Meet The Coach
by Chris Gadomski
It was a Lombardi-like yell.
"If you don't listen, you won't play!"...a piercing shout that would
have scared a dog from the practice field.
Greg Schiano, Head Coach of the Rutgers University Football team, on his
knees, was facing a defensive lineman in a three-point stance who had
failed to follow his instructions on proper technique for recovering a
fumbled football.
It was just a quick, routine drill during one of Coach Schiano's highly
orchestrated Spring football practices. Nevertheless, there wasn't an
inch of room for sloppiness in the Rutgers' bubble that day. And even
though each of the 100 players at practice already knew that, the
message reverberated again. This was big-time college football-Schiano
style-and you could feel it throughout the bubble…and everyone liked it.
I was just a reporter on a leadership and motivational beat that mid
April day tagging along behind a hundred or so high school coaches
visiting Rutgers for one of Schiano's coaching clinics. They were there
as students of the game-LB's Reads vs. Pass in Rutgers' 8 Man Front;
Using the TE in your Passing Game, etc. I was there to find out what
made Greg Schiano, a former Bucknell linebacker, a special coach. What
were Schiano's secrets for turning around Rutgers football into a
nationally ranked program?
I suspect even the most seasoned high school coaches picked up tips
after only a few minutes of watching his practice. I had learned
something, however, before practice even began. There is an aura about
Coach Schiano; perhaps we can best call it respect for the character of
the man who captains the Rutgers' ship. Somehow I felt his presence in
the practice bubble before I even saw him.
Coach
The Action
Three quarters through a day that undoubtedly
started near dawn and that would wind along well into the night after a
7:30PM Coaches Social, Rutgers Football practice is over. Coach Schiano,
fatigued but pleased, strolls over to talk to the press. Roster issues
and player injuries he deals with first. Then his eyes, framed between
barely graying temples, focus on me.
"Coach the action not the player" responds Schiano to my question about
a special message for high school coaches. In a soothing voice that I
had to lean forward to hear, he added, "Very few kids hit the field
saying let me see how badly I can screw this up. They all want to do it
correctly, and there are reasons why they are not doing it correctly.
That is why we are coaches to figure out how to help them do it
correctly."
And there is no doubt that Schiano tries to do so. At practice his staff
and team execute a precisely orchestrated script-no one challenges his
authority--efficiency and attention to detail prevail. Not a second is
wasted, nothing is overlooked. Schiano may watch over his linebackers
and then dart like a hummingbird across the field to hover over his
running backs and ends. Watching carefully, he coaches-admonishing and
encouraging as appropriate. The field goal unit nails a 48 yarder,
Schiano is right there with a congratulatory high five for the kicker.
With a horn blast, structure dissolves. Like musicians in a marching
band morphing into new shapes during half time, players transition from
one drill to another. Structure resumes, drills continue, no one misses
a beat.
During Schiano's coaching clinics, his staff talks X's and O's while he
talks about the big picture…how they run the Rutgers program. A full
officiating team is at practice and a deafening sound is piped into the
bubble creating game-like conditions during the two-minute drill.
According to other onlookers, the down, time on the clock and the points
needed to win was the re-enactment of the West Virginia game situation
from the 2006 season. Even the coach himself paces along and commands
his team from the sidelines.
Besides details, Coach also talks philosophy. He makes a point of
talking with young coaches specifically about the need to respect the
game and to recognize how privileged they are to be able to coach young
people. If you coach until you retire, he says, you will affect between
10-12,000 young people during your career. "That is a pretty big
responsibility."
When I probed Coach Schiano regarding interacting with young football
players-he appears to enjoy great respect from his team-his answer was
surprisingly simple. "I try to coach my players as if they are all my
sons. God willing that my sons are talented enough or have the desire to
play college football, I would hope that the way I coach my players is
the same way that someone would treat my sons."
"We have a philosophy around here of what success is," Schiano added.
"That is a peace of mind that you have done everything possible to be
successful. We drive our players to be the best they can be…but we don't
make it personal because it is not personal. That is where you get in
trouble when you make it personal. Coach the action…coach the action
hard, but don't attack the person."
The
Coach's Coach
Before visiting with Schiano at Rutgers,
Mike Miello, now Head Football Coach at William Paterson University,
gave me a few pointers on Schiano. Mike has known Greg for many years in
many different capacities: he coached Schiano in high school; gave
Schiano his first crack at coaching at Ramapo High School in Franklin
Lakes, NJ; and was hired by Schiano at Rutgers.
"When Schiano arrived in 2000 he inherited a team that was basically a
1-AA team and we were getting beat. He never despaired and he never
wavered from his goal and commitment to rebuild the program. He just
stayed focused and positive and kept his eye on the finish line of where
he and the program were heading," says Miello. "I don't know how many
people realize how far he has taken this program in six years."
As a player in high school Schiano was unique in that he was the first
of only three freshmen to ever play on Miello's varsity. After a great
career at Bucknell, Schiano was headed to law school but, Miello recalls
with a smile, he got a call from Canada for a try out.
"Coach, should I go?" Schiano asked Miello.
"You are young and you are single. Go ahead and have some fun…try it for
a year. If it doesn't work out, you can come back and work with me and
get ready for the LSATs," Miello replied.
Schiano made it right to the last cut, and then took Miello up on his
offer to help coach high school for a year. As Miello's story goes, "he
came home from the first double session we had and I told my wife, 'He
will never see a day of law school. He is just such a natural. He has
been out there one day, and it is like he has been there for 20 years.'"
The next year, Schiano took his first job at Rutgers as a graduate
assistant.
Miello says that Schiano possesses another very special aptitude which
distinguishes great coaches. "He is an excellent evaluator of talent,
and an excellent user of talent. That usually comes after years of
experience. With him…he just has an innate gift for that."
Maybe so. It is something, however, that Schiano doubts developed
overnight. He remembers even as a high school player, enjoying being
around the football office…watching tapes, listening to the coaches talk
about football, the team, and what had to get done. "That was always
something that I found interesting" said Schiano. "At that time I did
not realize that I was destined to become a football coach."
Developing Men
Less apparent than the team's 11-2 record last year and just missing a
$17 million bowl bid, there is another side of Rutgers football which
bears Schiano's fingerprints. At Rutgers there is just as strong a focus
on academic success as there is on football success. "That is very
important. If it was my son, I would want him to be part of a program
that is developing the young man," say Schiano. "Football is part of it,
school work is part of it, social is part of it, and spiritual is part
of it."
One of the things Coach Miello is most proud of is Schiano's commitment
to not just coaching football players, but his devotion to teaching his
players how to become real men. "They are articulate, never any
indication of selfishness, it is always about the team, the family and
the teammates," says Miello. "Coach Schiano stands out as one of the
individuals with integrity and honesty that represent everything that is
right about the game. If you are a parent, he is the type of coach for
whom you want your son to play."
Recalling the difficult situation when he arrived at Rutgers, Schiano
said that as many as one in three of the players then recruited to play
were flunking out by the time they were seniors. "You can't really build
a program like that because you never have a chance to coach grown men
because you are always coaching youngsters. Our staff and our academic
support people have done a very good job turning that around."
When it comes down to young football players, Schiano says they just
have to know their boundaries. And as a coach, he says you have to be
willing to bench or dismiss somebody if they don't do what you ask them
to do or follow team rules. "We don't allow our players to miss class;
we don't allow them to miss tutors. They have to sit within the first
three rows of class, and when they don't, there are consequences. If
they repeatedly break the rules, then they are going to be dismissed."
Must young people crave that, adds Schiano, they just want to know what
the parameters are. If you give them the parameters and give them the
support, they will just do fine. If you let them keep drifting, all the
support in the world will not matter.
Recruiting
and Developing
As Coach Schiano's media guest at the Rutgers Football practice, I was
politely asked to stay off the field and watch practice, like the other
guests, from the perimeter running track that surrounded the field. With
nearly every inch of the field being used by the football team, I can
understand why.
At one point, I had an especially good view of one of Coach's punt
blocking drills. With the snap of the ball to the punter, a defensive
player released and raced headlong to block the punt. Just like in a
game! Except at this practice, the Rutgers defenders weren't wearing any
pads and Coach Schiano was hovering right there watching each player
block punts. I winced each time a defender blocked the ball with his
unprotected torso. I certainly wasn't Rutgers football material.
I asked Coach
later whether there was something special about his recruiting efforts.
For what type of player is he looking? Is there a special message you
have to say about your football program here?
"We try to identify people who love football," Schiano smiled. "Not like
it, love it, because we ask an awful lot from our kids. If they don't
love it, they won't do it. We will have those repeated behavior problems
and we have wasted all that time in recruitment and development."
Our philosophy as coaches, Schiano continued, is that to have success
you have to both recruit and develop. Bring the right people to Rutgers,
and when they get here, develop them into young men. They are both
equally as important, one is not more important than the other. "I am
not one of those guys for which recruiting is everything. You recruit
the right people for your program and then you develop them. And that is
what we do."
While I was enthralled with the mayhem of the punt blocking drill, two
monstrous men walking the sidelines stopped in front of me and
completely obstructed my view. One was a coach, a large and perfectly
fit man whom I had noticed earlier leading the team in one of their
limbering exercises. The other, though he stood 6' 7'' inches and
reportedly weighed 350 pounds, was really just a kid. He was an incoming
freshman that had decided that the prospect of playing football for
Coach Schiano was a more interesting proposition than those offered to
him by two schools he turned down-Ohio State and the University of
Southern California.
That doesn't surprise Schiano's high school coach Mike Miello. "There is
an honor and respect shown to Greg not just as a football coach but as a
man and friend for life. This is what this coaching profession is all
about. You hope that you can make an impact on a young man's life, and
Coach Schiano is doing that every day."
By Chris Gadomski,
Director of Communications,
The Frank McGuire
Foundation
Reprintable with permission citing source, Chris Gadomski,
www.mcguirefoundation.org
