616: Bob Stoops- Building a Winning Culture, Connecting With People, Creating a Coaching Forest, Caring For Your Team, & Winning Championships

0:00Be true to yourself, go hard, play hard, be tough, and enjoy the struggle. I think too many times people shy away from the fight, and you can't. Anything worthwhile isn't going to be given to you, and you've got to be willing and ready to fight for it. And usually it ain't going to be easy. Don't let that surprise you, and go up every day and go get it. This episode is brought to you by Insight Global. Insight Global is a staffing and professional services company dedicated to being the light to the world around them. If you want to learn more about the CEO, Burt Bean, and Chief Revenue Officer, Sam Kaufman, check out episode 424.

0:44We had a fantastic conversation talking about my partnership with the great people at Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through talent or technical services, Insight Global's team of 30 ,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Hiring can be tough, but hiring the right person can be magic. Visit InsightGlobal.com slash Learning Leader today to learn more. That's InsightGlobal.com slash Learning Leader.

1:21Welcome to The Learning Leader Show. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of Mindful Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world, will receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about how our book, The Score That Matters, will help you become a more effective leader. Text HAWK to 66866. Now on to tonight's featured leader, a special one. The great Bob Stoops was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2021.

2:04He was the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma for 17 years. His 2000-2001 team won the national championship. He earned the National Coach of the Year Award the same season. Since 2020, Coach Stoops has been head coach in the XFL, winning an XFL championship in 2023 with the Arlington Renegades. He also played college football at the University of Iowa, earning team MVP his senior year as a defensive back. During this conversation, we discuss the coaching forest, not a tree, but forest he's created and why so many of his assistant coaches have gone on to become great head coaches.

2:45Then he shared how to develop and create a culture where the players hold each other to high standards. And we discussed how this could apply in the business world as well. Then we talked about high performers and how they want to be coached and coached hard. And he shared how you can coach them, both whether they're athletes or these are leaders within your organization, so that they continue to be inspired to want to improve and work with you. And then the through line of this entire conversation, I felt, is the simplicity for how Coach Stoops approaches his life and work and why it's important to focus on a few things and doing them with excellence instead of trying to do everything at the risk of being averaged at all of them.

3:34So good. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Hall of Fame coach Bob Stoops. So I want to start with coaches that you've worked for earlier in your career, because I think this is a critical thing for leaders to think about is who you choose to influence you. And so just to name a few Hayden Fry at Iowa, Bill Snyder at Kansas State, Steve Spurrier at Florida. You've worked with some Hall of Famers. You are a Hall of Famer as well. I'm just curious, what are some of the things you learned early in your career from some of those legendary coaches? Well, you're very right, Ryan, that I learned from the best.

4:17I was so lucky, so blessed to be around the people you mentioned that are just incredible people and coaches. So I would say first, my father was a 30-year high school coach of football. He ran the defense while the head coach ran the offense. And they were together for 30 years, multiple state championships. He was also a head baseball coach. I think more than anything, what I learned watching my father is how he related to players. Players, he could coach them hard. He could do whatever. They loved to play for him. And to me, that's a big deal. And I think I come by it naturally from watching him and the relationship is everything.

5:03You can motivate, you can teach, you can do everything if you have a strong relationship. And then all my other coaches, of course, I was lucky enough to go to Iowa to play under Hayden Fry. And then not only Hayden Fry on that staff is Bill Snyder, Barry Alvarez, Kirk Ferentz, Dan McCarney. These are my these are my my guys I came up under and and as a grad assistant, as a player. And I so I truly and the one maybe the best that isn't talked about is Bill Brazier was Hayden Fry's defensive coordinator for 50 some years. and he taught those guys. So anyway, I was so blessed to be around those people.

5:52And then I went to Kent with Dick Crum for a year, and he was wonderful. He was really a great guy to work under, but I was just there the one year, and then I was with Bill Snyder for seven years, and you learn a ton. Coach Snyder was, no one is more attention to detail more than he is, And I learned that from him. And then I think I got polished off with going to going to Steve Spurrier to go to Florida for three years, win a national championship. And I think the experience there was there isn't any wrong or right. But Steve Spurrier is over here and Bill Schneider is over here. You couldn't get two people more opposite in their personalities and how they teach, coach everything.

6:39so but but you know that that's okay yeah you know they both have won they're both hall of famers but I I thought my personality was more like coach Spurrier's so it allowed me going in to be the head coach and then to develop my form of being a head coach I was allowed to be like that because all the success he had I wasn't afraid to do it to what would fit me the most What do you mean by that? Your personality is like Spurrier. How would you describe that personality? I don't know how to explain it. A little more casual, a little more, but listen, by no means. You've seen Coach Spurrier. He knows what he wants and what he wants to see.

7:23and so he's casual to the point he doesn't see it the way he wants to see it and a little more casual but still detailed a little more free lancing a little more uh you know he's just a little more relaxed and you know that kind of thing i don't know how to you know again none of them are there's no positive either way it's just it was more me it feels to me like those are great examples of the fact that there isn't one prescribed way to do it but exactly right what is important it feels is and I know this as a player I talk with my brother about this all the time you got to be authentically you as a coach players sniff that out instantly if you are trying to be somebody else and I think that's also that it goes for leadership outside of the sporting world as well is, yes, you want to learn from the greats like you've been around, but you got to figure out your own voice and your own style and your own personality.

8:27And if you're trying to be somebody else, I rarely, if ever, have seen that work. You're absolutely correct. You cannot be who you are not. You can't be somebody else and you cannot fool a locker room. You cannot God fool players and or other coaches. It's, it's too authentic. People, you know, people sniff a rat in a heartbeat. So, you know, the locker room guys, and again, your staff, even they know when you're, you know, putting something on and I've never tried to you, you have to be who you are, be authentic. um no and then there are certain principles of what you got to do to make it right but anyway yes uh you're you're totally correct that you cannot you know you can't be who you're not never no one of the things you mentioned about what made your dad so good as a fellow ohio in here so i have a kinship with ohio high school football is awesome coach is the fact that he you said he related to his players so well like he got to know them he truly cared about them And when I asked our fellow friend and your fellow Hall of Famer, Sherry Cole, I said, Sherry, what is something about Coach Stoops that you know that I can't find on the Internet?

9:42Because she knows I'm going to do my research. And she said, this is quote, one of my favorite things about him is he's the busiest man on the planet, but never appeared that way. That's a skill and an art that fascinates me. the fact that you have a million different things going on, but she told me when you're in the room with him or when you're talking with him, he makes you feel like you're the most important thing in the world to him. And maybe this just comes natural to you, or maybe you got it from your dad. I'm curious, but when you hear that as a compliment given to you, what do you think of that?

10:16Well, that's an awful kind of Sherry. She's an awesome person, coach, always enjoyed my time whenever I get to see her. I appreciate that. When you are football with the number of people we deal with, 120 players, 20 coaches, trainers, you know, on and on and on, there is a lot coming at you. And I'd like to say I surrounded myself with really quality people. So I had helped that way. And then I always knew, I guess maybe relating to Sherry, and I always had time to visit with softball recruits, gymnastic recruits, basketball recruits, whatever it was, I would make time on Fridays ahead of games.

11:02They would all come in for games that I had that time because I always felt in college ball, my job was to be a part of the university also, not just to win games, not just to be a football coach and worry about just my stuff. I felt an obligation that I was part of this university and I was part of this big coaching tree. And if I could help and assist anybody, I was going to do that. And it was really natural. And again, I think, like you said, my father was that way. Relating to people is a big deal and fitting, you know, and to me, that was it I felt my players would do anything for me because I genuinely cared about every one of them and when you do and they know that because you can't fake it like we talked they're going to do about anything you know you ask them to do and do it happily and so anyhow but I appreciate Sherry saying that because again it was my job to be a big part of this university and to help any of them that I could or be a part of it and I was lucky we had a bunch of great coaches like Sherry and Patty Gasso, our softball coach.

12:12And I could go on and on. Our gymnastic coaches are incredible. And anyhow, so it was fun to be a part of that. You make it sound like it's normal to do that. I don't know. I've never been a college football head coach, but is that a normal thing for the football head coach to be making, especially in season when every second is important to be preparing to win the game? Because, you know, if you don't win, they'll run you out of town quickly so you gotta win that's just the way college sports especially football is and a place like Oklahoma where their fans are very passionate but to make time for other sports to be an ambassador for Oklahoma seems really cool of you to do but how normal is that in college athletics I don't I don't know what other people do I I can't say but I found it if I'm not ready by noon on Friday, the day before the game.

13:03I haven't done my job. So point being, it was, you know, most of the recruits of these other sports came in for the game and they would come in on Friday for their official visits and then be a part of, they'd be on a sideline ahead, warming up to the spectacle of OU football. They'd be there for the games on Saturday. So I found it fairly easy by noon, somewhere around noon, Friday, or might've been in the early afternoon to carve out an hour, hour and a half to, Hey, let's meet, take pictures with these people, show them around a little bit. And I didn't feel it was that hard. I mean, again, if you're, you're not prepared by that point, you haven't done your job.

13:45One of the other things, and you briefly mentioned this is that you have created quite a coaching forest. I'm not even going to call it a tree. I'd call it a coaching forest, meaning your assistant coaches that have gone on to become head coaches. There's so many of them, like Mike Stoops, brother Mark Mangino, Mike Leach, Bo Pelini, Kevin Sumlin, Kevin Wilson, Lincoln Riley, and many, many more. Chuck Long. Yeah. So many great ones, great ones, right, that are out there. I'm curious, how have you been so good at, one, selecting high-caliber coaches, then developing them to become head coaches in their own right?

14:25Well, I don't know that I developed them. I'd like to think I had an influence on how they coach. And I think our success led to some of them, obviously, becoming head coaches. I always tried to hire guys I felt were smarter than me. I have no problem with that. I want a guy in the room that I feel is smarter than I am. And I always tried to hire guys that I felt not only is he smart in what he's doing, but he has the leadership traits to be a head coach. And I always wanted to hire guys that I thought would be head coaches. And so many of them did become head coaches. And I'm happy for that. And I never held anybody back.

15:07If anything, I promoted them. I didn't want to lose them. But you know what? that's going to be good for him he and his family i i'd go to bat for him i wanted it for him and uh then it was my job to go out and find another guy that i thought could be a head coach and i'll be honest if i did anything right i hired really good people and because i don't believe in this profession and football is the ultimate team game there isn't anybody doing it by their self you got to be surrounded by good people each side of the ball and special teams and players coaches everything and uh and again if i did anything right i hired really good people well let's coach let's drill down on that because this also has application far beyond the football field or football team because leaders that's i think maybe the most important thing they're going to do is choosing the people to surround themselves with let's say you're a ceo of a business which is basically what a football coach is at a huge college like university of oklahoma And so I would love to get inside the process of how you first identified who those people are.

16:16And then maybe even your interview process, some of the questions you asked to see, wait, is Lincoln Riley a genius play caller or, you know, like stuff like that. Like, how do you figure that out on the front end? Because it's easy now to look back and say, oh, yeah, all these guys are great. It was obvious. But on the front end, that's really hard to do. People try and fail all the time at hiring great people. We all want to do it, but most of us aren't that good at it. So what did you do to identify that talent as well as make the right choices for who to hire? I'll give you two really good examples because some of the guys I hired when I first got on, I hired Mark Mangino, Brent Venables, Mike Stoops.

16:56Well, I've worked with them at Kansas State, so I know what I'm getting. That's easy when you know how someone works and how good they are. Kevin Wilson. I did not know when I hired Kevin Wilson, but I hired him after his time at Northwestern. And here's a guy that was really doing well, having great success at Northwestern and under really good people. And I thought, well, if he can do it at Northwestern, we're going to have hopefully better players and he's going to do a great job here. I also hired Lincoln Riley. When I hired Lincoln, I looked at, I had my secretary. I said, Julie, I want the top 15 offenses in America in total yards, total points, and then yards per rush in passing.

17:42Just show that to me. She pulls it up. Well, eight of the, I think, top 13 or eight of the top 14, I want to say, something like that, were all in the Mike Leach tree. And, you know, Mike Leach was the first guy I hired. I did not know Mike. another example of I knew from playing against Kentucky they gave me the biggest headache of anyone in Florida that I went against as a D coordinator so I hired Mike and and now here I am down the road some teen years and I need another offensive coordinator and here's a list of coaches that come from the Leach Street and Hal Mummey the two of them now some have evolved into running a little more than, but anyways, that's the gist of it.

18:29So six of the eight are head coaches. I'm like, well, and they're calling plays. So I'm like, well, they're not going to come. And so there was two, whether it be TCU, Doug Meacham and Sonny, Sonny, not Deitz. He was at Cal at the time. He's up the tree though. Sonny, I'll think of his name. And then I had Lincoln Riley. So I'm like, all right, I bring two of them in and Lincoln. So, but point being, now I bring them in. So I like what they did. They have proven success, not for one year, but for multiple years. And that's what I was looking at when I hired Mike Leach, proven success, multiple years, Kevin Wilson at Northwestern proven success, multiple years.

19:17This isn't a coincidence. Lincoln Riley was at East Carolina. And again, he was in the top 13 in all these categories. And I'm like that. And then after the interview to me, you gotta, I want to see what a guy's like. Can I be around him every day? Is he a leader? Can he, you know, and then, and obviously when I had Lincoln, I hired him the next day I did. He always tells the story. He went home and I didn't call him that night and he figured he didn't get the job. And I called him the next day. I always, I always sleep on it, you know, and then sure enough, He came and did a great job for us.

19:52So to me is, is there proven success for more than just one year? So it's, it's been consistent. And can I stand in front of that guy? And he's a leader. And when I talk to him, he talks back to me. I know he can look a team in the eye in front of them and lead them. And those guys were all that. But so to me, it's what's your track record, as well as I want to stand in front of somebody and see what kind of leader they are. What is it like in that room? Is it more conversational? Do you have them up on the board? I'm not a big interview guy. I don't have a lot of questions. I want to see how a guy goes to lunch, how he talks to the waiter, how he talks to my secretary, how when I look at him and he talks back to me, looking me in the eye.

20:39I don't have a whole page of things I'm going to ask a guy. That's just not my style. I trust my gut, my feelings, my instinct more than I do anything else. So it's really about, okay, the table stakes are track record of success over more than just a year or two. And then the second part is I just need to hang with the guy. And I want him to be around other people in addition to me. I want to see how he treats people. So it's like that kind of the character stuff. And so I know he's got the track record of success. And then I get a feel for what he's like as a person. and then you go with your guy.

21:14Do I want to be around him every day? We're up there a long time. I'll tell you a funny story. Steve Spurrier called me. I didn't know Coach Spurrier from The Man in the Moon. I was at Kansas State. He needs a new D coordinator. Jeremy Foley, his athletic director, goes, guess who the number one defense is in America? We were number one in total defense and number two in scoring defense. and he puts it down and he's it's kansas state so he says you know what that's a good idea i'm gonna call him jim levitt and i were co-coordinators and jim had already gone to south florida and as the head coach they were going to start their program but then steve spurrier coach spurrier calls me out of the blue and i at first i thought it was one of my buddies pulling a prank on me i don't know steve spurrier there's no way he's calling me and i didn't even know they had a coordinator job open.

22:09I was one of those guys. I didn't pay attention who did, didn't. Anyway, we got to talking for two, three days and he offers me the job. And then I said, well, coach, I said, I want the job. But I said, don't you think the two of us ought to meet, make sure we could look at each other, get along, whatever. And he goes, you know, that's a good idea. And so the next day or two, whatever it was, he set up a flight for my wife, Carol and I to go, go visit with him and to see him and the staff. And it was great. And, but it's, that was the gist though. You know, don't, don't you think we ought to make sure we could get along or this is going to be okay.

22:49And then he did say to me, he says, now, let me ask you something. He said, now you'll have a beer every now and then with us, right? I said, Oh yeah, coach, I'll have, I'll have more than one. And so he goes, Oh, we'll get along good then. So that's just the point being, you know, the personalities mesh. Yeah, I think sometimes this stuff gets overcomplicated, you know, coach. And it's refreshing to hear that you really had this mentality of, yes, they've proven they can do it. And I bet they'll do it even better with better players because they're going to have better players in Oklahoma than they did at Northwestern or East Carolina or wherever they were.

23:28And then are you a guy who basically is a high character, high integrity person is what I'm gathering for. You're saying high character, high integrity, meaning you want to be around a person like that. And that's it. That's pretty much it. Right. Absolutely. And that because that matters character, integrity, all the things you're going to be with someone, your job, your family's lives depend on it. You want to be with people of high character. And I'll be honest, I tell my coaches different times. you intentionally cheat or you're a bad person off the field and I find out about it, you're not going to be with me.

24:03And I don't care how good a coach you are. It doesn't matter because eventually, you know, it's, it's going to reflect on you or the program. Have you had to make those tough calls where you fire assistant coaches for various reasons, whether it's performance or character or anything like that? Well, I've, I've had to change here or there, but never for character or reasons like that. It's just sometimes you get stuck wherever and you just feel you need something different to change and to get something new going. You said earlier that you like to hire assistant coaches that are one, smarter than you, which I think is similar to what Mark Zuckerberg talks about.

24:45Which isn't hard to do. I don't think that's true, but I'll keep going. But hire that are smarter than you that you also think could become head coaches someday. So like what, this may be tough, but what are some of the qualities or the makeup of somebody who is an excellent head coach? Well, I think a number of things. I think first how they relate to people, you know, and how they can motivate and get their point across, you know, influence people to do, explain what they want them to do in a clear path, in a clear way, where there isn't any indecision. Someone who is decisive in what they do, because I don't ever think there's one way to do something, but whatever you do it, be decisive about it, because then people are going to follow it and believe in it.

25:39And if you're not, then you're going to get the opposite. So to me, it's just having a clear path, being able to present it, being able to be decisive and motivate people to do it. And yeah, and then have, you know, have people connect with you. To me, connection's a big deal. You could be a smartest guy in the room and you don't connect with anybody. There isn't anybody going to follow you. There are very few people, you know, but people that connect and and know you've got their best interest. This is the way we see it. We're all in it together. This is how we're going to do it. You've got to be able to motivate people and to be that gathering point that everyone believes in what your vision is.

26:29Yep. How about the players now? Okay, let's shift because recruiting is a tough thing. There's all these services. Guys have stars. I'm not even going to get into NIL stuff right now. I just want to talk about how you decide which players to bring to your team. Certainly, you can just say, let's just get all the five-star guys or whatever. But I feel like the type of player that played at Oklahoma, especially for you, seemed like a lot of high-character guys. I wasn't there. I don't know that. But I'm curious, when you were looking to recruit a player, they obviously need to be good. It helps if they're fast and big and can catch and run and tackle, right?

27:03All that stuff. But beyond those skills, what were you looking for in a player to recruit to come be part of your team? Yeah, you know, like everybody, guys that love football, tough, toughness. There's no replacing it. That tough attitude, guys that love to play and guys that were physical. You look for all those things, but you can't replace guys that just love the game, you know. And then I always was pretty emphatic that we're in the state of Oklahoma. We're not a very populated state. Let's make sure we give every kid in the state of Oklahoma a chance first. Of course, through the years, we may have missed some, but I always said, look, man, don't pass up anybody in our state.

27:46And let's, you know, if we're going to make a mistake, at least it was here. And I can remember first team All-American, D.N. Dan Cody. Well, he was a tall, skinny guy, but he knew he was going to fill out. I mean, he could run. He could do. I mean, he was tough, played hard. No one wanted to take a like tight end. didn't want to give him the end didn't want to give him a scholarship no one knew where he's going to play so none of those coaches wanted to offer up one of their scholarships finally i said i don't care i said we're offering him i said he's going to play somewhere and he was a tremendous player for us for four years and point being that's just an example he's an in-state guy i'm not going to play against him hopefully somewhere else and he'll play somewhere don't worry about it.

28:35And I had to make some executive decisions once in a while, like, no, I'm offering them. That's just an example, though. But toughness, it's hard because that travels through the out of season. It creates attitude in the locker room. It creates an attitude in how you do everything. And I'd like to think through our years here in my time, if we were anything, we were tough yeah and we didn't always win but it wasn't because of that how do you know if somebody has that from just watching film because you can't get in the room with everybody i mean their coaches i can't say that we didn't make a mistake here or there i mean it's yeah i don't know just visiting with them getting to know them you know what talking to their coaches you know their coaches in high school uh or junior college whatever it might have been and but then you see it on tape to some degree too but coaches assistant coaches and high school coaches can tell you a lot too about oh this guy you know they they know what he's like what kind of leader is on the team yeah coach I was reading a story about Jeremiah Smith recently he's that stud freshman receiver at Ohio State just an amazing player and after they they beat Tennessee or I think it was leading up to that game actually he went to his receivers coach Brian Hartline who's a great coach and he said, I want you to coach me harder.

29:57I want more. I want to get better. I need you to push me. I need to get on me. I want to be coached. And I found that to be a commonality, not only with athletes who want to be great and who already are great, like Jeremiah Smith is, but is that they want to be coached. And I think this also plays in the business world when I've led sales organizations where my best people, they weren't okay with me just leaving them alone and letting them work. They wanted to be coached. They wanted to get better. Can you talk to me more about your, some of the greatest players that you've coached and their desire to be coached hard?

30:34The easiest one to talk about is Adrian Peters. He's out of high school, is as talented as anybody I've ever seen. He walked on campus and won every sprint, won every conditioning drill. So, I mean, I walk in the weight room, he's holding like two 70-pound dumbbells and he's jumping on the highest plyometric box. I'm like, we're going to get him hurt. What are you doing, Smitty? And he goes, don't worry about him. Anyway, Adrian was that way. He wanted to be pushed. And he even kind of said it. I remember way back when he committed and came with us that he goes, I knew they'd push me. That they weren't going to.