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
