Thom Park

MANAGING YOUR FOOTBALL COACHING CAREER C. ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, FSU

PART I: PREPARING THE MATERIALS and overheads. Well, today, gentlemen, I YOU NEED TO APPLY FOR THE JOB am that person. YOU WANT It is really a pleasure to be with you as Good afternoon, coaches. It is a pleasure football coaches. Once you get into the to be with you. To any of you who have flow of a conference and you get a sense spoken at clinics, you know that there is a for the good people that you are with and rhythm you need to get into, much like a the great role that coaches play in our football game or any sport in which you society, you can really get excited about participate. When I gave my first talk on being a coaches’ clinician. I started Friday at 4:00, I had spent the hour playing this wonderful game of football in before the talk relaxing. I went into it so 1958, so for the past 41 years I have mellow that I couldn’t get too far up on the seen it from about every angle possible. I performance arousal curve, so I thought I encourage you to take notes, because did a bad job. I teach Sunday school back remember, as the ancient Chinese in Tallahassee, and my wife is in the class, proverb reminds us, the ink of the palest so after every class I say, “Honey, how pen is better than the best of memories. did I do?” She usually gives me a grade and she is a tough grader! I got an A+ the After having been a player for 11 seasons, other day, so I said to her, “You usually a coach for 15, an educator, academic, don’t give out A+’s; I must have been businessman, entrepreneur, sports agent, pretty good. I didn’t feel that I was that person in sports governance, I feel that I good, but was I?” She said that it was have seen football from many different really, really good. I have a theory that if perspectives, I have taught about it, you get good at something, sometimes written about it, and lectured on it, and I you’re good even when you’re bad. I was will probably do this for the rest of my life. so relaxed the other day that I did not As Thurgood Marshall, the Supreme think I was good, but everybody told me I Court justice, said, “I have a lifetime was. Anyway, today I am little bit more appointment, and I intend to serve it.” energized, so hopefully I will be more up Hopefully, I will die at 110, shot by a on that performance arousal curve and do jealous publisher who is trying to steal a better job. You know all about that, one of my sports books. I love this game because you coach. Sometimes you are and what it can do for young men and our terrible, but your team wins. Sometimes society. you are near genius, and you get blown out. That is why we play the games—to My son played football for 13 years and see on a relative basis if we are any good. made regional Academic All-American at Villanova University, where in 1995 he Ronald Reagan’s attorney general and was voted third for GTE Academic All- good friend, Edwin Meese, used to say American behind Danny Wuerffel and that an expert is someone who is from Peyton Manning. This past season, he more than 50 miles away, carries a was GA at Duke University briefcase, has no responsibility under Fred Goldsmith, where they were whatsoever for implementing the advice fired. What he learned from that brief that he gives, and shows transparencies sojourn experience into coaching and what I observed over many years is that

1 Thom Park coaches get fired routinely. I bet most of you did not know that. My coaches changed my life, and many of your coaches changed yours. This is Our topic today centers around this why it is so important that you be aspect, as well as the complete outstanding individuals; outstanding management of your football coaching disciples of good values, morals, and career. I am going to talk about it from an ethics; and the ultimate of teachers in eclectic perspective, meaning a your teaching. You are too important as multidisciplinary perspective, which—as a people in our society to not be coaches. former coach—brings you the That’s why it is so important to me to give perspectives that a coach might have, but this talk on how to best manage your also those perspectives shaped from careers, because your value is clear. many other disciplines. , who served, I believe, seven years as the Now, if you will look at the handout that head football coach of the Cleveland has to do with football coaches, educators Browns, said that football should be a and their incomes, you will become passion to those who coach it. When he quickly aware from those two articles that was fired, in order to find himself, he went you are not paid well enough. Bobby into the inner city and worked with kids Bowden makes over a million dollars a from the ghetto, because he said it year, and when I introduced him in the energized him. These were young people past, I have told him that when they write who literally had to climb out of the pit the book in 2050 about the top five every day to survive. Victor Frankel, the college coaches of the 20th century, he great psychotherapist, found that people will be one of them. When I did that, he who survived the Nazi death camps were looked over at me and said, “Can you those who were able to reach outside of guarantee that?” I smiled and said, “No, themselves, those who were able to focus coach, there is , , on the needs of others rather than on , Knute Rockne, and themselves. Those who focused on their Eddie Robinson, so you are in tight own misery turned inward and died. company.” He laughed, probably figuring Psychologists have studied the “Hanoi that he had a way to crack into that group. Hilton” of the Vietnam experience and Seriously, just like , he found these same things. Those who encouraged his players to start writing were able to survive were those who things down, and I am going to teach like looked outside of their own sorrow and him, so if you want to take those copious horrible condition and reached out to notes, be my guest. others. What Coach Rutigliano related to us about the kids in the ghetto is that I always remind coaches that we have everyone who ultimately made it had a multiple representational systems. We teacher, a youth pastor, or a coach who see things, we hear things, we feel by really cared about them and helped them writing; these are our representational elevate themselves. The great nobility of systems. How you learn best may be the coaching profession is the impact that visual, it may be auditory, or it may be you as coaches can have on one child. kinesthetic. Whatever our input system is, There are 139,000 junior high school, we then cognate that information, high school, and coaches transpose it, and learn it through our in the United States, or some number like primary representational system. that, and in a full career each one of you Everybody learns differently, but if you will can impact 20,000 student athletes. What see, listen, hear, cognate, write, and do, you do can be saintlike! You men are vital that is the best way to learn. That is why I to our society. suggest that people take copious notes

2 Thom Park when listening to a lecture. Paul Brown on his hierarchy of needs, but he is not a must have had a closet career as a football coach. motor-learning sports psychologist, because in football coaching, he gave us When we consider the statistic, seen this idea. Make the players take notes! about 25 years ago in an Coaches Association journal, I learned a long time ago to not tell jokes, that two thirds of all college coaches because you should only tell jokes if you between the ages of 33 and 37 leave are funny, and I know that I am not. You coaching, it made me ask why. It would are well aware that every American male certainly suggest that the ancient Chinese is an expert at three things: making love, paradigm needs to be considerably being President (which lately seem to be truncated or compacted if you are going similar functions), and coaching football. to get it done by age 37. My father also Since everybody knows how to do your told me something else. That is that in our job, it makes it difficult to please 20s, we get our first jobs based on what everybody. As Abraham Lincoln said, we will do, that is, the sweat of our brow “You can please some of the people all and the strength of our back. Then in our the time, all of the people some of the 30s, we get our next set of jobs based on time, but seldom can you please all the what we have done and experienced, people all the time.” I know you know that who and what we know, or what we have as football coaches. The reason I teach learned. In our 40s, when the Chinese this seminar on managing your football say we have risked and learned and it is career is that if you don’t plan where you time to now earn, we get jobs based on are going, you surely won’t know where who we know or, as one of my professors you will end up, and you will probably end from Florida State used to say, “Politics is up somewhere different from where you everything.” Politics certainly becomes wanted to go. I did this with my own part of the process when we enter into career. Mine is okay because it has midlife. In our 50s, Dad said you get your turned out very, very well for me, but I did next set of jobs or your last set of jobs it in an eastern way rather than in a based on who you have become or who western way, but that is another story. My you are. Last, you get your final, pinnacle, point is that I think you need to manage crowning career achievements based on your football career and you need to plan what you stand for. This is the phase it. My father was one of America’s first jet where the Chinese would say we should test pilots in 1948 and an original-member be leaders and we should be able to of the “right stuff” crowd. Dad taught me enjoy the fruits our industrious and some very wise things, and one of them professional lives. We should stand for was that you make a living by what you some great principles upon which we will get, but you make a life by what you give. never compromise, and we should teach I think coaches give a great deal. Dad them to the younger generation. Eric showed me the paradigm from the Erikson calls this “renewal” or ancient Chinese. In your 20s, VOL need “regeneration.” This is what great people to risk as much as you can if you are to do. succeed. In your 30s, you should learn as much as you can. In your 40s, you should I am going to talk today about a proactive earn as much as you can. In your 50s you management of your football career to should lead as much as you can, and in help you bridge the gap between your your 60s, you should put it all together current coaching assignment and the next and enjoy life as much as you can. one. I want you to be able to seek out and Abraham Maslow would probably call this gain the job that you want. We hope to last phase some form of self-actualization enable you to develop skills to seek and

3 Thom Park acquire a position that is truly right for you. accomplishments. We created this book I want this coursework to include résumé to show you how to design and create writing, interviewing, and positioning your own portfolio that will help you get yourself in career marketing. Hopefully, I the job better than you could ever do it in cang et into financial aspects, contract the older, more traditional ways. The negotiations, career management, and word-of-mouth methods that coaches how to evaluate coaching moves. I think it usually use to move around from job to is your duty as a coach to discuss with job, or any normal traditional approach, yourself and your family what you owe the don’t work so well in our highly mobile, profession and how to accomplish these competitive, organized society. things. I spoke earlier about , and How can we better understand résumé I got off track, but the point I was going to construction, interviewing skills, hiring make is that you are not well paid and processes, and the management of you are certainly not nearly as well paid coaching careers if we don’t study them? as your equivalent educators. My paper You will study a film to make a game plan, speaks to that point, which I have yet so many coaches won’t put in the time researched. Nonetheless, if Bobby to study their careers so that they can Bowden makes a million dollars a year manage them intelligently. Talk about and he is in the top fie of his profession, penny wise and pound foolish! My good what do you think the top five corporate mutual friends, Coach Ken Ozee and his CEOs make, the top five business owners, lovely wife, Carol Ozee, my co-authors, the top five doctors, the top five lawyers, are from Dallas, where Ken is a very well the top five investment bankers, and the known and successful Texas high school top five financial advisors, as I am? I football coach and athletic director. Ken would promise you that the top five and Carol are my partners. Our book is coaches don’t make anywhere near the available for your purchase for only $20. top 500 in the world of any of those other We have purposely priced this at a level professions. So if you think coaches are of affordability so young coaches can buy overpaid, you really don’t understand the it arid older coaches are encouraged to numbers if it is so incorrect to assign this pick it up. We have not written this book motive or benefit to the majority of to make money; rather, we have done it coaches. as a service to coaches out of our love for the profession, so coaches can help Let me start out by talking about the themselves manage their careers. I football culture and its values, because encourage you to get a copy or to order understanding the culture of your work, of one from Mrs. Ozee. She is a lifetime the football industry, you will have a better career teacher at the college level at the idea of what it expects from you and what DeVry Institute in Dallas and is a lifetime you should expect from it as a participant human resource development in football coaching. Now, the Greeks professional. Her husband, Ken, has said we are to “know thyself,” and this is developed his résumé in his professional pretty good advice. I think that it is coaching portfolio to a degree of important that all coaches inventory their excellence and has used it successfully in own strengths and weaknesses. I got my job interviews over his career. In my start from one of the absolute great ones, multiple careers, I came to recognize the . Coach Claiborne, who same need that, like a good actor or was my boss at the University of painter or poet, one needed to have a Maryland for five years, former president portfolio that said everything about them, of the American Football Coaches their work, and their lifetime Association, and an absolute coaching

4 Thom Park legend, was referred to by Bill Walsh on chess players’ spatial relations and national television one time as the top pattern-recognition aptitudes interfacing. college defensive coach of the past 50 In coaching, we call this seeing the field. years. He used to say, “Get your C’s to Rumor has it Coach Claiborne could B’s, and get your B’s up to A’s; don’t have watch a play and tell you what 18 or 19 any D’s or F’s. The A’s are a gift, and they players did. That is pattern recognition. will take care of themselves.” I would Do you see how this would be a skill that emphasize that we need to practice our as a coach you would need to know A’s to keep them sharp, but you get his whether this is one of your strengths or point. Coach Claiborne was a marvelous weaknesses? If it was one of your man and an extremely diverse and strengths, you would be a great play talented individual, and this is how he caller and tactical game coach. If you made himself into the great man he was didn’t have this skill, you would want to and is today. delegate it those who do and maybe give away that phase of the game. Make When I talk about inventorying your yourself perhaps the big-picture strategist strengths and weaknesses, I am always and a great recruiter. We are successful reminded of his defensive guru, Coach in this world because we figure out what John Devlin. John was Coach Claiborne’s we are good at. Then we get other people defensive coordinator, although Coach to help us with the things we are not so Claiborne didn’t give out those titles. He good at. So, as a coach, you should should have, in John’s case. It was only improve on your weaknesses to be a later in the ‘70s and late ‘80s that people complete coach, then grow from that began to give out coordinator titles. Now, specialty, which is where you have your of course, it is part of every football A’s. Be known for being something very, organization that is pyramidally very special and be the best at what your hierarchical, but in those days it was a flat specialty skills are. Certain coaches come hierarchy; there was a , and to mind, and you all know them, where everybody was an assistant. This doesn’t they are very, very good in one particular work well today because too much needs aspect to the tame. Their career grows to be delegated. Remember, Jethro told from that one talent. Coach Claiborne Moses to do this in Exodus 18. Coach was a tactical and strategic defensive Devlin was what I call a master chess genius. John Devlin was a great adjuster player. Psychologists have done studies of schemes during a game. on master chess players and found that men or women who have played chess Let me get back to the football culture. over many decades of time and who We know that football as a culture is an become chess masters can play 30,40, idiosyncratic environment, much like the 50 people at once and beat them all. military, the police force, or the priesthood. They are able to do this because of two Jerry Eiseman, who was Coach things: first, the mental skill set of spatial Claiborne’s quarterback coach, used to relations and, second, the visual acuity say that you only need to have one friend they have assimilated in pattern who knows you well. If he gets a jab, you recognition over hundreds of thousands are in great shape. I always thought this of chessboard viewing. As a result, they was an interesting idea, because it meant can look at one board and, through only one person could help you. That is truncated and accelerated pattern not to say it won’t work, but it has long recognition, know what move to make, odds. It was only one person who was move to the next board, make that move, making the decision to hire you. In a day and win all the games against 50 of search committees and multiple-input amateurs. This is outstanding master hires, this sort of good ol’ boy network

5 Thom Park doesn’t work as well as it used to. years working for a great head coach and Networking seems to be the rage of the have no aspiration to be a head coach or ‘90s where you know many people, but I don’t need to be one because they are cannot emphasize enough that the people happy in their current capacity. This who are going to help you must know you certainly isn’t bad, and it is a value well and think well of you. It certainly judgment as to whether or not you need helps to also be known by many people to do this, but we find the needs for for the right things. mobility in the profession are without question part of the coaching business. With the competitive pressure that flowed Not everyone has to advance to render from the party that exists in football today, great service. Find your niche. this closed and very small, exclusive sort of club that is very tight is a place where Coaching is a word-of-mouth advertising people become well known because all business because everybody talks and staffs gossip. The exclusivity of the the people who are good at some niche coaching game and the pyramidal- become well known. The values of hierarchy nature of it make it what I call a coaching demand rigorous, work- linear career. There are a couple types of intensive, disciplined people. I have careers in career theory. One is linear, in referred to coaching over the years as which, like a doctor, if you practice monastic—meaning monklike, ascetic— medicine for 40 years, you would go meaning discipline much like the through a phase of steps to becoming a asceticism of the Middle Ages, nomadic— better and better physician until you were meaning that mobility was required as a master physician. A stair-step career is you moved about like nomads from job to where you integrate one of linearity with job, and an enormous work culture unlike one in combination with other disciplines anything else in American society. I have as you evolve into something unique. If only had two jobs where I worked as hard you had a spiral career, you might as I did in coaching. The first was when I transform from medicine into the was a U.S. Marine Corps officer in the administration of the hospital and end up Vietnam War, where we worked 24 hours taking on business skill, which would a day, seven days a week. Coaching move you horizontally into a different compares favorably to that, but not much. phase of medicine. Spiral careers are There are very few things in our culture synergistic. I’ve done this, having six and very few professionals who work as distinct careers in my life. Coaching is hard as coaches do. typically a linear career, and it is one where you advance directionally through The great thing about coaching is that you pyramidal hierarchy, starting at the can make a lifetime impact on young bottom working up through the ranks. The people. The stories that they will tell about values of coaching hinge on paying your you will go on for decades, and lessons dues, spending time in grade, being you will give them about life will be recognized over time, and advancing passed intergenerationally from father to when other people would chose to allow son. This is why coaching and the culture you to advance. Hence the need for are such a special place. Coaching is also geographic mobility. It is tough enough a place for pragmatic and concrete that coaches are fired and move around people. The best way to be good at it or all the time, but sometimes coaches have to be well known at it is to be very good to move simply to get cut from someone over time at your particular specialty. This who will not help them where their career is how you build a reputation. Don’t be in is stagnating or not advancing. This is not such a hurry. Just be excellent! That’s all bad, because many men will spend 20

6 Thom Park

what Coach Claiborne used to tell our your wishes to do that. George Chaump, players. my son’s coach at the Naval Academy, used to talk about his experience with Lou Older coaches and their personal Holtz when they worked for experiences are what shape their at Ohio State in the late ‘60s. Woody expectations for the new generation worked incredible hours and after the coming up. Through networks and game that they usually won on Saturday grapevines, you are able to become would have dinner with his wife and then known, but there is no substitute for being return to the office to watch film at 7:00 good over time at your specialty. I Saturday night. The assistant coaches encourage you to do what I call worked like dogs, but this is what Woody “positioning yourselves on the shelves of felt was necessary to outwork the other the mind.” If you go into the store to buy people. Woody Hayes was a great soap, on the shelf of your mind, you have believer of work ethic, and this is what he a picture of a brand name. It may be expected of his assistant coaches. Today, Dove or some other brand name, but you this is seen as not good for families. You know what you want. If I buy a car, it will didn’t last long with Woody if you weren’t probably be an Oldsmobile because we willing to work at this pace. There was no have had Olds in our family and Buicks time for anything else, which reminds me before that since dating back into the ‘40s, of what an outsider said in that he had I am simply an Oldsmobile ‘98 guy. never seen a business that more guys Oldsmobiles are positioned on the shelf of were trying to get in and more guys were my mind when it comes to the brand trying to get out of. If you weren’t willing to name of a car. work those long flours with Woody Hayes, you were guaranteed to be out of it soon. Coaches are a product of their own experience and when they have hiring This rigorous, rigid pecking order to gain authority certainly gravitate towards rank that we talked about as being part of people they know, respect, trust, and the football culture is very much part of sometimes like. Coach Claiborne used to the requirement of getting ahead. The talk about the Alabama family where Bear performance and behavioral standards Bryant was the great patriarch. Such and the levels of expectancy that have coaches who came out of there were been set by our forebears of this , , Mickey profession are tradition, discipline, loyalty, Andrews, , , diligence, toughness, focus, competitive Hootie Ingram, and others. The Alabama nature, honor, and mobility. All of these family produced a great line of head are necessary. They are not sufficient to coaches. What has changed about that keep a job, but they are certainly methodology in the more liberal ‘90s is necessary to hold on to it. These are that the one-man hire is now more often longstanding traits that have not been done by selection committees of a diverse eroded much as society has advanced pool of individuals who may or may not beyond the football culture, which I say understand football very well. They may always has a lag time behind the larger or may not have any interest in it and may culture. Now, none of us as coaches not care one whit for the values and the wants to be average. You don’t want to culture you expect as the norm as a be average because that is where the football coach. best of the losers meets the worst of the winners, or as a clever guy once said, I think it is important that you work for average is the “cream of the crap.” The someone who will help you advance your average American sleeps 24 years and career and be candid with them about watches TV 13 years, which means they

7 Thom Park spend 37 years of their life asleep or American defensive end at Kansas, All- watching TV, and that’s crazy. The Big Eight, and captain of the Kansas average American also spends three football team. He has great substance. In years in business meetings. If a coach the Marine Corps, at the basic school at coaches for 20 years, he probably Quantico, he graduated first out of 250 outworks the average American 10 times Marine officers, which included the over. foreign military-trainee sons of the royal families of every country in the world who Dick Vermeil, the well-known coach of the sent their be Marine officers. Mike had Philadelphia Eagles, said he was incredible talent, work ethic, and suffering from burnout. As a workaholic substance, and he has become a great young coach, he used to go to the assistant coach in the NFL. Mike has conventions, speak, write, publish, and substance in spades. always be in the front row taking notes from the great coaches of the day like When I think of great form, or and . presentation, I think of Les Steckel, my Dick was not only trying to learn, he was good friend who played fullback on those trying to become well known, and how he teams that Mike Sweatman and I coached. succeeded! You see that substance—that Les, at age 38, was the third youngest is, expertise, capability, and head football coach in the history of the competence—is necessary to keep a job NFL, for the Minnesota Vikings. Les is and surerly to progress in it, but without currently the offensive coordinator for the form or presentation, one may never get . Les, who has great the chance to emerge from a group of substance also, is probably a marvelous unknowns. Hence you must know people, interviewer, although I never had the and you must be known by them if you pleasure to listen to him interview for a are to translate your substance into job. When he was a young coach, much success in this highly competitive career. like Dick Vermeil, he traveled the United Form, on the other hand, is what is States attending clinics and stopping to necessary and sufficient to get a job, but visit with NFL and college coaches to it won’t help you much at all in keeping it. learn receiver skills. He is one of the truly So substance and form are required in great receiver coaches in football today. advancing yourself. These distinctions are Every player loves him. These are important. examples of men with both substance and form, and you need both, because Form has to do with image creation, old people notice what young up-and- reputation building, interviewing skills, the comers have and do, so I remind you to pedigree of your football family, your be visible and to be known. The great playing lineage, your physical appearance, ones seem to have ample supplies of and how you conduct yourself. There are both form and substance. lots of different permutations on this, but form is great to have. Now let me move on, and let me talk about some of the basics of coaching Whenever I think of a coach with great career management, as you can see on substance, I think of Coach Mike the first slice. I always felt that the Sweatman, the special-teams coach with greatest resource I ever had in my lifetime of the . Mike was who I know, but let me phrase it to served as a U.S. Marine Corps officer you another way. When Jerry Eiseman with me, and we coached against each used to say that you only needed one other and with each other in the Marine friend, look at it this way’: Your greatest Corps. Mike was an Academic All- resource is who you know, what you

8 Thom Park know, and what you have done with what explanatory but my old friend Jake you know. If the people who you know Hallum—who coached for Jerry Claiborne believe in you, they’ll help you get ahead. for many years, was the head coach at So know the right people. Murray State, and has probably been an offensive line coach in at least 15 bowl The first point I want to make is that you games—used to talk about other schools make no lateral moves. The text of this in the ACC when we were at Maryland. information primarily came from Coach Jake would say, “I looked at this school, Bobby Bowden from Florida State and they’re ‘dishappy,’ and I look at that University. Coach Bowden has been an school, and they’re ‘dishappy,’” He said ambitious man, and it comes as no we need to be happy where we are. Jake surprise that he has reached the was from Pickens, South Carolina, and pinnacles of success that he has. He is a this was a favorite term of his, “dishappy,” great coach of not only form and and I have not seen it in any dictionaries, substance, but also character. This puts but I knew what he meant. The grass is him in a class almost by himself. A world- always greener in the next pasture; renowned sports psychologist said that husbands and wives suffer from this the one trait that differentiates the true difficulty sometimes. It is important that champions from the others is the ability to we appreciate the positives and the good persist at excellence over long, long things of where we are, who we are with, windows of time. Coach Bowden has our spouse, and our organization and to done this over decades and decades. work as hard as we can to excel where This makes him one of the true greats in we are. Most important, I think it is the coaching field. Because of his own important to have an attitude of gratitude ambition, his first rule was to make no about being grateful and thankful for lateral moves. Coaching careers are short exactly what we got and the good things enough that you have little time to be that have been bestowed upon us. That’s moving laterally. If you are to move, move why I say, “Let’s appreciate where we up. If two thirds of all coaches get out of are.” We are all blessed to be here. But the business between the age of 33 and for the grace of God, we could live in 37 in the college ranks, you don’t have Kosovo. much time to be making lateral moves. Point number 3 is that I think we need to If the average playing career in the NFL is seek to move with the head coach’s help 3.6 years, the players at that level don’t at the correct time. Don’t ask for help at have the time to be changing teams, the wrong time or attempt to move in a either. So with the short career spans of way that is counterproductive to the both playing and coaching, if you make a organization that you are in. Attempt to move, make sure it is up, whatever you move with the blessings of the define that to be. Up is generally management. If you can, work with what I accompanied by more money, but call an “elevator,” rather than a generally in football, it means moving to “suppressor.” An “elevator” is a person an organization where you have a better who wants to see his staff and chance to play, more career responsibility, subordinates become successful and more coaching responsibility, more status, move up and possibly out. If you can find or a better chance to win. How you define this kind of boss, you are very fortunate, up is important. because in academia and other fields— sometimes coaching—the “suppressor” type of individual holds people down, Point number 2 is to appreciate where keeps them hostage, and doesn’t help you are. This is probably pretty self- them advance themselves. This is no fun

9 Thom Park and can lead to a stagnated career, so if teaching the right things. Yours is a most you can find an “elevator,” that is who you noble calling. want to be with. Paul of the New Testament told us to be exhortative and The next point is that you do the best you to encourage our fellow churchmen. This can where you are. Excel in the here and is what an elevator does. Work for an the now. Don’t constantly be looking for exhorter or an encourager, an “elevator” the next move. Excel in your current spot; of people. as the racquetball coaches say, “play each point one point at a time, and the Point number 4, the next point, is always results take care of themselves.” Think move up. Your reputation can be about the future, plan for the future, value enhanced even in failure by moving up to the past, but live in the present. As Roger higher levels. If Jerry Jones, who owns Staubach used to say, focus on the play the Dallas Cowboys, calls and offers you that you are on, not the last play, because the head job or a position on the staff, what happened there doesn’t matter, and take it, and move yourself up. The growth, the next one is too far way, so live in the the charisma, and the perception of here and now. Do the best job where you success that you will gain by taking this are, and the results will take care of position, even if you feel that you are not themselves. The opportunities will flow to ready, will be good for your career. I you if you excel in the present. The future would say, don’t impose an artificial is only “want.” ceiling on your own self-perception of how good you can be or where you are My next point is to be loyal to the capable of working. Let other people organization you are working in and to the decide that if they are trying to give you a bosses of it. Loyalty says more about you job that you don’t think you are capable of than it does about them. If the working. Let other people decide that if organization is so corruptly run that you they are trying to give you a job that you can’t stand it anymore, or your boss is so don’t think you are ready for. You may be inept or unappreciative that you can’t more ready than you think. Let them be stand him anymore, be loyal to them until the judge of your readiness. you are able to find a way out. Now, this is easy to say and hard to do, but it is the My next point is that you work for people thing to be done. Rise above backbiting, who you know, like, and respect. There is criticism, and internal political conflict. I absolutely no sense in climbing the ladder always think of my good friend, Les of success if it is leaned against the Steckel, who was at the Minnesota wrong building. Quality begets quality; Vikings and fired in his first year as head seek out and be with positive and coach. He handled that difficult situation, outstanding people. Affiliate with the best, where he went 3-13, with so much class and you will become like them. You will that, only but a few years after he was become like the culture you inhabit, so I fired and left, the general manager at that encourage you to work with people who time, Mike Lynn, was making phone calls you know, like, and respect and who have to help Les get ahead in the National good values, morals, and ethics. This is football League. This is a classic example extremely important because you are of how loyalty, even in hard times, served teachers. In the New Testament, James a man very, very well. Be classy in being 3:1, James calls upon teachers to be held fired, because you will be and it will be to a higher standard of account. Coaches analyzed for years to come. are the finest types of teachers and the very best teachers, and they should be Next, don’t ever be negative in public. In private, you can be tactful and work

10 Thom Park around difficulties as best you can. At the do that in a professional manner, but to appropriate time, you can attempt to speak, to publish, to write, to circulate on convey your true feelings and perceptions the recruiting trail, to ask other coaches to the appropriate people if they are your for advice, to socialize, and to go to bosses. They can make a change or conventions is a good way not to hide make a difference. To gossip is your light under a bushel basket. As they counterproductive; to backbite and back tell us in the book of James, be slow to shoot are cowardly. Just don’t do these speak, quick to hear, and slow to anger. things. Be positive in public, be candid These are very good ideas to use as and tactfully honest inside the meeting basics to your coaching career walls, and respect the opinions of your management. colleagues.

One of the hardest things for competitive men to do in coaching is to handle differences of opinion in a tactful way, because you are all so filled with testosterone. I am bald, so believe me, I’m as bad as any of you. Over time, men get better at this, but it is always a problem. Additionally, don’t fight with the media. Don’t take on people who buy newsprint and ink by the truckload. Befriend the media, and make them your ally. Bobby Bowden at Florida State is as good at handling the media as anybody I have ever seen, and it has served him very well. Do likewise. Be competent, be positive, work hard, and take care of your subordinates and your players. Respect your peers and do the best you can to be cooperative with them. Be loyal to your seniors and support them both publicly and privately. When I say seniors, I mean the people who you work for, not the seniors on the football team, although you must be loyal to them as well. If you must disagree with your bosses, do so in private, do it tactfully, and do it professionally. Above all, do it at the right time and in the right way.

Last, do not let your light hide itself under a bushel basket. If you have something positive to say or to contribute, do so. Don t be falsely modest and don’t avoid sharing what you think you do well with people who are able to hear it. My old friend Charlie Rizzo used to say that if you don’t blow you own horn, nobody else is going to. I always felt that you need to

11 Thom Park

BASICS OF COACHING CAREER MANAGEMENT 1. Make no lateral moves • If you move, move up • Coaching careers are short 2. Appreciate where you are! • The grass is always greener • Appreciate the positives • Work hard to excel • Have an attitude of gratitude 3. Let the head coach help your move • Do it at the correct time • Don’t move in a way that’s counterproductive for your organization 4. Always move up • This enhances your reputation 5. Work for people you know, like and respect • Quality begets quality • Seek to be with positive people • Affiliate with the best and you’ll become like them 6. Do the best you can where you are • Don’t constantly look for the “next move” • Think “future,” but live “present” and value the past • Focus on the “play”...not the last one, nor the next one 7. Be Loyal to your organization and your bosses • Loyalty says a lot about you • Rise about back-biting 8. Do not be negative in public • Be tactful in private • Convey your true feelings to the appropriate people that can make a change 9. Points to always remember • Work hard • Be competent and positive • Take care of your subordinates and peers • Support your seniors, disagree with them privately and professionally 10. Don’t hide under a bushel basket • If you have something positive to say or contribute, do it! • Avoid false modesty • Be slow to speak and quick to hear

12 Thom Park

PART II organization, I have three or four names that pop up who are the very best at what I would now like to talk about how to they do. These are the men that I want to position and advance yourself and how to interview. That is not to say I won’t create an advertisement for yourself as interview others, as I have and do, but I part of your career advancement package carry this short list around in my head.” or personal coach’s portfolio. I have emphasized the need to be visible and Now, when I talk about positioning known. The best way to do that is to yourself on the shelf of the mind, this is coach in a program of strength that wins, what I mean in regards to Bobby that has a good public image. Speaking, Bowden’s short list. You have to position publishing, conducting clinics, and yourself with the people who make a recruiting are other ways to learn and to difference. In order to fall into the gain acceptance among your peers and interviewing scheme before anything is the public decision makers. Riding in a ever sent in terms of a letter of application Cadillac or a Mercedes, however, is or résumé. You can create the greatest always a great strategy to get ahead in résumé, the greatest midsized curriculum the car business. Coach for a national vitae, the greatest full-blown curriculum champion if you can. Go with the best! vitae, the most wonderful portfolio, the best football summary sheet and Asking older coaches about their careers introductory sheet and material in the is a great way to learn how they managed world, but if you are not well thought of or their own. There is no question that you’re not positioned on the shelf of the pedigree counts. If you are fortunate mind of some decision maker, you may enough to have it, that’s wonderful, but not ever get an interview. These are you can rise above that if you don’t. You simply tools to get you the interview so can promote yourself through you can sell yourself and convince and professional efforts, just like Dick Vermeil persuade the decision-making group, in the front row furiously taking notes and search committee, or single hiring person asking questions of great coaches. to hire you. Paper is absolutely necessary George Allen wasn’t any kind of a player, but in no way sufficient to get an interview nor was a great player, but they nor the job. were and are great coaches. Just like Les Steckel, every pro camp in the I want to stress substance over form summertime, speaking at clinics, being again. Coaches must behave right, work involved in the Fellowship of Christian hard, be a giver and not a taker, live Athletes, and learning from other coaches correctly, and avoid alcohol, drugs, at every opportunity is necessary. womanizing, backbiting, gossip, and all the things that we’re not to do, Good These are ways to market yourself and coaches need to care about their players. create an advertisement of yourself based of the Atlanta Falcons Super on who you are. I encourage you to do Bowl team told me in an airport not too this. Bobby Bowden explained to me one long ago that the three most important time, when I called him for the fourth time things that coaches needed to do or be in about 10 years to help a friend of mine were to absolutely love coaching, care apply for an opening on his staff, how he about your players, and be a great did it. He said, “Thom”— and he was teacher. This comes from a man who took probably trying to get me to stop calling a team to the Super Bowl from a near him on guys—”l carry around in my head deathbed from a heart attack. Sounds like a short list. If I lose any person in my pretty good advice to me. Care about

13 Thom Park your players, and as a parent of a near • Comprehensive All-American quarterback, I can tell you I • First Class certainly cared about his career and 2. FOOTBALL SUMMARY—1PAGE watched with great interest how his • First year to now coaches handled him. You never fully 3. CURRICULUM VITAE—MANY PAGES understand how important coaches are • Weigh, not read until you have been a coach and then you 4. COVER LETTER—1 PAGE watch your own son handled by other • 4 Points: coaches. Then you can fully understand • Why writing what coaches do and where you have • Qualifications perhaps made some mistakes in the past. • Forms enclosed When it is your child, it matters. • Ask for appointment • Again, in learning to strive to behave right Brief, pointed in a substantial way, you should strive for 5. LEATHER DELUXE BINDER • excellence, strive to be a master of what If you don’t think enough of your you do. So many seek dominance, victory, own career to invest in your own or aggression as a way to achieve marketing piece, why should excellence. Mastery—or as the Greeks anyone else think enough of you would say, eretê, a term that they used to hire you? Do it. Cost—$25 for excellence—is what we should seek. Success attends mastery. Be the best This is a philosophical question that you and be as unselfish as possible. must ponder in a quiet moment. You see, Remember that the Chinese built the it is a value judgment that rising high or great wall of China one brick at a time. climbing the pyramidal hierarchy is the This is how you build a great professional best thing. There is absolutely nothing career. If it is possible to get a mentor— wrong with serving 30 years as the high and I was so fortunate to have Jerry school head coach in the same town and Claiborne and , who were two producing 20,000 outstanding U.S. of the best in the business—they will help citizens. As a matter of fact, this may be you, because they will serve as role the most important thing that you can models for your career. If you work for the ever do with your career. You can move best and serve them well, you will 10 times chasing college jobs as an become like them. I hope in some small assistant and never accomplish nearly as way these great men are proud to have much as the man who stays put, raises a been mentors of mine in coaching. family, and coaches in the same place for decades. I remind you that the answer to Before we go on to my slide on “Your this question is your call. I would tell you advertisement, You,” the career that it is not necessary that rising high in advancement package, I must ask you to the game is what you should want. ask yourself a question: Is rising high in Everyone must answer this question for the game what you really want to do? himself. Success comes in many forms.

YOUR ADVERTISEMENT—YOUR Now, I have talked a lot about techniques CAREER ADVANCEMENT PACKAGE to position yourself for opportunity, and to 1. RESUME—1 PAGE rehash them one more time, you mush be • Organized known by others, write, speak, travel, recruit, win, go to conventions, deal well • Complete with the media, have a good reputation, • Use Data • treat others well, gain exposure in a Totally True reasonable sort of way, get a mentor, be

14 Thom Park mobile, and position yourself on the shelf coaching career when you position of the minds. These are all outstanding yourself for opportunities when they arrive. points as techniques for positioning yourself for opportunity in football Now, creating an excellent résumé and coaching. the technical details of doing this are what want to speak about next. I encourage I remember when I was coaching at the you to see Carol Ozee to buy our book, University of Connecticut and Bobby not so much that I want to sell a book, but Ross offered me a chance to interview at because it lays out everything I have . Susan and I flew down, and I talked about on portfolio building. If you took the job. I left her in Connecticut with are going to have an excellent résumé, four feet of snow around the house while I Carol Ozee knows as much about it as basked in the beautiful Charleston spring anyone I have seen lately. Creating an in February. My wife is a great wife. I call excellent résumé takes tell students, you her the wife of Proverbs 31. She has don’t write a dissertation a thesis; you enormous strength of character, is build one. I think you build a good extremely loyal to me, and typifies the curriculum vitae, and surely coach’s sacrificial wife and mother spoken of in portfolio over time, But start now, and with the Bible in Proverbs. Coaches’ wives are technology, database your résumé and very special people, and I would tell you materials on a disk. Sit down once or that one of the family requirements you twice a year and update it. Keep a file must have to be a coach is a wife like the everything you do to add, and flesh out one I have been so fortunate to have. I your complete professional development. always tell people that I only have one wife and don’t plan on marrying another, There are many books on this topic that so if you are able to get a wonderful you can read. Study the résumés of woman to join you in this highly difficult, others so that when you update yours, highly sacrificial career, consider yourself you can make it more and more blessed. Mobility is very hard on families professional each time. and children. Your career advertisement begins with My good friend John Devlin in a 34-year the one-page résumé. This document is a coaching career had 10 moves, and his one-page summary of your curriculum wife, Irma, was a real warrior. His son, vitae, which may contain many pages. Mike, is the backup center for the Phoenix The résumé should be organized to a T, Cardinals after six years in the NFL and complete, using data. There is no two Super Bowls with the , substitute for numbers if they are good and Mike knows what it was like to move ones. If you had a winning season, put around. is legendary for his down that you were 10—1 and 0. If your moves in coaching, as is , who GPA was a 3.92 and you were summa I think talked about moving 30 times, cum laude, put it down. Use dates, times, although that may be inaccurate. I can tell and places. Data elaborates on facts, and you that my good friend Les Steckel and I it is important. Moreover, your résumé developed a methodology for planning should be totally and completely true. ahead for buying a house. We can Don’t ever emboss or enhance a résumé, accomplish the task in three days from because if people find out, your credibility the beginning of the search to the end, is gone, not to mention that you are a although the Realtor had his tongue lying. Résumé enhancement, aside from hanging out when he was finished. These being unethical, is not very smart. Tell are some of the techniques necessary to them what is totally true, so that if a good manage the mobility aspects of a friend of yours who was actually there

15 Thom Park read what you said in your résumé or the full-blown curriculum vitae can be vitae, he would say, “That was exactly the dozens of pages. In mine, the last four way it was.” Make it comprehensive and pages include professional references by first-class in every way. Use first-class name, position, relationship with me, and bond paper, like what a blue-chip years known. If you called any single one Philadelphia law firm would use. Use the of them, and there are dozens, all of right font and print, and use a good form. whom are prominent and important If you are not good at these things, get people in numerous disciplines, they someone to help you. Moreover, if you could tell you exactly who I was and what are not particularly skilled with language I was about. Make sure that if you use and writing, get someone to help you so this technique, you have unqualified your document is absolutely first-class. endorsement and support. Use people You want it to be first-class, and you want who think well of you, like you, are good the nonverbal communication of your salespeople, and want to help you. One résumé to say you are first-class just of the functions that the curriculum vitae because of the way it is. can carry out is to list all of these references. Here is a sample of the football summary sheet. It is a document that I’ve created The cover letter should be a one-page over the years that summarizes document on the letterhead of the chronologically the single most important organization where you are currently thing done every year from the current working. The letter should be brief and to year working back to 1959. As you can the point. It should tell them why you are see, a quick glance at this document writing, that you are seeking an interview makes someone take a deep breath and in consideration for the position that is say, “Wow, this person has done a lot.” advertised or available, and a brief This is what the football summary sheet summary of your qualifications stated in does, and it elaborates upon the résumé. as humble yet clear and direct a fashion I also include another sheet that is a as possible. You should reference that written introduction that I use when public the appropriate forms that they may speaking. This does not need to be require, as well as your credentials, included in the advertisement that I am materials, and portfolio, are enclosed in a describing here. A curriculum vitae can be concise fashion. Last, you should ask for many, many pages. The farther along you the appointment or the interview to come, get in your professional life, these tend to elucidate upon your candidacy, and be weighed and not read. I say that in jest convince and persuade them why you because, in academia, résumés become should be the person hired. It is at this dozens of pages because professors point that having the professional portfolio publish and attend seminars and so on, can literally take over the search but so do coaches. committee meeting by steering them through this and talking about what you As I said, a curriculum vitae can be many, do and why you are capable of doing many pages, and typically they get so what it is this position requires. long that they can be weighed and not Nonetheless, this letter should be brief, to read, but they should be summarized in the point, and no more than one page. the résumé. Coaches can shorten a You also want to use the most deluxe curriculum vitae to what called a midsized leather binder you can find. Many of the form of three to four pages in which there local office stores have them for about is the résumé one-page summary. How $25. If you don’t think of enough of your you do these varies from industry to own career and yourself to invest in this industry and profession to profession, but kind of marketing piece, why should you

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expect anyone else to think enough of • Offer Any Negatives (They will find you to hire you? Although this might be a them soon.) financial sacrifice, I encourage you to do • Do Anything To Give Them A this and package yourself in a way that Reason To Eliminate Your speaks as highly of you as possible and Candidacy. will distinguish you from the other candidates. GET AN INTERVIEW!

Let me now move and on and talk about some do’s and don’ts of the résumé We should be very, very careful about packet itself. Some of these are pretty certain aspects what we include in a self-evident: that we should be neat and résumé, and Carol Ozee, my colleague, consistent. We talked about being totally who is an expert in human resource truthful and never enhancing or development, talks about how important it elaborating or embossing upon what we is to eliminate personal things that open nave actually done. We should make sure the door to bias and prejudice that would that anyone who reported what really eliminate a candidate. The law has happened would be totally consistent with changed in the past few years after the what we stated in our résumé and Civil Rights Act of 1964 to exclude gender, materials. Honesty is critical, because it ethnic, cultural, sexual preference, and refers to our credibility as human beings. I religious bias from hiring practices. If you say that we should be redundant and list any of this kind of information or talk pedantic only; sometimes it’s important to about it, you are likely to open the door to be very, very clear as to what we have having your candidacy rejected by accomplished; sometimes you can cite someone on the search committee. When two achievements from two different we say be careful, this is one of the do’s perspectives in a curriculum vitae, and that we refer to. I have always said that I this would make them redundant and list all these things because I wanted pedantic. This isn’t always a good idea, them to know what they were going to get, but it is something worth thinking about. but Mrs. Ozee reminds me that I might simply be eliminated, and I have had that RESUME PACKET happen to me. Remember that this is art and not science, but there are some rules DO’S to the road, and she points out a good • Be Neat one here. • Be Consistent • Be Totally Truthful One of the things that you should not do • Be honest is state your salary needs in any of your o Redundant materials. This is an item to be negotiated o Pedantic at the very end of the process after they Be Careful have offered you the job. You may be Be Brief, Clear, and asked in the interview what your salary Concise history is and what you would need or expect, but this is last item to be DO NOT negotiated. They must offer you the job • State Salary Needs before you state salary needs or • Talk about Prior Changes requirements, and give people latitude on • Limit Geographical Boundaries this or you may eliminate you ability to get (Very Smart!) the job. Do not talk about prior changes. • Expound on Values or Philosophy They will find this information out, and unless you are asked to defend

17 Thom Park something, you need not bring it up. Do commonly hired in their early 30s to be not let geographical boundaries limit the head football coaches. Although they all thinking of the committee. If you say that had mentors, like Rip Ingle for Joe you are unwilling to move or live in a Paterno, Bear Bryant for Jerry Claiborne, particular place, you could eliminate your and Woody Hayes for Lou Holtz, each of candidacy. Do not expound on your them was able to advance his career values or philosophy too much in writing. quickly. This is better done verbally, although there is nothing wrong with having a One time Les Steckel wanted me to statement of philosophy in a portfolio. interview with the University of Minnesota This might eliminate your candidacy, but for the assistant athletic director position they would certainly know who you were if when the UM president was ready to give you have written this out. If you write out him the head job after they fired Joe your values and your philosophy, you will Salem in 1983. I told Les, finally, after two concretize them better for yourself, and months deliberating, that I couldn’t take although that is a good exercise, it is the job, and so there wasn’t any sense for dangerous in your submitted written me to go and interview because I didn’t materials. Do not offer any negatives, want to live in the cold, I didn’t want to because if there are any, they will find miss the birth of my third child, and I them out soon enough anyway. It simply didn’t want to give up my Ph.D., of which I doesn’t pay to say anything negative; was in the middle. Susan said to go and rather, be positive an enthusiastic. Do not interview anyway, and I looked back and give them any reason to eliminate our thought that her advice was better than candidacy, because it is easy enough for mine. Even though I didn’t want the job, I them to find these things anyway. The job should have gone and learned something of a search committee is the find reasons by interviewing and learned something to eliminate a candidacy and leave the about the situation. Les, being as strong standing. Make sure you are one persuasive as he is, probably would have of the strong and get yourself the convinced me to take the job, and my life interview. and career would have turned out enormously different, but I said no and did What I learned when I got my three not go. He subsequently turned down the degrees in psychology and my head job and about two months later was postdoctorate in sports psychology is that named head football coach of the interviewing is a learned skill. Practice, Minnesota Vikings, so it worked out okay practice, practice is the way you get to for him. I think you should take my wife’s Carnegie Hall, and learning how to handle advice, and if you get a chance to a job interview is something we get better interview, do it. Interviewing is a learned at as we do it. If you have affiliated with skill, and you need to learn how to do it. the right people over your career and you are of the right pedigree and peer group, THE INTERVIEW word of mouth will proceed you. As I often 1. KNOW YOUR EMPLOYER said, when meeting a new person, your • Offense reputation has proceeded you, and that • Defense always elicits a strange sort of smile. • Values Word of mouth is a great precursor to any • People interview, and hopefully, you will go into • Is It You? there being rated high up on the food chain of football. Remember Bobby 2. KNOW THYSELF AND WHAT YOU Bowden, Lou Holtz, Jerry Claiborne, Bear OFFER Bryant, and Joe Paterno were all

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• Be Able to Articulate it. need to have done the research about • Sell yourself knowing your perspective employer to the degree that you can determine that it is 3. COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY you who they are seeking. This takes us • Words =20% to point number 2, where I said “know • Inflection =15% thyself” and what you have to offer or, as • Tone, Voice = 15% Coach Claiborne used to say, know your • Body Language = 50% own strengths and weaknesses. Be able =100% to articulate what it is you do well. It is quite clear that looking to hire a coach is 4. BE an art and not a science, and the rational • On time are seldom perfect. There is a great deal of above- and below-the-table networking • Dress up that goes on, and as my good friend Jack • Clean • Lengyel says, don’t overdo it on the Quiet confidence lobbying side, and at the end of the • Understated Elegance process be very careful what you do. If you call a search committee too much, 5. IN THE FIRST FOUR MINUTES: you can appear to be intrusive, and if you • Break the ice don’t call them enough, you are going to • Set the tone appear to be disinterested. That’s why • Eye Contact this is art and not science. I can • Be positive remember that when Walt Nadzak got the AD job at the Citadel, he called me and 6. `HAVE GOOD, INSIGHTFUL asked me if I would help him. I knew five QUESTIONS OF THEM. of the six people on the search committee, each of whom I called and told what kind 7. SALARY AND BENEFITS COME of athletic director I thought Walt Nadzak LAST would be. He has had that job for nearly a decade now, if not more, and become a 8. FOLLOW-UP “THANK YOU” TO ALL. legend in the . I feel very responsible in helping him in the PRACTICE AND LEARN! endeavor, so lobbying can be very effective. INTERVIEWING IS A SKILL! There is one thing that all high school Now, if you look at the slide that I have up levels will be concerned with, and that is on the overhead, you will see some points the importance of being a good teacher. about interviewing, and this could be the Coaches should be extremely effective topic of a complete two-hour discussion teachers, and Dan Reeves told us that or more, but quickly, you can see that you you not only need to love the profession need to know your employer. If they are of coaching to be a great teacher, but you going to quiz you on technical football, need to love the kids as well. Every offense, and defense, all the technical administrator loves to hear this, and aspects become very important. These hopefully it will be true. So you have to are the things that can eliminate your sell yourself and articulate what it is about candidacy if you are not well versed. If, on you that they need to know and want. The the other hand, it is not so much a first four minutes, or passing the look test, dissertation on technicalities as it is is awfully important, and this is largely values and people, then you need to nonverbal communication, although the know about them and who you are. You first things you say are very, very

19 Thom Park important. So dress well and groom through the use of all media of yourself well, be in good physical communication, compare your strengths condition, constantly make good eye to those required of the job; articulate contact, of course, and address them them well; emphasize them repeatedly; directly in those first four minutes when a and diffuse and deal with quickly any lot of those decisions are made. My high potential weaknesses, if possible. school coach at Hershey High School in 1963, Sterling Banta, used to say, “If you When you talk about listing your three are in coaching for any other reason than greatest strengths, say them over and for the kids, you are in it for the wrong over again, so people hear what you are reasons.” This goes back to what Dan good at. These are the ones Coach Reeves talks about in loving kids and Claiborne used to talk about. It is obvious being a good teacher, but this is what that you should be on time, dress up, be search committees are concerned about. clean, show a quiet, understated elegance, and be quietly confident in Often, the ones who impress the yourself. I would be willing to say that committee that they are the best teachers there is no substitute for praying before will be offered a job, at least in the high this exercise, but that is probably school ranks, so show them these politically incorrect. Remember, within the priorities. You also must diffuse perceived first four minutes, you must have some weaknesses, that is, speak to the kind of an icebreaker, and if you can concerns that they might have and flush make them smile, that is always good. out the things that the committee thinks There is no substitute for humor, although that you might be weak on. Remember if you are not a comedian, don’t try to be that we communicate effectively through funny. Set the tone, make good eye many media, and experts tell us that contact, and be positive. There is nothing words may only be 20 percent. Voice that impresses a search committee like inflection, tone, and body language in good insightful questions about them and particular say a great deal about us, how the job. This will impress them and show we feel about ourselves, and what that you have done your homework. messages we send. Be as honest as Salary and benefits come last, and by all possible—and it is always possible that means, follow up with thank-you letters to you will bomb in front of a committee and everybody. Sometimes you get the job not get the job—but try to deal with the the second or third time, sometimes issues of concern that they have about search committees talk to other search you. One of the great misbeliefs about the committees, and if you handle yourself strengths of candidates is that a lack of professionally and courteously and show experience is such a horrible thing. This is an attitude of gratitude, somebody may a great misperception because one of the talk to somebody else and get you a job lowest correlates of job performance is somewhere else. It has happened to me, experience, yet everybody wants to have so this is awfully important. it. One of the highest correlates of job success is the desire to do the job or The interview format: go in, have fun, and simply a burning passion or fire in your by all means, smile. Go through your belly to do it, and this is what committees portfolio, show them what a good coach should be looking for. Things that are you are, be prepared, and pay attention to killers are an autocratic attitude, being too those interpersonal communication soft on discipline, or trying to change too aspects as the committee interacts with much too fast. A lack of knowledge will you and each other. A great way to show eliminate your candidacy as well. in sum, your leadership skills is to take charge of study your position and how you fit into it; the process, in a soft sort of way to show

20 Thom Park them that you are a leader. Be prepared, the State job decades ago, but don’t push them too far, as you don’t after being one of three finalists, he spoke want to take charge from the person who with a media person in the Raleigh airport, is in charge of the process. If anybody and they asked whether he got the job. asks you about your weaknesses be very, Reportedly, Coach Dye stated that he very careful with that question, as it can thought they were going to give it to him be a ship sinker, Last, be positive, be and he was their man. The head of the enthusiastic and have faith in yourself. search committee or the chancellor read This is about all you can do, and, of this and determined that it was the search course, be honest and be you are. Don’t committee that would make that decision, try to manufacture a persona that s not and the job went to Monty Kiffen. you or does not fit. They will see through Although this story was reported in the this, and won’t work. media, it is a good illustration of where the power lies in negotiating and closing a If they offer you the job as a result of the job offer. interview or they invite you back for a final interview after they have narrowed it RULES FOR NEGOTIATING A NEW down to two or three finalists, then you JOB. have another loop in the interview process. More sophisticated jobs often RULE #1 work this way, where the, narrow a rather • Get professional assistance when substantial field of potentially hundreds of accepting a new job. applicants and candidates down to a • It is all about terms, language and group of semifinalists and finally to a legalism. group of finalists. I have been involved in • Don’t be naive—your employer is five athletic director searches as a not always fair and competent. candidate and one Presidency and CEO job of the National Sports Association and RULE #2 I have found this to be the case. I was • Leverage is everything once a candidate for an ACC athletic • Present your terms, conditions directorship where we started with 78 and compensation package your candidates and had 7 semifinalists which deserve. were then narrowed to 3 finalists. This • “One representing himself has a calls for two rounds of interviews which is fool for a client and an idiot for an quite stressful. Many times, head football agent.” coach interviews and those in the are three- and four-day RULE #3 processes where the first day is simply for • Don’t accept whatever deal or the candidate to come in, relax, feel at contract in front of you to be fair or home, and calm down. Getting yourself intelligent. centered is very important in the • Some are horribly unfair, ill- interviewing process. conceived, flawed, one-sided and

put together by institutional If you are fortunate to be offered the job, lawyers who know little about then the rules for negotiating become the athletics, nor do they care. next task. I have a paradigm for negotiating, closing, and working with RULE #4 other business professionals that goes • Intelligent negotiations do not beyond the scope of this lecture, but it is have to be adversarial and extremely important material. I remember combative. that when Pat Dye was a candidate for

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• A well-structured deal is in the together by people who don’t understand interests of the coach, his family, them. and the institution. If can be done amicably and in good spirits. Rule number 2 is about leverage, and leverage is everything. Present your RULE #5 terms and conditions in a compensation • Be patient. package you deserve, and remember • Prepare your laundry list going in what Abraham Lincoln said: Anyone who and know what you need— represents himself in a major transaction personally, control-wise and for has a fool for a client and an idiot for a the program. lawyer—or here, agent—for allowing him to do this to himself. It is your duty as a RULE #6 professional to get intelligent • If you “WIN”, negotiate and get representation, and if you need help, seek what you need for the program. it out. There are lots of good and honest • If you ‘LOSE”, you won’t have this lawyers and agents out there who give internal leverage. you good advice and speak for you rather articulately in many ways that you could RULE #7 never speak for yourself. Don’t accept • Listen to offers and be decisive. whatever deal or contract that is put in • Coaching is a tough, Darwinian front of you, because it may not be fair or business. intelligent. Some contracts that coaches get are horribly unfair, ill conceived, • Lee Corso—’Stay out of coaching. flawed, one sided, and put together by But, if you are in it, take care of institutional lawyers who know little about yourself and your family, your staff, athletics and don’t care. Get help on this. and your team.” Intelligent negotiations don’t have to be

adversarial and combative, although RULE #8 coaches often fear, particularly being a • Bear Bryant—’Timing is new head coach, that their agent will everything.” • mess the deal up. A well-structured deal We would rather be lucky than is in the interest of both the coach and his good: Opportunity only knocks so family, as well as the institution, and many times in a career. hopefully can be done amicably and in • Go into your career with a good spirits. Be patient with these things, gameplan. as sometimes they take time. If you have prepared your laundry list going in and In my next slide for rules for negotiating a know what you need personally and new job, I have written an article on this, control-wise for the program, let the but let me summarize them here on this negotiation play itself out. Many times, slide. Rule number 1 is that as the level of people accept conceptually, and the football rises, I think it is important to get details are not worked out for months and, professional assistance when accepting a in some cases, years. I have seen this new job. Most Division I-A coaches have happen, although I don’t prefer it. If you representation, and according to former win as a coach, negotiate and get what athletic director at Houston and Florida, you need for the program, because if you Bill Carr, “They expect you to.” Language, lose and are unable to sustain winning, terms, and legalism are all part of this you will not get this internal leverage and process, so don’t be naive, as your they might fire you. Make sure you take employer is not always going to be fair or care of this; it is extremely important. competent. Many times, deals are put Listen to other offers that come as a

22 Thom Park result of your success, and be decisive. Coaching is a tough Darwinian business, Editor’s note: Thom Park is vice president and it weeds out the weak very quickly. and financial advisor for Morgan Stanley Lee Corso tells us to stay out of coaching, Dean Witter, Tallahassee, Florida. but if you are in it, take care of yourself, your family, and your team, because these are the folks who matter. If you get a better offer, don’t be afraid to listen to it, and then be decisive about what you should do. Rule number 8, finally, from the great Bear Bryant: Timing is everything. We all would rather be lucky than good, and opportunity only knocks so many times in one career, but if you are lucky enough to get the right timing, take advantage of it. No coach would go into a game without a game plan, and no coach should manage his career without being proactive and intelligent about it.

There are any number of items in terms of compensation and benefits that can be negotiated and discussed, but I will not go into that in the interest of time, but this is the last thing that is discussed when negotiating for a position that has been offered to you.

If you have any questions on this, I would certainly welcome discussing them with you, either at the end, at our question- and-answer session, or later during the clinic. I have some wonderful materials that I would be glad to share with you, and I encourage you to buy the book written by Ken and Carol Ozee and myself, as it takes you through portfolio building, which I think is the single greatest tool for getting the interview and subsequently getting the job that any coach will ever have. We wrote this because we thought that coaches needed it, so take a look at this particular work product.

Again, I want to thank you for your kind attention. It has been a privilege and an honor to speak with you today, and I thank you so much for your courtesy. I am willing to take any questions that you have at this point. Thank you so much.

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