not waiting for the next grenade, and you're not, you're not a fireman.
Paul Barnett 36:43
Tom, you talk about the power and importance of being parental now as a role model and a leader. What do you want men to do more of when it comes to taking this kind of position with with with teams,
Tom Herman 36:58
be present would be the biggest first step. You know, I've always told my staff members, you know, if there's a tie in recruiting, there never is. But you know, if the kids got the exact same height, the exact same weight, the exact same measurables, then one has a dad in his life, and one doesn't, we're probably going to favor the one that does, because I have just seen the power of when we get him at 18 years old. The differences that that influence, in my opinion, has on these young men, and so I think for those men being present, it was really, really important. And you talked about the word parental. I also, you know, I hope we use the word love more than any program in the country, you know, real, genuine love. I think that that's that and fear are the two biggest motivating factors in a human being's life, and so we're able to to do things as human beings that we have no earthly idea what we're able to do through the power of love and commitment. But you know, so I hope that that we use that word a lot, and I say when you become a parent, you don't hold your newborn baby for the first time and wait to see how smart they're going to be, or how tall they're going to be, or how fast they're going to run to love them. You love them because they're yours. And so when a parent drops their young man off to us. I I don't care who he is, what he's done in his past. He's ours, and we love Him and unconditionally at that point, and we're going to provide him with every tool and resource known to man to be successful, but much like a parent, we're going to hold him to some very high standards. And you know, if those standards aren't met, we'll there'll be consequences for that, as well as education on how to meet them the next time[PB7]
Paul Barnett 39:08
this focus on love comes through in all the interviews with you. But there's one thing you do that is so unique, and I've heard you talk about you kiss every player before they go on the field. Could you? Could you tell us it's such an intimate thing to do, and I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about it.
Tom Herman 39:26
Well, I I don't do it anymore, to be honest with you, Paul, simply, in today's day and age, it rubs some people the wrong way, and that's okay, but I know when I used to I said, like I grew up in a very Italian household, and so I kissed my uncles, and you know that on the cheek, and that was a way for us to tell him, I love him. And you know if I was sending my son out, you know what our guys do is very gladiatorial. Now, obviously we're. Not fighting to the death, but we're putting on a bunch of armor, right? And we're going and smashing ourselves into each other for the entertainment of the masses, right? And so I know if my actual blood son, TD or Maverick, were about to go out and do what our guys do for three hours every Saturday, I'd give them a big hug, a big kiss on the cheek, and tell him I love him and that I'm proud of him. And so all of all of that, minus the kiss on the cheek is still present, though. I tell every kid that pregame that I love him, I give him a big hug, I tell him I'm proud of him and that I'm excited to watch him play. Because I know that if, if that were my actual son, that's, that's what I'd be telling him.
Paul Barnett 40:43
Fantastic. Coach Herman, thank you for your time. I know you're busy there getting ready for the season ahead, but I do appreciate you carving out some time to talk to us.
Hugh McCutcheon 40:53
Thanks, Paul. Thanks. Uh Hugh. Appreciate it. Yeah. Really a pleasure. Cheers. Coach.