In Search Of Excellence - Kliff Kingsbury: Work Ethic Is Everything | E02

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

Randall Kaplan is joined by Arizona Cardinals Head Coach Kliff Kingsbury to discuss going all-in on your dreams, dealing with setbacks, dedicating yourself to your craft, cultivating the "work ethic is everything" mindset on our path to excellence, and much more. Topics Include:Following through and finishing what you start.  The relationship between integrity, punctuality, and excellence.  The power of work ethic to carry us through losses. Harnessing inspiration from elite performers.  Recruiting and coaching Patrick Mahomes at Texas Tech.  Dealing with public criticism and setbacks.  The pressures of being a head coach.  The importance of presentation and style.  Partnering with people who share your core values, and other topics. Kliff Kingsbury is the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals (2019-Present), and the former head coach of Texas Tech (2013-2018).  Kliff is a former NFL quarterback who won the Sammy Baugh Trophy in college as the nation’s best passer at Texas Tech.  He is considered an offensive genius and has coached four former Heisman Trophy winners including Johnny Manziel, Baker Mayfield, Patrick Mahomes, and Kyler Murray.Sponsors:Sandee | Bliss: BeachesWant to Connect? Reach out to us online!Website | Instagram | LinkedIn

To me, everything starts with work ethic. If you truly want to be successful and you want to create better situations for yourself, luckier situations, if you will, it all comes down to work ethic. Even when you have failings, okay, pick it up, restart, and outwork the next guy. And eventually, you're going to get where you want to go.

Welcome to In Search of Excellence, our quest for greatness and our desire to be the very best we can be, to learn, educate, and motivate ourselves to live up to our highest potential. It's about planning for excellence and how we achieve excellence through incredibly hard work, dedication, and perseverance. It's about believing in ourselves and the ability to overcome the many obstacles we all face in our lives. Achieving excellence is our goal, and it's never easy to do. We all have different backgrounds, personalities, and surroundings, and we all have different routes on how we hope and want to get there. Today, my guest is my good friend Cliff Kingsbury.

Cliff is currently the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals. He's a former outstanding college quarterback who won the Sammy Baugh Trophy as the nation's best passer, and he finished 10th in the Heisman Trophy voting his senior year at Texas Tech. As a coach, he's considered an offensive genius, and he's coached four former Heisman Trophy winners, Johnny Manziel, Baker Mayfield, Patrick Mahomes, and Kyler Murray. He also gives back to his community, and not many people know this. In fact, I think I'm going to be the first one to share this. He's one of the world's best snorkelers. Cliff, welcome to In Search of Excellence. Thanks for having me, Randy. I appreciate it.

I always start my podcast with family. From the moment we're born, our family helps shape our personality, our values, and the preparation for our future. And I want to begin with your parents. Your mom grew up on a farm, and your dad received a Purple Heart in Vietnam after a bullet shattered his jaw and he was injured in a gunfight. Both were high school teachers. Tell us more about them, what they were like, and what kind of values they instilled in you. Yeah, both incredible human beings. There's no doubt. I was very fortunate to have my parents both in the house growing up. You said it, both educators.

Both came from very different backgrounds. My mom was raised on a farm. My dad was more in the city and kind of had a rough upbringing. My dad decided to volunteer to go to Vietnam when he was actually underage, lied about his age to go so he could get away from that upbringing. And I think his time there really in the military and serving in Vietnam really set the course for his life and what he was going to do moving forward. And then my mom was just surrounded by love, grew up on a farm, had to kind of learn things about a farm, was very resourceful, very outgoing. So my dad's an introvert, my mom's an extrovert and came together and made kind of the perfect union. But I had an incredible upbringing that was focused on really excellence in academics,

excellence in citizenship, and excellence in sports. And that's where they strived for me and my brother and was just very blessed to have role models like that throughout my childhood. They taught you about work ethic. Let's talk about that. Yeah, first and foremost, that was what it was about. I think my dad was my high school football coach as well. And so I would see him wake up, be the first one in the office, the last one to leave every day. No matter what

his contemporaries were doing, he was always putting in the time in that regard. And then my mom was the same way. She was a high school teacher, but she always did some extra, whether it was mock trial or she was teaching aerobics, like there weren't enough hours in the day for her as well. And so you had an early wake up time, my brother and I did,

and you were going to be active as well. You're going to find things to do throughout your day and work at it and practice at it. And one of the big family rules was you're going to finish what you start. So if we got into a sport and we hated it, didn't like the coach, didn't like our team, it didn't matter.

You were going to finish that season, and then you'd have to play the next year. But that was a big go-to in our household. One of the values they instilled in you was do what's right. What does that mean exactly? And how did that influence the rest of everything you've done since then? I think more than anything, they would harp on do what's right when nobody's watching. It's easy to put it out there, do the extra things to practice when you think the coach is watching or do the extra studying when you think the teacher is watching.

But what are you doing when it's just you and you? That was a big deal. Just how you treat people, how you handle yourself in society, how you work, how you study, just doing things right all the time and in all phases of your life. It's amazing. I think it's important to note also, it's easy to do what's right when people are watching you, but it's really better if it's innate to you and part of your personality to do what's right when no one's watching. Yeah, there's no doubt. And that was a big line in our house. Like I said, who are you when nobody's around? And so that's always stuck with me. Even to this day, it's easy to, like you said, to put it out there and do charitable

endeavors so people see and you get the accolades. But who are you every day and who are you to people who truly can't help you in any way? And he taught you about punctuality. What about punctuality? And do you practice punctuality today? I do. I mean, my dad was a Marine. So it was, if you're on time, you're late. If you're early, you're on time. And that's always how we lived our lives. And I've always found that the biggest, greatest commodity anybody can have is their time. And if you're disrespectful of that and you show up late or you're not being respectful of that, then that to me is kind of the ultimate insult. So our parents, we were early to everything.

We'd be waiting at practice before anybody else got there to make sure that we were on time. And what do you do now? Do any of your players come late? And if they do, what happens to those guys? Yeah, I mean, we hold guys accountable. I'm not as traditional in the fine sense. A lot of people in the NFL, I mean, we'll fine guys multiple offenses, but more than anything, I kind of make them explain to me and explain to the

general manager why they were late. And they tend to hate that a lot more than just paying a fine and moving forward. So work ethic was something that you saw. Did they actually tell you, you got to work hard to be the best at whatever you're doing? Or were you just observing it kind of and you were living it? I mean, you woke up early, you said, your dad was a Marine.

Did he talk to you about work ethic? Did he say those words? You have to have a great work ethic to be successful. And do you think that's necessary if you're young and impressionable for a parent to tell you that you got to work harder? Is it enough just seeing it and watching it? I think a healthy dose of both. I know it started just watching them waking up early.

They were big into exercise as well. My mom would go for a jog, dad would work out in the gym. They'd always be busy, always have something going on. So you see it at a young age. And then they'd cite examples. Joe Montana was my idol growing up and he'd talk about, he'd show me stories of Joe Montana's work ethic or, you know, Michael Jordan, you know, so I think a healthy dose of both, but I do think verbalizing it, it helps. And throughout my life, that's been the one constant when everything else I felt like was falling apart and things weren't going my way and dreams weren't being reached. I could always fall back on work ethic and it would take me to a good place. I think as a kid, you want your parents to be supportive. You get positive reinforcement from them. It really

affects the outcome, your confidence, the way you carry yourself, your personality. Your parents were very supportive of you. Your dad started coaching football, not because he liked it, but because he wanted to spend more time with you and your brother, Clint. Could you feel the love? There's no doubt. And it was always wanted us to strive to be our best, but it was never because they wanted us to do it. If we didn't want to play anything, they would have been fine with that. They wanted us to pick what we had in our heart and whatever passion that was and choose it and try to do the best we could at it. But it was never a deal where, hey, you're going to play this or you're going to do that. And I think that that's what meant the world of my brother and I, because we had our choices.

But once you are in it, you are going to strive to be the best. So you're talking about your brother, Clint. He's two years older than you. You guys as young kids, he played football as well. Were you guys competitive at one point? Or what was the rivalry like if there was one? Was he looking out for you and he said, hey, you're my younger bro. Here's what you got to do. Learn from my mistakes. Were you modeling him?

He's like the best human I've ever met. One of the nicest people has always treated people incredible. He's one of the smartest people I know. So I've always looked up to him. He wasn't as sports crazy as I was, but he played. He's a big outdoorsman and he's a mechanical engineer. So he kind of has that likes to make things and build things mentality. But yeah, I think just his humanity, the way he's always treated people his entire life, it was something I've always aspired to do. You guys go hunting together at times. And I heard when you were younger, you killed an alligator together. We probably killed just about every living creature in North America at some point early on. I don't hunt anymore. I got away from

that. I like to fish. He's still an avid hunter, but nothing crazy since then. Where do you fish? What is there somewhere local? Yeah, I love to go to... Well, actually, I love to go to Key West. That's my getaway, recharge, reset place. Just feels like it's been trapped in a time warp and you can get down there and unwind and get away. I'm a big fan of that spot. You get a boat, you get a big reel on the boat and you just cast away hoping to... What you catch out there i get a guide i try to catch tarpon and barracuda and permit is what we kind of go after we're the same guide he's awesome he doesn't yell when you miss the fish or you make a bad cast so it's just pure pure enjoyment so let's talk about what you were like as a kid what'd you do for fun what were you

interested in and when did you become interested in football? I was sports crazy from a young age, probably having my dad be a coach. I was always around it. Grew up playing soccer, basketball, baseball, football, flag football. And so I just loved the game. And then being in Texas, as you get older, you see the importance of Texas high school football, how big a deal it is. The entire town's coming out. And so I was really captivated by that. I was captivated by the scheme of football, the X's and O's,

the strategy involved. And so just fell in love with that. I still played other sports, but my main focus kind of transitioned to that. But it was either sports or fishing or hunting growing up. My dad wasn't a golfer. So when we weren't doing sports, we were somewhere doing some sort of outdoors activity. Sounds like you had a golfer. So when we weren't doing sports, we were somewhere doing some sort of outdoors activity. Sounds like you had a busy childhood. Did you have any odd jobs? And if so, what'd you do? Yeah, limited jobs. I think it went, I mowed lawns one summer with a yard crew, which was fun. I was a trash pickup. We have a huge water park in our hometown, one of the biggest in North America. So I was the trash pickup kid where you just pick up trash because lifeguard,

you had to sit in a stand and you couldn't really talk to the girls because they would just go by on the rides. And trash pickup, you could go around and still be mobile and talk to the girls. And then I got promoted to funnel cake maker, which was a big deal at that time. And then the last job I had in high school was I was miniature golf course attendant, which is the slowest job of all time. You literally just sit there, you blow off the course, and then you sit there the entire day watching people play miniature golf. How old were you when you played your first football game? And when did you really become interested in the game?

I'd say I really knew what was going on probably around six or seven. I think that's when we were playing flag football. My dad was big. He was the coach. So he wanted us to wait till like middle school to play tackle football and be coached by coaches in the middle school.

And so we played flag football growing up. And I'd say six or seven. I always played quarterback. I always kind of admired, like I said, Joe Montana. And I liked being in that position. I liked having the ball in my hands. I liked the leadership component of it. And it just kind of clicked at an early age. That's what I wanted to do. Your dad set up a tire and a trash can in the backyard for you to practice throwing. Tell us about that. Where was the tire? How far away was it? How high was it hanging? And did you know the size of the opening of that tire? I did not, but that's

another, this is another Joe Montana reference. It's like my third one already. You can see my affinity for the man, but I remember reading a book that had a picture of the tire or whatever that he used to throw through. And so I had my dad put one up in the back of the backyard. It was probably, I don't know, five feet off the ground. The hole wasn't too big, but lots of throws at that. And then for the touch passes, it was see if he could throw it in the trash can. So we had a little bit of both. Just throw one football and run, go get it and throw it back. And I didn't know any better back then. So the average tire is 18 inches hole diameter. The diameter of a football is 8.66 inches. That's about five inches on either side of that ball to get it through the

hole. How far are we talking here? I mean, and how many throws would you do per day? I mean, I'd stay out there quite a while. And it was kind of like conditioning too, because you jog, go get the ball and then come back. But I'd say probably close to 50 to a hundred throws. And then you'd start close, work your three-step drop, then back up, work your five-step drop, and then back up, work your seven-step drop and just throw and throw and throw. And you could do it by yourself, which I always liked. So give us a sense of, you said you worked on it a lot. Is this two hours a day? Was it four days a lot. Is this two hours a day? Was it four days a week?

Was it five days a week? Yeah, I'd say close to probably two hours a day all in. And it was five, six days a week whenever I could get out there. And I became pretty crazy about it once I got to high school. I just saw what Texas high school football meant to people and everything that came with it and was just super inspired. And so from high school on, I just was back there trying to perfect it. And you mentioned your dad was a coach. So when you were nine years old, he was taking you to football practice. He was doing two-a-days and you're going with, and you're bringing your buddy

there and you guys are mapping out the plays. You're doing X and O's at that point, wanting to know how it all works. How many other nine-year-old kids do you think were doing that at that particular time? You think about excellence. You think about doing things that nobody else is doing at that age or whatever you're doing at that moment in time. I talk about in the search for greatness, going about the extra mile. It's even better if you go the extra hundred miles. So were you thinking you want to get ahead at that point and do what no one else is doing? Or again, you're just doing something that comes natural to you and it just so happens no one else happens to be doing it. Yeah, I think you note it. I think more than anything, it was just situational. And that's why I why I've always felt blessed on my path is that I was able to be around that at that age and understand it and be embraced by football and the culture of it at such a young age. I was around it. I always saw the X's and O's. I was always fascinated by them and just put in a position to succeed in that game. So you talk about Joe Montana. He wins four Super Bowls,

three MVP Super Bowls. Three Super Bowls, he's the MVP. He has the highest passer rating in NFL history, 127.8. He's nicknamed the comeback kid for his history of rallying from late game deficits. And if you're a sports fan, you remember the catch. He throws a pass to tight end Dwight Clark in the 1981 NFC Championship game to win the game. You were two years old when that happened, but I know you've seen the play. And when you see someone do something extraordinary like that, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, throwing a perfectly thrown ball over a defensive back, the game is on the line, the clock's expiring. What are you thinking as you're watching that for the first time?

Yeah, I mean, obviously I was young, but seeing the replays, it feels at that moment like mastery of the position, mastery of the sport. And playing quarterback is such an unperfect game. I think you strive for perfection and settle for greatness because you're never going to be perfect. There's always going to be a misread, a misthrow, something you could have done better. But moments like that, when you see Joe Montana make a throw that he probably couldn't make 99 out of 100 times, but in that

moment, at that time, to propel his team, he's able to do it. It just feels like you're watching mastery of the sport. So back then, when someone asked you, what do you want to do when you're older, when you grow up? I'm assuming you said you want to be a pro quarterback. And for 99.99999% of young kids, it's not going to happen. So at what point did you realize you were pretty good and think you could actually get there one day, that you could play college ball and then exceed there and even achieve your dream to make it to the NFL? Yeah, that's all I ever wanted to do growing up. But I think I came from a small town. There weren't a lot of guys going to Division I colleges. And so I grew up thinking that that was just this incredible feat to get there. And

not many people had done it. And so it's like you would just have to be out of this world to reach that goal. And I always wanted to be a pro quarterback. I always wanted to do it, but I think it didn't really set in until I actually got to Texas Tech and got the scholarship offer and got on that level and saw the competition that I was like, okay, I can really do this. Is Texas Friday Night Lights like it was the TV show? There's a stadium there. There could be five or 10,000 people, the entire town comes out, you're under the bright lights. Is that really Texas football, high school football? It was. I'm not sure. I mean, there's so much else going on in the world

these days with social media and all those things to do, but it definitely was back then. I mean, it would be, I mean, we had a town of like 30, 35,000 people back then, and we have 12 to 15,000 at some games packed out. Everybody you knew was there. And it was a very community driven type atmosphere. And the community was raising these young men up and watch them come up from junior leagues on. And now they're out there and representing their city. And there was a real sense of pride about it that I'll always carry with me. That was the most fun I've ever had being a part of anything. And I still keep in touch with those friends. And anytime I think about it, I still get chills. You mentioned playing on good teams. And when we're all trying to improve at our companies, when we're trying to get better and do better and have better results,

it's about team and hiring people better than you who know things that are different than you. And one way to improve is to play with people better than you are. We watch them, we learn from them, we get coaching from them. Was that something that was important to you? Did you seek that out?

Yeah, as a young person, I think I was still trying to find my way. So I don't know if I really knew that that's how to really take the next step is to get around people that help elevate you because they're better than you, faster than you, stronger than you. I think I was still just trying to find my way. And as I got older, I understood the best way to bring out the best in yourself is to be against great competition, be around great players and people that you're trying to catch. And that didn't come to me until really college. Yeah. And then once you catch them, they're pretty much gone unless they get injured. And then once

you're the quarterback, people are trying to catch you nipping at your heels. There's pressure there. No doubt. It comes with the territory. And it's like people say, it's harder to stay on top than it is to get there. And there's no doubt at that position, particularly, I mean, one bad game and they're calling for the backup, as you know. So it's week to week. And I do think that level of pressure is obviously helping my career as a coach and be able to handle certain things. There's a lot of people listening and watching who have young kids, teenagers, young adults. What's your best advice to parents on how to motivate their kids to be the best they can be and live up to their potential? And in your view, is there any particular age that parents should make a conscious effort to focus on this? There's a

fine line between supporting your kids and pushing them too hard? Yeah, there's no doubt. Like I mentioned earlier in our talk, my parents, they offered a lot of things that we could get into. They never forced it upon us, but they kind of made sure, hey, this is tennis or this is golf and this is fishing and this is,

and if we took to it and wanted to do it, we did it. And if we were gonna be a part of it, then yeah, they wanted to see us work hard at it, show up early to practice, stay late it, then yeah, they wanted to see us work hard at it, show up early to practice, stay late, do the extra, finish the season, whether we liked it or not. But I think my biggest advice would be like, offer all those things up. Just don't, if it's not working and the kid's miserable doing it, have them finish it, but let's not force them to do anything. I think that was the key to my brother and I being successful in sports was that our parents offered a bunch of options. We kind of came by it organically choosing them. And then

we were in them. They definitely encouraged us to work hard and strive to be the best. Yeah. I have five kids, as you know. I have one son, Charlie, and he was an okay baseball player. And as he was progressing through the little leagues, he had a couple of big hits. He, in the World Series, hit a game-winning single to win the World Series. And he was starting to improve a lot. And I thought he should keep playing. And he said, Dad, I'm just, you don't want to do it. And I really pushed him a little bit. But he said, Dad, I don't want to do this. I want to be a skateboarder. And as a parent, I'm thinking, that's the last thing you want your kid to do? Riding in the bowls and flying in the bowls and hitting their head. And I don't know if there's something more dangerous. I mean, football,

you talk about concussions, skateboarding. It's up there. Which is what he pursued. I wasn't happy about it. He lives at the park. He's there two or three times a week. He goes to camp in the summertime doing all this crazy shit. He's broken his wrist. At one span, he broke his wrist in four different places four times in nine months. And he loves it. And as a parent, you want to encourage your kids to do what they want to do. So there is a fine line. But like you, I don't push my kids very hard. I want them to be passionate about what they're doing. And I think being passionate about something will make them

work harder. You can't make your kids work hard if it's something that they really don't want to do or they're not into. I agree. I think allow them to chase their passions and that's where they learn the work ethic. That's where he learns going and attempting that jump until he gets it. Because if you're not passionate about it, you're not breaking your wrist four times and coming back. You land one time and you're done with it. Yeah. I mean, just to look at his body sometime, it's bruised. It's like he's getting a pounding on there. You fall on your side. It's interesting. But he keeps coming back at it, and I love it. I'm very proud of him for doing that. And it's cool for the bar mitzvah video, which was super cool. I'll show this to you sometimes. I got a bunch of clips for people

saying, hey, Charlie, I'm happy bar mitzvah. And we had guys like, we had everybody and we had Matt Stafford did something. Clay Thompson, Dustin Johnson, And he was a skateboarder. Tom Brady did something. We'll talk about Tom in the later at the end of the show. And at the end, we had Tony Hawk. It was a skateboarding bar mitzvah. And so we had this whole montage. In the montage, I said, hey, Charlie, what got you into this? And he said, you did that. And that's pretty cool. You're the dad. Your son wants to do something. I mean, I never did the bowls, but I used to love my board. And when he was a young kid, I took him to the park. And there's this really cool picture I have in video where I'm holding his hand. He's like six years old and he's on the board. And it's just

cool. No, that's board and it's just cool. No, that's awesome. It's super cool. But one of the highlights of my life, you know, watching him get better. No doubt. That's big. Allowing him to do what he wants to do. Yeah.

It's funny because we have like a frequent flyer plan now at the orthopedist, have a cell number, which is funny. So you're playing high school football, baseball, basketball. You also ran tracks. I know most great athletes play three. Were you playing four at the same time? And how do you do that if they're overlapping? I mean, that's taking on quite a bit there. Yeah, usually it was football and then kind of basketball, baseball track would overlap a little bit, but you just didn't know any better. I mean, it was football and then kind of basketball, baseball track would overlap a little bit, but you just didn't know any better. I mean, it was a small town. Like I said, we grew up playing everything. My dad was a coach of the high school. Mom was a teacher. So it was just part of it. And I really think that was doing that day in, day out was where I learned

real work ethic and real consistency. Because obviously there's days where you get done with basketball. You don't want to jog over the baseball field, but you do it and you learn how to compartmentalize everything and just keep going. So your sophomore year, a good football player, your dad's the coach of varsity, put you on the JV team, even though you're good enough to play varsity. And he didn't think the reason why you should play varsity is because he's the coach and it pissed you off. In fact, I read somewhere it still pisses you off. Can you talk about that? Did that motivate you to work harder? It definitely did. And I, looking back, like I mentioned earlier, having my dad as my high school coach was like the most beautiful

thing that's ever happened to me. But at the time you don't understand why you're like, I, you want to be up there with the varsity, the cool kids, the girls, the whole thing, Texas high school, you know, Friday night lights. But he, he knew that it would be better for me to kind of develop, get bigger, faster, stronger, and not be in that type of spotlight just yet. And so it was definitely the right thing to do, but it was motivating. And, you know, I have forgiven him since, but I still think I should have been on varsity. But our JV team won undefeated. So we had that. So junior year, you're on varsity.

Senior year, things really lit up for you. You led your team at 13 to two record. You threw for over 3000 yards, 34 touchdowns. You're the MVP of the Texas coaches all-star game. Not too shabby there. And our quest to be the best that we can be. One of our goals is to make sure we're constantly improving. So what led to the huge improvement from sophomore to junior to senior year? I'd say more than anything, just consistency. You go from the JV or sophomore year, you're

undefeated, everything's going good. And then, you know, I think we went four and six my junior year. We got moved into a higher classification, playing really good teams, got beat up, but just not letting the disappointment affect the work ethic, the consistency and approach, and just continuing to work in my craft. And that led to the next year being highly successful. And once you get a taste of that and see the results, I think, then you're in and then you're sold and you just keep trying to work harder and keep trying to get better. You have a great senior year. You're not getting any scholarship offers at D1 schools.

At the last minute, you get one from a coach named Spike Dykes at Texas Tech. First of all, I love the name. It's a Hall of Fame name. Spike Dykes comes in with a scholarship offer. He's the only one you get at a D1 program. And here you are. You've trained your entire childhood to pursue your lifelong dream of making it in the NFL. To do that, you need to play at a D1 school. Before the offer came through, were you worried about your football career and that it may be over after college and your dream to the NFL may not happen. What were you thinking at that time?

I think I was probably feeling sorry for myself. I remember having to talk to my mom, like, maybe I'll just go to school then. Like, I thought I did great and I've seen other guys and I know I can do it, you know, but you're trying to handle the disappointment. But I never gave up. I just, I think I had that small moment where I'm like feeling sorry for myself. And then I remember saying, you know what, if it doesn't happen, I'm going to go to a junior college and I'm going to show everybody. And luckily coach Dykes came in late and gave me a scholarship. But I think as a young person, you know, you're going to have those disappointments. And I was so lucky to have supportive parents that basically helped steer me. Hey, you're going to have disappointments in life. You got to keep fighting. You put in so. Hey, you're going to have disappointments in life. You got to keep fighting. You put in so much work. You love the game. And so they're

able to kind of steer me in the right direction. I want to go back to your parents again, both high school teachers, stressing the importance of an education for your future. And you did not disappoint on that front. You were a great student. You graduated three out of 450 in your high school class, academic all state, played football in college. You'll have to tell us how many hours a day that is, six hours a day. And then you have games and you have to study. It's like having full-time jobs. You earned academic honors every year in college.

What was the commitment there? I mean, it's hard enough to be a good student. It's hard enough to be a good football player. You put those two together. What were your weeks like? I mean, how many total hours a week were you working to achieve success at both of those things? It was a lot. But I was so blessed to have started that at a young age. It was always academics first, then sports. If you weren't handling that part of it, then sports weren't going to be in the picture. And so I didn't really know any better at that point. It was actually in college when I kind of saw like, hey, some of these guys aren't taking this as serious as I am when it comes to the academic

part. But that was always first and foremost in my brother and I's lives. And one of the great blessings I've ever had because our parents pushed it and pushed it and pushes. And they taught us to be competitive in that too. Just like in sports, that's an area you need to be competitive in as well. You must have been sacrificing some things. Social life, you mentioned girls and podcasts a little bit before. Did you have a social life? Were you able to make friends outside of football? Were you able to date? Yeah, not much in high school. I was pretty one track minded. And then college really the same until I got a little bit older and kind of figured out how to be efficient in the process in football and academics. And then the social life came along a little bit more.

But I think when you want something that bad, you know you're going to have to give things up. You're going to have to stay in on nights that everybody else is out and doing things. And there's a price to pay to reach your goals. So you're at Texas Tech. The first two years, you're playing for Coach Dykes. You're redshirted your freshman year. You make the honor roll. 1999, you're the backup. The freshman, you're playing six games. Nothing great there. You made the honor roll again. Then in 2000, Coach Dykes retires and Texas Tech hires this guy named Mike Leach, who had been the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma. Never been a head coach before.

So tell us about Mike Leach and who he was at that particular moment in time. And as you talk about Mike, one way to achieve greatness is to try something new and different that other people haven't done before. You're taking risks. So tell us about what he was doing that was different at that time than nearly every other coach in college football. Yeah, Mike Leach, he's extraordinary in what he's been able to do and in his approach the way he you know approaches offense approaches football approaches meetings everything he does it was so foreign when he got there we're all looking at each other like this there's no way this shit's gonna work like what is going on what is he doing how's he coaching and then he just believes in it

so much and he's so you know committed to to his vision and not afraid to do things that everybody says can't work and continue to work at it even when it doesn't work. And he taught me a lot about persistence. He had such a vision for what his offense could be and what we could do out there at Texas Tech. And you could feel that passion. And so as we developed in his offense, I think we all started to believe like him that you couldn't be stopped. And you look at where he's won. He won at Texas Tech on an incredibly high level. He won at Washington State on an incredibly high level, places where traditionally you can't do that. But he has such a great offensive mind. He's been outside the box his entire career. And

to kind of see that on the ground level definitely is something that's impacted me and kind of how I approach the game as well. You mentioned thinking outside the box. So how important is that to our success, being different, doing something that people haven't done before? It's risky because if you fail, especially in a highly public job like you, where everyone's watching you, you do something unique, it doesn't work. It's embarrassing. Yeah. It's easy to just do it like the other guy. And if you do, there's people that can, and if they're substantially better, then you can keep going. But I think to take the risk to do it a different way and believe in yourself, that's where you can make these incredible leaps and really reach some uncharted

territory. And I think that's what Mike was able to do in places that previously weren't able to accomplish it. Okay. So let's talk about exactly what he did, the air raid offense. What is the air raid offense? And you can go deep talking about four wide outs and all that, but we'll try to keep it pretty simple. Good. So what was it before? And then what was it when he put this new scheme in place? Yeah, we were more traditional football tight ends, fullbacks, huddles. And when he got there, it was all wide splits. The linemen were kind of spread out. You wanted to spread the entire defense.

And it's just all about really getting the ball in space, finding leverage to defeat defenders, and letting your guys run with it. And we'd throw it 50, 60 times a game, which was very rare in those days. It's more common now, but you just wear defenses out. You know how to every snap, you spread everybody out, you get it in the space, they'd have to attack, you do it again. And a lot of those little short passes were basically like run plays. And that's how he saw it and had a lot of success with more limited type athletes as well. We weren't getting the five-star guys at Texas Tech, but we'd get kids that could operate in space and play in this system. And

he was able to perform at a high level with that type of player. And it's new for you as well. I mean, you got to be thinking, like you said, you were thinking, what is this? Will it work? But at the end of the day, it really helped you. Sophomore year, you threw for 3,400 yards, 21 touchdowns. And you went to, this is my favorite bowl of the day, it really helped you. Sophomore year, you threw for 3,400 yards, 21 touchdowns. And you went to, this is my favorite bowl of all time, the galleryfurniture.com bowl. You guys didn't win, but you did have a 4.0 that year in college as well. Then junior year, you threw for 3,500 yards, 25 touchdowns. You had a couple of four touchdown games, which is awesome. You guys weren't ranked. And then senior year, you come in the year as a candidate for the Heisman Trophy,

which is awarded to the best player in college football. And you lit it up that year. 5,017 yards passing, 45 touchdowns. Your team goes nine and five. What was that like to hear your name mentioned as a candidate for the Heisman Trophy, the best player in college? Was that one of your dreams as a kid? Were you then shooting for it? Was it exciting? Could you feel the extra pressure? Was all the hoopla a distraction?

It wasn't. It was more, I'm one of those guys, the more success that comes, the more I want it. It doesn't feel like pressure to me. I just want more of that. And so that more I want it. It doesn't feel like pressure to me. I just want more of that. And so that was kind of it. It's like you have this thing being mentioned with your name. Okay, well, let's go work harder and try to get it. But that was a year that all of us really on that team had been in the system three years now. We'd kind of grown up together and were able to play at a pretty high level. And I was around really good teammates.

But I had a chance to win the Heisman. It's a true story. We had played Texas. I threw for six touchdowns. We beat them. Huge upset. Then we go to OU. If I play good and we win,

I'm winning the Heisman. Like, period. It's a wrap. And we get beat 60 to 15. And it was the longest night of my life. And so, obviously, dropped me down in the rankings a little bit, but incredible year,

incredible experience. And playing for Mike was something I'll never forget and has really and truly impacted my life. Anytime I'm in a situation, I'm like, yeah, that's so, you know, even though I said, I'm like, that's outside of the box. I wonder how that would be perceived by NFL people,

fans, media. I just say, think of Mike Leach and say, look what he's done. And he never let any of that outside noise affect him. So did you know after that bad game where you got your ass kicked that it really was over? Were you hoping, well, maybe they're going to look at the whole record? No, it was that bad. It was as bad as you could possibly play as an offense. And I was not, long night. They're all looking at you saying, can you perform

under pressure? Can you win the big game? And at that point, if you can't even come close to winning the big game, then it's just like that black and white. You have four years of performance and in one night, it's over. Yeah, it's all over. But that's the beauty of sports and that's the beauty of really striving for greatness. I mean, you're going to have those pressure pack moments and they either work out or they don't. So you finished ninth in the Heisman. You didn't win. So you dropped down a bunch of places, but you did win the Sammy Baugh Trophy,

Nathan's best passer. You graduated 39 Texas Tech records, 13 Big 12 records, seven NCAA records. Were you satisfied at that point? I was, being a Texas kid and that being my only scholarship offer, I was proud of what we're able to do out there because Texas Tech traditionally, not the top program in the state. And I felt like with what Mike had brought, there was a lot of hype. There was a lot of

promise moving forward. And so I always felt very close to Texas Tech. I owed it a lot. And to be able to give it back in that way meant a lot to me. Here comes the draft. All the hours, the footballs through the tires and the trash can, the thousands of hours of work, the sacrifices, the hundreds of games. It's all about to pay off. Dream come hello nfl and here comes draft day april 25th 2013 you're sitting i'm sure with your family and friends on the tv watching espn waiting for your name to get called figure out where you're going where you're moving we're going to be playing the first day comes and goes you wait i think it's six hours the first day and one by one every 10 minutes must be agony sitting there. Then on day two,

same thing happens. You're waiting. And finally, you're drafted in the sixth round, number 201. What was that like? You're almost the Heisman Trophy candidate. Then you're number nine, best high school passer in the country. What happened? Did you think you were going to be picked before? Was that a huge disappointment at that point? I thought I would go before. And so I actually sat around and I think we got through the fifth, about middle of the fifth. And I told my roommate in college, I'm like, we're going, let's go eat. So we were at Red Lobster when I actually got called by Coach Belichick and told I was drafted by the Patriots. But it was, yeah, I think you're disappointed. But then once you realize, hey, it's the Patriots and I got drafted, I think you just regroup and say, this is a great honor.

It's what I always strive for. And now you know you're back to square one no matter what, whether you're the first pick or the sixth round pick. And you got to go prove yourself. Tom Brady is a quarterback and he's sixth round pick as well. So you got to be thinking, be thinking alright I'm playing behind Tom oh yeah I'm like here we go lightning strikes twice baby

let's go do it you don't want him to get hurt but he replaced Drew Brees who was one of the best passers of his days and he never looked back and you know you always wonder hey what's gonna happen to me no doubt so your rookie season didn't go that well. You spent the entire year on injury reserve. You

hurt your arm. What happened to the arm? Just tendonitis. Yeah. One of those deals, just too much wear and tear. And so didn't play that year, but learned a lot, learned a lot that first year. They had me doing some things off the field since I wasn't able to really participate behind the scenes with the coaches, X's and O's and things of that nature. And so I probably year. They had me doing some things off the field since I wasn't able to really participate behind the scenes with the coaches, X's and O's and things of that nature. And so I probably learned more football than I'd ever known before just being around those guys. Some great coaches on that staff and we all know what Bill does and is about. And so it was a crash course in NFL football, that's for sure. It wasn't a loss. You guys won a Super Bowl. You got a ring

and a Venetieri 41-yard field goal that year. Time was expiring. Brady, of course, is a Super Bowl MVP for the second time in his career. And after that, you were waived, one and done. What are you thinking at that point? Why did they give up on you after only a year? Yeah, I think when I had my opportunities, I didn't make the most of them. You know, I think could have, would have, should have. And looking back, I obviously wish I would have worked harder and done different things. But I think when you get there, you see Tom Brady,

you see this guy who's at this level. I think I did get discouraged because I'm like, I don't know if I can ever be as good as this guy. I mean, you watch him in practice and what he's doing and this. And just kind of got down on my confidence. And when I had my opportunities there, it wasn't as good as I needed it to be. Did you know you were going to get cut at the end of the season? Yeah, I kind of knew that I hadn't played as well as I should have or could have.

But I needed to be somewhere else. And so it was definitely the right move by them. I hadn't done the job I needed to be somewhere else. So it was definitely the right move by them. I hadn't done the job I needed to do. You signed with the Saints your second season to the practice squad, which is not where you want to be either. You didn't play. It didn't work out there. Then you moved to the Denver Broncos practice squad again.

You're only there three weeks you're released, and then you go to the New York Jets, and you finally get in your first game. I think Chad Pennington was a quarterback then, and you came in against the Broncos late in the game. One of two passes, 17 yards, and then you're moving on again. Season four, Buffalo Bills, you signed in training camp, you didn't see any action. And at this point, no more NFL, except you played NFL Europe, the CFL. After it was clear you weren't going to make it in the NFL,

why did you keep playing? And why do you think you didn't make it the way you wanted it to? But what are you thinking with all this? Why didn't it work? Yeah, I think looking back now, I mean, obviously, like I said earlier, I think there's a point where you feel sorry for yourself. Oh, I didn't get my opportunity. I should looking back now, I mean, obviously, like I said earlier, I think there's

a point where you feel sorry for yourself. Oh, I didn't get my opportunity. I should have had a better chance. Why does this guy get his chance? But looking back, I wish I would have just been more dedicated to the process. I always thought I worked hard, but when you can step back and you see it from my chair now, you only have a limited time to try and make your run as a professional athlete. And I don't think the focus was what it should have been. I mean, when I had my opportunities, I simply didn't take advantage of it. And it wasn't a skill set. It wasn't not being able to process things. I just, when I had those opportunities, I didn't take advantage of them. And so it didn't work out for me. I've heard before from some athlete friends of mine, professional athlete friends,

that they said there are these players who don't make it, but who would have made it on a different team, having the opportunity to play with different people and teammates. Is that something that you've thought about? Do you think it may have worked out differently? And is that true? Situationally, it can matter. I think especially being a coach now in this league you see how certain situations play out for certain guys and some guys go places just especially the quarterback position get beat up lose their confidence don't have a lot of talent around them and that's a tough tough situation but my dad told me a long time ago the cream always rises the top and if you're good enough they're going to find you. And so I do think situation can help, but the guys that are really the top elite players, you could put them on a little league team and lift those guys up and be able to beat somebody. So you lived your dream,

you achieved your dream, you played quarterback at a very competitive level. That was plan A. And then what? What was plan B? And are you thinking, what am I going to do now? Yeah, that was the problem. There wasn't a plan B. I had subscribed to, if you had a plan B, plan A would never work. I had got that advice at a young age. And so it was just like blinders on, I'm going to be this quarterback. I'm going to be Joe Montana, Tom Brady. And so when that hits you and you're like, oh, what do we do now? I was pretty much lost. Luckily, I had done well in academics, so I knew I could always fall back on my degree that I got. And I really initially thought I was going to go get my MBA. I had tried to apply there and get my transcript and had a bunch of parking tickets, so I wasn't able to get my transcript. And then I was

mad because I'm like, I did all this for the school and y'all won't give me my transcript. And so that fell through. And luckily had an old coach that allowed me to be kind of a quality control graduate assistant in the University of Houston, got started in coaching and never in a million years thought I would do it because my dad was a high school coach. I saw the hours, I saw the stuff you had to deal with. I'm never doing that. But I got around it and I realized how much I missed being around the guys. I love the mentorship of young people and just fell in love with the coaching process. What is an offensive quality control coach? That's a great question. I think it can wear a lot of hats. When I was there, I would really try to help the quarterbacks in preparation, help game planning in any way I can. You're really going to do whatever they ask you to do from the but a great offensive mind that allowed me to kind of be myself and learn offensive scheme and different philosophies

that I'd care with me later on. But he never kind of asked me to be in a box, dress a certain way, carry myself a certain way. And so that really allowed me to, I think, enjoy the process more than a lot of those young coaches are able to. Tell us about Coach Belichick. You mentioned your first year with the Patriots. This is a guy that's won six Super Bowls as a head coach. I think he's considered one of the three best coaches in history. I'd say the other two are Don Landry. I'd say number one. Okay, number one. Let's put him at the top. You think about Don Landry and George Hallis, but I think he's number one as well, although I'm too young to know about Don or George. And you also worked under Charlie Weiss, who was a great coach there as well.

You got to assume, is that like a PhD in football? What is he doing different than everybody else in football? What's up with his success? How does he do it? And living it and breathing it, I assume watching is learning yeah no doubt just being around it i just think his attention to detail is something that probably has never been reciprocated in the game ever he he sees every angle you could possibly imagine he covers every angle he has these thoughts that you'd never even think would come up in a game and so he makes you walk it through and you're rolling your eyes like this would never happen. And then week seven, it happens and you're prepared for it and your team executes at a high level. And so I think his attention to

detail, the leave no stone unturned approach is something that I've never seen anything like it, really probably in any profession. But he has an ability to do that and ability to be consistent in his approach day in, day out. And he never, never tires of it. I mean, he's still coaching as hard today as he ever did. And the challenges today are going to be a lot harder. I don't know if he's going to have the success for quite a while, or I mean, he's... They beat us this year. That one hurt my soul. I saw that. That one hurt my soul. I was looking forward to that handshake after the win. It's hard to beat him.

He's got some mind control. You should have won that game, another missed field goal in that game. We had a tough ending. But it's just a credit to him and the way they were able to adjust different things. They do offensively, defensively, special teams to adapt to personnel. And still, in a down year where they saved all that cap room, didn't spend all that money, had all these guys sit out, they still go seven and nine. And it's just incredible. For me, I love the Patriots because as you know, I went to Michigan, huge Tom Brady fan. And I think

I shared this with you. I took my kids to Puerto Rico. The girls were eight and 10. I have twin girls and my son, Charlie, that we've talked about. We were staying at this small resort called Dorado Beach. It had just opened. And on Sundays, we wear uniforms. We're all in our Lions jerseys. As you know, I'm a big Lions fan. And this guy comes over the table and he says,

Oh, hey, you guys are Lions fans. That's cool. And I'm looking at this. Is this really happening? And we're having a conversation. And Charlie says, oh, we like the Patriots because my dad went to Michigan. Tom Brady, he went there. And so I said, that's so nice.

And then, I mean, he's talking to us for five minutes. And he's standing up. We're sitting down. He walks away. And my son says, dad, who is that guy? And I said, that's Bob Kraft who owns the Patriots. It's just that kind of guy. And I'll mention something else there. It was a small resort and he was there with eight people in his family, his kids, grandkids.

And at the end, you'd see him around and we'd talk. And I was the founder of a company based in Boston. He knew the company very well. And he said, when we're done, here's my card. If you guys want to go to a game, give me a call. And it was just very nice. That's the kind of guy that he is. And the last night we're there, we're taking photos. We're on the golf course. I love to take photos of my kids. I take 1,000 to 3,000 photos per vacation. I'm that guy. And you could see the Kraft family at the other end of the golf course. They were all there. They were far away from anybody. And there they are playing flag football. There's Bob Kraft handing the ball off to his three-year-old grandkid.

And as a football fan, you really appreciate this is a guy who owns a team. He loves football. And it's not surprising to me, they've been probably the most successful sports team in the last 20 years. I think it starts at the top. No doubt.

And he just being around in my time there i mean he's all about excellence and he won't accept anything less and i actually saw him probably 2000 so i was there 2003 i saw him 2018 probably in la just randomly at a spot and he i saw hey mr craft cliff kingsbury's i remember you six round tex mean, just, you know, and that's 18 years later, 15 years later. And so he's definitely dialed in. So we're going to blow through a lot of your coaching career. I'm going to stop at moments because there's so much else I want to talk about. But you're at Houston for two years.

You're promoted to quarterback's coach. I mean, you're starting at the bottom, bottom. Right. And it's hard to get a job in coaching. So by the way, what were you making as the quality control coach? It was $400 a month. And I just wouldn't even pick up my checks. I just left them over there.

But there wasn't a big stipend at that time for that position at U of H. All right. So you're two years at 400 Bucks a month. You get promoted to quarterback's coach two years later. You're there four years. You get promoted to co-offensive coordinator. And as luck would have it, your quarterback is Case Keenum,

who sets the all-time Division I passing touchdown records. I think he threw nine touchdowns in a game against Rice. Yeah. He finishes seventh in the Heisman voting, and Houston leads in every category. Yars points per game. I think 50 points per game and you're the offensive coordinator of the year so here you go the coaching thing is working you go to Texas A&M and you become the offensive coordinator there and good luck has it as well you got a red first redshirt freshman named Johnny Manziel. The team goes 11-2. You lead the

SEC in total offense. And it's amazing. This guy lights it up. He becomes the only freshman ever to win the Heisman Trophy. He wins the Heisman. A year later, Texas Tech hires you as their head coach. You're 33, the third youngest college coach in the country and your offense continues to roll and i mean this is just an incredible story you've got this guy baker mayfield who's a walk-on meaning no scholarship and he beats out another highly recruited quarterback a guy by the name of davis webb mayfield earns the starting job i think he's the first walk-on true freshman ever to start a season opener for a BCS school. And the guy goes 5-0 and he throws for 1,500 yards. That guy gets hurt.

And when he's healthy again, he doesn't come back. He's not happy. Davis Webb is the starter. And Baker transfers to Oklahoma. I think everybody knows what happened there. He becomes the starting QB. He wins the Heisman two years later, and then he becomes the number one pick in the NFL draft. So you got this guy, Davis Webb, who's still there. We've got this big time recruit coming in. And a year later, Webb transfers to Cal. By the way, Webb is a pretty good quarterback too.

He gets drafted. He goes to the NFL. I think he's currently playing for the Buffalo Bills. So tell us about how you got your recruit, who he was, when you met him, how you got him to Texas Tech, and how my hometown team, the Detroit Tigers, helped make this happen. Yeah. Well, with Patrick, he had grown up being a baseball guy. His dad was a baseball player. Everybody thought he was going to play baseball, hands down. Messed around with football in high school, but that wasn't going to be his path. And so I remember watching his tape and he was unorthodox, made a bunch of plays, but just didn't look like a traditional quarterback. In his senior year, he got better.

And I'm like, we got to get this guy just because he dominated. He didn't look mechanically like you maybe want or the footwork like you maybe but he just dominated he was best player out there he could throw it a mile and so we went after him and as luck would have it I think a lot of guys got scared off by the baseball thing and he ended up coming to Texas Tech and even when he was at Texas Tech I actually saw him last weekend and we were talking about the glory days he really thought he was going to play baseball and then he got a tech sec and fell in love with football and the rest is history but phenomenal human being phenomenal person and it's just been awesome to see the success he's had do you know what round he was drafted in i want to say like like 37th

37th 37th i had to look this up. I didn't know there was such thing as 37 rounds in a professional sport. In baseball, there's actually 40. And if you do the math, he's around the 1,200th pick of the MLB. The Tigers. So you get him, and he plays behind Webb, who gets hurt. But his sophomore season, here we go, 4,600 yards passing, 36 touchdowns. Junior year, leads the nation passing yards a game, 421. He throws for

5,000 yards, 53 touchdowns. And so he's there three years, 11,000 yards, 93 touchdowns, and he's a good runner. 845 yards, 22 TDs. He still holds the NCAA record for most single yard passing, yards passing in a game, 734 yards. And he's considered your best recruit and the most successful quarterback at Texas Tech. As we all know, he was drafted number 10 by the Kansas City Chiefs. Mitch Trubisky, who was just released by the Bears, was the only quarterback selected before him. Mahomes was the number two quarterback that year. Mahomes leaves. You have two mediocre years. At this point, though, you're still considered the best offensive coordinator in the country. And you've done it now for seven years. But similar to the NFL, in college, you got to win. And you didn't win as much as people wanted. Your overall record was 35 and 40, and then you're fired. And when you're fired as a head coach at that level, it's not like you're working at a company and 10 people know about it. It's front news on every sports page. Tens of millions of people know about it.

That could not have been fun. What were you thinking? Did you have another plan at that point? And at the end of the day, is winning and losing the only thing that matters? What added to that was that was my school, right? That was Texas Tech. That was my pride and joy. Had all these visions of grandeur,

being the prodigal son goes back and leads him to the promised land. And for it to fail and not get there and deal with the scrutiny and getting fired and all that, it was tough. I mean, I think it's hard to kind of keep your confidence and handle all those things. But at the end of

the day, I was forever grateful for the opportunity I was given to be the coach there. And that's really how I felt after being fired. I knew it was time for them to try somebody else. And I kind of exhausted myself in that cause. It was time for both parties to move on. But I'm big on believing that you learn your most through your failures. And that was definitely six years of my life that I learned a ton and has helped me moving forward. It's interesting you say that. I'm a venture capitalist, as you know, an entrepreneur.

And as a venture capitalist, seven to eight of 10 companies fail. You think you're making a great investment the first time. You look for billion dollar opportunities. You look really stupid when seven or eight of them or even nine of them of 10 sometimes fail. And I tell all of my interns and my mentees, you learn a lot more from the failures than the successes. And there are some things you can't predict, but I think it's important to look back at the end of the day

and say, what didn't work, what did work, and then let's make sure what didn't work doesn't happen again yeah no doubt I think that's the biggest thing is kind of the after action review if you will of okay this is what we like this is what we didn't like this is what we were good at this is what we're bad at and how do we get better and how do we make sure like you said that the next time we have this opportunity we're better at what we do. So you had a lot of opportunities. You and I have talked about this before. You go to USC for a month, basically,

and I think I sent you a text. Cool, happy you're going to be in LA. We can hang out maybe when you're here. You had kindly invited me down to Lubbock. I didn't make that trip. For me, it's fun. I'm sure you would have said hang out on the field, game passes during the day. You would have got the red carpet, that's for sure. That would have been super fun for me. I still hope it happens with the Cardinals,

but we can talk about that later. We play the Lions again next year, third year in a row. So we're like division opponents at this point. When you played the Lions, your first game, as you know, Madison and I, we came out to watch you. And I said to Madison, you know, who am I going to root for? We went out, we got there, we bought all the Cardinals stuff. I got the hat, I got the jersey. And I said, you know, I was so happy for you. And you know how much I love the Lions. And I think the game went into overtime. I think it ended in a tie. I mean, Kyler did not play very well. I mean, we should have lost that. I mean, we should have totally lost that game, but we should have totally won that game as well. I mean, typical- Lions fashion.

Yeah. This year, we're in a rebuilding year. So I think I'm going to tip the scales. You're rooting for your guys? I hope so. So you leave USC after a month. You're 41 years old. You go to the Arizona Cardinals. You're one of the youngest coaches in the NFL. You're taking over a team that goes 3-13 the year before. A team that had taken the 10th pick of the draft in the first round on a guy named Josh Rosen, a quarterback, who as a rookie had the worst passer rating in the league. A team whose offensive line finished last in pass blocking efficiency and who finished next to last in rush defense. So it couldn't get much worse other than you got the number one overall pick in the draft. Tell us about Kyler Murray, who you had met when he was a junior in high school. Going back to the USC deal.

So took the job, wanted to be there. Love LA. Love the opportunity that we were going to have there. Thought with our offense, the players they have, we could light it on fire. And the Arizona Cardinals job came open. And I remember sitting there thinking like, am I ready to do this? Do I even know what's going on in college football? And then thinking, think about the

ridicule and all the stuff that you're going to have to listen to because you got fired and why are they hiring him and all that. And then it just came down to, I think another kind of one of my life philosophies is whether I've been ready or not, I just say yes and I figure it out. And that was kind of my approach on this too. I knew offensive football inside out, I knew quarterback play and I just knew I'll work really hard at it and I'll figure it out as we go. And I'm still learning this process and we got a long ways to go, but that was kind of how that played out. And then, so we get here, general manager, you know, makes one of the ballsiest moves of all time in the NFL and trades his first round top 10 quarterback from the year before for, to get Kyler Murray with the first pick. And it's worked out so far. We're kind of

a work in progress in building it, but love everything Kyler's about. Love his competitiveness, his work ethic, what he wants to be. And so hopefully we keep building it around and we get a shot to make a run this year. He's the backup to Baker Mayfield at Oklahoma. And of course, he throws for 4,000 yards, 40 touchdowns, and he's the number one pick, and he wins the Heisman as well. But let's go back for a minute. Where did you guys meet? And he was a junior in high school? Yeah, he was probably 16, 15 years old. I knew him. His dad played quarterback at Texas A&M, was a very good player, well-known player in the state of Texas. So I knew him through his dad.

I'd followed him and then recruited him hard at Texas Tech. We obviously didn't get him there, but had built a good relationship with him. I just loved his kind of swagger, his moxie. I thought he was one of the greatest kind of athletes at the position I'd ever seen. I'd never seen a player be able to throw it like that and run like that. So I'd always hoped I'd be able to coach him. I'd even even said, and before we played OU when I was at TechStack, I said, hey, I don't know what y'all are seeing or whatever, but if I had the number one pick in the NFL draft, I would take this kid. And so the universe comes around and we end up getting the

first pick and we go to that spot and it happens. And you can look that clip up. It actually happened. And so you just got to be careful what you put out in the universe. It's good karma. And it's interesting. These relationships go way back in time. And it's a small world at the end of the day. I feel like at some level, people know each other and you can identify talent at a very junior age. You never know how things are going to end up. It's a very round world. So you take over a three and 13 team, you go five and 10 and one, of course, against the Lions. You go 8-8 last year. You missed the playoffs by a field goal.

A number of field goals. And again, you can't blame one guy, right? But that guy at the end is supposed to make that kick. That guy's job is to make kicks at the end of the day, at the end of the game when you're tied. All the strategy goes down to those last three points, game after game. You guys signed Matt Prater recently, my Detroit Lions kicker. We're going to have a rebuilding year, so I'm happy for Matt. I hope you guys win. He'll go to the playoffs,

I think, when you guys make the playoffs this year. Then you signed J.J. Watt in the offseason. That's huge. You're doing something right. People want to play for you. But the fans are merciless. The press is merciless. And I'm reading now, you're on the hot seat. It's your make it or break it year. Do you listen to any of that shit? Are you talking to the general manager

who says there's no way that's happening? No, it's, like I said, I learned a lot out there in lubbock and being at your alma mater not having the success you wanted i mean every year out there it was the make or break year and you heard the scrutiny from fans and used to be beloved by this place and now they're on you and you can't coach and you're not this and you're not that and so when you've gone through fire like that i mean mean, I don't blink at anything anymore. I mean, it's just blinders on, we're focused,

we're trying to be the best we can be and build this thing. And I love the progression we're on. We would have loved to made the playoffs last year, but got dramatically better in every area from year one to year two and expect to do the same this year. Have you devised a play that no one else has done before? You look at, I think,

the Super Bowl. I forget what team. Maybe it was the Saints in the playoffs where the quarterback runs left. It's a fake handoff. And the quarterback ends up in the end zone by himself to the right. I think no one had seen that play before. Maybe it had been run, I think I read a couple of times in college. Now a lot of teams will save that play, but I think that was the first time someone ran that play and they said, holy shit, we should run that play. You have something in the back of your head or in the game plan this year where if it's all on the line,

you're going to fire away at that one? I like to think there's some that I've put out there that have been copied. You have to understand in football, play design, play calling, imitation is the finest form of flattery. And there's a lot of that that goes on. But every now and then you'll get a play up there and you're like, I bet nobody's ever run that before, which is who knows if it's true or not, but it's fun doing that. And I think NFL is going more and more to that. There's a lot of creativity in this league. There's a lot of brilliant football minds. And I love watching everybody's stuff week in, week out

and trying to take ideas and incorporate it into what we do. Let's switch topics again and come back to struggles, challenges, disappointments in your life and career. We've covered a couple of them. We all have them. One of our hallmarks to success and excellence is our ability to overcome them. Can you talk about a few?

And I want to start with your mom. And then we can talk about, we've talked about the firings from, or the firing of your job. If there's one or two more you can touch upon and how you overcame them, we'd love to hear about those. Yeah, I think football, when I was done playing football, coincided pretty closely, at least in the NFL, with when my mom passed in 2005. And so that was a tough period for me just because my mom was, my dad was the coach, the Marine, the disciplinarian, my mom was the love and the positivity and I was the mama's boy. And so you could lean on her for everything. So losing her, kind of fading out of pro football, fading out of the NFL at the same time. You know, I think there was two years

that I probably felt sorry for myself and that was probably bouncing around the CFL, trying different leagues before I snapped out of it and said, all right, got to University of Houston, said, I'm going to put all these things that I've learned about work ethic and mental toughness and all that to use and stop feeling sorry for myself and go make something of myself. And my mom has always been a big inspiration for me, obviously, just want to make her proud in everything I do. But that was a tough

time. And that's why I can empathize with players when they're going out of this league. And I try to talk to guys, young players about, hey, there's going to be a time when this game's over for you and it's not going to be easy and they don't't prepare you for it, and there's no lesson for it, and you just have to keep pushing and learn from all the things that got you to that point as a pro athlete and apply them in the next phase of your life. Those are the two that stand out in career. Didn't make it like I wanted to as a pro quarterback. Worked really hard, had really good success early, was fortunate, like you you said to be around great players kind of thought coaching was easy i'll do this you know with my eyes closed you have

case keenum johnny football back to back then baker mayfield and and you know we had pat and we we we should have won a lot more games we obviously didn't and so getting fired from your alma mater to me as a coach is i don't know what could be shittier to go through that. It was a huge disappointment, but it really, mentioned earlier, really was baptism by fire and made me a lot tougher moving forward. But that's kind of it. Other than that, just on to the next and continue to try and get better. I want to talk about career goals. I've had the pleasure of mentoring a lot of people. One of the questions that always comes up

is figuring out what people want to do, whether it's after they graduate or later on when they're thinking about moving to a new company or choosing a new career. And what I tell them to do is rank the five most important things that are most important to them in order of importance from top to bottom.

Is it money? Is it the experience? Is it the location? Is it having a passion for what you're liking and what you're doing? Is it the team around you? Is it the growth opportunities? It's different for everybody.

And when you thought about your future, where did you rank all of these and what's your advice to others on how they should go about picking their careers? It's a great question. And I think mine's a bit unique because it was always to play NFL quarterback. As a young person, finished college, still had that mindset. Three years out, still had that mindset. And so I had to reset completely and be like, all right, well, what's next? Now, how am I going to go about doing that? And for me, I wanted to be the best quarterback coach I could possibly be. I want to be regarded as the best play caller in any league and wanted to be a head coach at a young age. And

so I'm still striving to kind of reach those goals. I haven't been able to have some success, but those are the biggest things I wanted. As far as quality of life, things of that nature, I never put that in the equation. That was just me. I knew going to college football, you'd maybe have to live in some places that weren't ideal for a 38-year-old single guy, but it was just part of what you were going to do to get where you wanted to go. And so I'm big on reassessing year in, year out. All right, what does this year look like and where are we trying to go? Let's talk about the intangibles of success, which I think are often as important or more important than the tangibles. Tell us about the cell phone breaks and the ice cream truck with bottle service that you brought to practice one day. The cell phone breaks is more, you know, you can bang your head against the wall or you can kind of

go with, hey, what these young people are used to and can handle. And so that I try to have our coaches be really efficient in the meetings, try to make sure that we're keeping the guys' attentions upbeat, high energy, and then get them in and out and we'll get them to the grass where a lot of guys learn better walking through these days anyways and are more visual learners in that regard and we were at university of houston and we did the just to keep things light we had a really good team so to keep things light we brought in an ice cream truck and just back in that day i was in the club scene a little bit more so i knew some some ladies that could serve the ice cream

from one of the local clubs. And so we had them come out and it was quite the hit back then, but we don't do that anymore. I want to talk about the importance of being humble. I think it's important to me. I know it's important to you. I want to go back to when you and I met for the first time. We were at a wedding in Bakers Bay in the Bahamas back in 2015. Very cool wedding. At least I'm sure it was very cool for you. It was very cool for me. The groom had worked for the Patriots a while back.

There were a lot of players there, including Tom Brady. So for me, I was super pumped to be there. By the way, I don't know if you knew this or not. Madison had introduced Will and Stephanie. Yeah, I remember that. That was the connection. Yeah. And so one day, my wife and I, Madison, rented a boat. A lot of the beaches there had pigs on the beach. And so there were no pigs on the beach where we were on the island called Baker's Bay. So we thought it'd be fun to go out and see them and spend a day on the water. My wife invited two of her friends and one of them said, hey, there's this guy who's really cute. Can I invite him on the boat? And I said, of course you can invite him on the boat. I mean,

it's going to give me someone to talk to and hang out with. I hope he's cool. Yes. So we're on the boat. We're probably just talking about nothing. And a half an hour into it, I say, hey, so what do you do? And he said, I'm a coach. I said, oh, cool. What kind of coach? Football coach. Okay. Well, you're not really telling me more. Are you a high school coach? So I said, high school coach? You said, no, college coach. I said, okay. I'm trying to pull it out of you. I said, oh, what are you coach, offense or defense? He said, I'm a head coach. And I'm thinking at this point, this guy's got to be a D3 or D2 coach. I mean, he's a head coach. So he said, no, I'm D1. And I said, what school? He said, Texas Tech. I'm thinking,

that's very humble. It was extremely humble, the way that you said it. And I don't think you were trying to be humble. I really think that's the way that you are. And it made a good first impression on me. I mean, then I went back and I Googled you when you got home. When I got home, we played football first, but then we'll talk about the football. But I'm thinking, God, I had no idea. I mean, here's a guy, football star, leading a big school. Look at all these people that he coached. And it just, it made an impression on me how humble you are. And what's the lesson in being humble? Do you get more being humble or do you get more being, hey, look at me, I'm going to pound my chest. I can motivate you because of all the things that I've done in my career.

Yeah. I was raised just to be about humility. And it was one of those things, let others do the talking for you. And that was like my parents' biggest lesson. Like you don't ever brag on yourself. You don't ever talk about it. If you're good enough, the people will talk about you. And when I meet other people,

I want to get to know the person and I want them to know me as the person. And none of that other stuff, what I do or who I am has ever mattered to me. It's kind of how that person treats me and how I treat that person. And that's how I've always tried to approach all my relationships. One of the fun things for me is when I meet new people and it doesn't matter if they've had huge success or not. I love learning about new things and what people do. And I always like to know what motivates other people.

And I asked you, is that your dream job? And you said, no, I want to be an NFL coach one day. And I'm thinking to myself, all right, so do we all. This guy out here on the boat. This drunk guy on the boat. No, I think it's great, by the way. I mean, you had goals, and I'm thinking, God, good for you. How long is it going to take him to let that happen? He's got to win, win, win. And then the coaches, people got to get fired. There's only 32, and there you are.

You set a goal, and you achieve your goal. I think it took you four years after that to achieve your dreams. Yeah, it worked out. And I think a good point to kind of how my ascent to here has gone was obviously I didn't win at Texas Tech like most people do to get that job. But I think there's a point of me made here

that I was at a level offensively and with quarterback coaching that just couldn't be ignored. And I think that there's things you can do, even if it doesn't work out at the top top. If you keep pushing and you keep working hard, it doesn't always have to all come together. As long as you're able to do something really, really well, you'll get noticed and you're an opportunity to continue down a path. I think the Rams coach, McVay, set an example that allowed you and some other people to get

job opportunities that you otherwise would not have had. Yeah, no question. A young guy like that, high energy, great offensive mind to come in, relate to players and really lifted that up and then took them to incredible heights. And now we've become friends and we got to play them every year, which sucks. And we got to beat them soon. Tell us about how he fucked with you one day when you guys are at dinner with Patrick. Yeah, we were, this was, I was, had just got the job actually.

And we were at dinner with Patrick and Sean was there and a couple other people. And he had done something with his phone, like change the name or something and had our buddy text him where it looked like Roger Goodell. So I'm sitting next to him. He's like, oh, dude, this is not good.

And he shows me the text, and he's like, please tell me you're not at dinner with Roger Goodell. Please tell me you're not at dinner with Patrick Mahomes. And he's like, they'll take away draft picks. I had no idea. I just got the job. I have no idea what's going on. So I'm like, oh, my God, I'm going to get fired before I even coached you know a game but it was obviously a big prank and it was good i was sweating bullets i didn't know about

broken a rule or what was going on how did you become the world's greatest snorkeler we talked about humility that was a humbling moment for both of us i still like won't get near a snorkel or any sort of wavy undertow. I stay away from it. And literally you and I on that whole boat ride back hung our heads in shame because Madison was swimming like a mermaid and the other girls and you and I were near death, like battling to get back on the boat. That was a humbling moment. There's no doubt. They went. So just to put a little more detail on this, Madison, her two friends went one way and we're in a bunch of coral. I mean, it's aqua blue, azure water. We're in coral.

There's a shitload of fish everywhere, but you really do have to navigate around the coral. And there is a current in the water and we go the other way. And there's a captain on the boat. This guy's like five, eight. He's in great shape. And we go the other way. And I think, what are we? 400 yards away from the boat, something like that. And we could see the boat out there. And then I'm getting water in my gear. You got water in your gear. And we're coming up. And I think we're looking at each other. I mean, you're in amazing shape. I was in pretty good shape that day. I'm not a great swimmer, but we have fins on. I mean, you go anywhere with fins. We were not going anywhere. We were making very little forward progress. We were getting backward progress, get pushed back. And we had our masks off. We're

at some point having trouble breathing. We're sucking water. And there we are waving our hand, yelling, help, help, help, as loud as we could. And it's hard to hear. I mean, you're in the water. And I think the guy probably thought at first we were joking. And he's looking. And the next thing, I mean, I'm screaming now. I mean, worried, worried screaming.

It was a worried time. I mean, the coral is sharp. I mean, you're not just in there with water. And so you're getting bumped. And he came out, one guy. The guy's 5'8". And he tows us both back to the boat. So we bonded.

You're grown men. And meanwhile, the girls are still just swimming, just having the time of their lives. And we're sitting there in shame. For like an hour until they came back. That was probably the closest I've come to death since. I mean, I can't imagine a time where I'm literally like, this is not good. This could end really badly at this point if this guy doesn't come over there. So yeah, we bonded over that moment for sure. You and I joke, I send you texts of all the warm weather vacations that I take. Hey, not tempting.

So one of the really fun things for me too is, for me, one of the most fun things I like to do, and one of the few things that I'm good at is throwing the football around. And I said, hey, when you go back, let's toss the ball around. And so we did. And you gave me the second best athletic compliment I've ever had. This goes down as my second best highlight of my athletic career, of which I didn't really have one. I played baseball in high school. I couldn't hit. I was on the JV team. I was a pinch runner because I was fast for the best player on the team. But do you remember what you asked me? Where'd you play ball at? Was that what it was?

Where'd I play my college ball? I was sitting there thinking. I remember because you were in good shape. You could sling it. You could run and catch fast. And you loved throwing. You would have stayed out there all day. I remember thinking, this guy, he's a good athlete. I can tell like that the way you were as dogged as you were in that and like wanting to throw and run routes it's like to me that's kind of how you've been your entire career and just the work ethic you've had with all the success you've had you still have this incredible work ethic you still try to evolve you still have your routine each and every day when I would be off playing on my yacht in Cabo right now you still want to be better at your next gig,

your next venture. And so that's been inspired to me and it's been fun to watch. Thank you. I appreciate that. I was trying to really zing it that day and you're warming up and your passes, I think probably thought, okay, I'm going to lob these in a couple of times, just see if he can catch the ball. And I think once I could catch, I mean, these balls started coming in on a dime. I'm like, oh shit, like don't let it hit you in the chest too hard, you know, get the hands out in front of it. And then I started, you know, warming up my arm and you know, my, my balls can go far. I mean, not the kind of heat like yours, but my arm was fucking killing me. Like for the last 10 minutes, I'm like, I don't give a shit if I need arm surgery at this point. I'm going to play.

I got to make him think I played college ball. We're going to keep this going. That trip, I got my first best compliment that'll go down as the highlight of my athletic career. And I don't think I shared this with you, but I mentioned this, that Tom Brady was at the wedding. That's where I got the bar mitzvah video. I was thinking this was two years before Charlie's bar mitzvah. I knew what I wanted to do. And I said, I'm going to take advantage. I did two things. I brought a jersey. Matt said, Beckley, you're not doing that. There's no way you're doing that. No one else is bringing a jersey. I bet she was so mad. Pissed. And I said, I'm bringing the jersey. And I told her what I wanted to do with, hey, Tom, will you say happy Bar Mitzvah, Charlie? She said, you're not doing that either.

I said, I'm doing that too. I've got a plan. And so this is two years out, by the way. And so I went out to Tom. And y'all had only been married for how long then? It was new, right? We were brand new. So I think we got married in 2014. This is 2015. So yeah, that was risky. Take that challenge.

Yeah. I mean, I had a lot of goodwill. It's not like our marriage was going to end. But her friends were there. And you don't want to be that guy. But I am that guy. I've made a career. Yes.

That's why you are where you're at. No, I mean, you have no fear. You just go for it. I thought the odds of him saying no were very low. So I went up for the jersey. He was annoyed, by the way. And he did it reluctantly. He was annoyed?

A little bit. You could sense it? You just... He was practicing. Like a roll of the eyes? Or you were just like... He paused. I mean, Tom, you know, I had a chance to talk to him later. sense that you just he was practicing like a roll of the eyes or you were just like he paused i mean tom you know i i had a chance you know talk to him uh later that trip madison had met him a few times i mean the guy could not be any nicer you know this you guys are buzz i best dude ever

yeah i mean just couldn't have been nicer i think it was the time it was like right after breakfast you know i mean he had his coach there they were throwing the whole day. And then I said, hey, do you mind taking a little video clip saying, happy Bar Mitzvah, Charlie? And so Madison walked away. I told her that I was going up with the jersey and I was going for the video. And she said, I'm out of here. She is amazing. She left and he did it. And so there were all kinds of interesting people at the wedding. And you know, JJ Dudum, who works for the developer that built and owns Baker's Bay. And he and I were doing a lot of drawing and we're going to play football and he's a stocky guy, muscular. And so one day I said, okay, let's toss the ball around at the beach.

And he said, okay. And so we're tossing the ball on the beach. And I'm warming up my arm, right? And slow, lofty passes. And he's bullet, bullet, bullet, bullet. And so I was at the end. And he had room to roll. So back up, back up, back up.

And finally, you know, his balls were not coming as far. So I would have to go in to catch his passes. And I could see Tom walking. Giselle was maybe 100 yards away on the beach. Tom was walking what looked like a path right where I was. And I'm thinking, all right, he's going to walk right by me. And so I say to JJ, back up, back up. And he rolls his eyes. He's like, you're never going to fucking get the ball here ever. And so I timed it perfectly. Tom is now, he's like 10 feet,

7 feet, 5 feet. And I let that fucker fly. And it went 10 to 15 yards over JJ's head. And Tom looks at me with wonder. He looks at me, holy shit, what a cannon. And I said, I looked at him and said, Michigan man. And Madison was right behind me. And I turned to her and she said, I heard it. I heard it. He said, and I'm going to be hearing about that for the rest of our lives. And I said, you bet your ass you're going to be hearing about that for the rest of your life. So that is awesome. Two greatest highlights of my terrible athletic career. So I appreciate your compliment. And then no offense, but Tom's comment beat that comment. It should. Greatest QB, greatest football player of all time. I'll take it.

So let's talk about the charity work you've done. It's so important for me to give back. I think it's in our search for excellence to be the best that we can be. This is really important. You're involved in something called the 22 Kill Foundation. And then I want to know about the Kingsbury Foundation and what that's all about. Yeah, the 22 Kill was something that I was a part of when I was in Lubbock at Texas Tech. Having a dad who served in the military and received a Purple Heart and who lost friends and who's still pretty reluctant to talk about his service because it was that, I don't want to say horrific, but it's the only word that comes to mind. I wanted to give back to that space.

And so it's a group that tries to help people, our servicemen, when they come back from the wars and kind of assimilate back and be at peace and not have these terrible mental issues that so many of them have. And so it meant a lot to me because of my dad's participation in the military. And I know it meant a lot to him as well. And what are you doing with your foundation? Yeah, right now we're still transitioning from kind of Lubbock out here,

trying to get it set up. And so, or this last year with the pandemic, it kind of got pushed back a year, unfortunately. But this spring, I'm hoping to get that rolling. Still trying to figure out exactly how we're going to set it up and what cause, but we'll get that thing going as soon as we can operate after COVID is finally eradicated. I think it really says a lot about people who do charity behind the scenes. They don't want the attention or need the notoriety. When you were at Texas Tech,

you paid medical expenses of an admin while she was battling a brain tumor. Tell us about that. Her name was Jenny Bailey. And she was, as players, they're kind of a second mom when you went to Texas Tech. And then she was still there and working when I was named head coach and just very close to me and my heart and just wanted to help her in any way way I could and so was able to do that you know financially and any other way I could but tremendous lady and meant a lot to tech stack and all of us as players and was she able to get healthy she was not but she no she lived a tremendous tremendous life touched so many people and she was really at peace with everything. We're going to talk about something a little more cheery, which is your style.

In your Texas Tech and Cardinals contract, you wanted creative control over the team's uniforms. What's that about? It was just the Texas Tech. The NFL controls all of the Cardinals stuff, but atxas tech i really knew i didn't know but i wanted to be able to differentiate ourselves in recruits mind say how can we have something that maybe other schools don't have flashy uniforms different styles different looks i thought it could help us recruit guys that maybe wouldn't be out in lubbock or want to come all the way out there and

in hindsight it probably didn't help me as much as I needed because I got fired. But I just kind of had an overall thought, hey, how are different ways we can differentiate ourselves in recruiting that can bring some dazzle to their minds and maybe get them out here. People emulate your style. You're sporting the Wayfarer Ray-Bans and the all-black Oakley Frogskin sunglasses. You met Kevin before it became a whole thing on campus. Everyone's following you. Guys are all following you.

And most coaches have this coaching uniform. You've got the pleated khakis, the shiny white jogging shoes. Think of Jim Harbaugh, who used to get the Walmart khakis, and now he's upgraded to the blue Lululemon pants. But you don't go that route.

You've got the skinny jeans, no socks, and low for look. Tell us about that. No, it's just really more than anything. When I got into coaching, I told my friends, my close friends, I said, I'm going to be myself. Coaching is sometimes guys get in a box and y'all got to do it this way. And I just said, I'm going to be myself. That has no effect on the type of coach I'm going to be, the type of person I'm going to be. So I'm going to be myself. I'm going to dress how I dress. And that was really all it came down to.

I just wanted to be true to myself, whether I was coaching or style or haircut or how I talk. And that's what I've tried to do. You're an NFL coach. You're handsome. You look like Ryan Gosling. And with no disrespect to Bill Belichick or Andy Reid, no disrespect to them, you have a huge fan base of women who thinks you're a sex symbol. When you were at Texas Tech, a local business created t-shirts that says, our coach is hotter than your coach. And the t-shirt sold out and went viral. What do you think about all that? And you're also single. What do you think about all that?

Yeah, I mean, it comes with the territory, I guess. I think it's more just the fact that I maybe don't dress like a traditional coach. May not look. I had the same coach type look that gets played up a lot. It's part of it. I'll take it. I'd like to be known for more of the great coach than the hot coach type look that gets played up a lot. It's part of it. I'll take it. I'd like to be known for more of like the great coach than the hot coach at some point.

So we're working towards that. We need to bring him more back to the X's and O's at some point. So you're very eligible bachelor. You work your tail off. You're 38 years old. You make a very good living. You have time to date. And how do you meet women who are the kind of women that you want to meet? Not necessarily the kind of women who hang around

after the game because they want to date players. I know that's not the kind of woman that you want to meet, but you're very private as well. So we're not going to name names. So how do you go about that and find somebody great? I think that brings up a good point because I do think we talked about earlier, but there are sacrifices you make in everything to try and reach a certain level. And that's something that I have sacrificed to an extent, I would say would be the personal side of things. Living in University of Houston, when I first took that job, I slept on Dana Holgerson's couch because I was making $400 a month. And so then I got that job and you're working these crazy hours for two years and I go

to College Station and that's not exactly for a 30, I don't know, two-year-old dating mecca there. And then you go to Lubbock, Texas and you're busy all the time recruiting. You don't have a lot of time to meet girls then and to really put a whole lot of time into it. You just don't. And it takes a special woman to put up with those hours and that type of lifestyle. And so I think that's something that I have sacrificed a bit, but I meet people and find a way to still have a social life and a personal life. It just hasn't exactly come to fruition just yet. So we'll see. But in a good spot now. Scottsdale, this whole area, pretty strong. Okay. There will be women listening to this podcast. It's important to me to have half

of my podcast guests be men and women. So just for the record, you do want to get married and you do want to have kids. You do want to have a family and that's important to you. Just for the record, I'm just laying it out there. We're not going to get into any detail. I go back and forth on it, but yeah, I do. I think that would be, I think COVID, this whole pandemic has really opened my eyes to that. That's important to me. I'm sure you've heard this from your friends. One of my friends named Rick Rivera told this to me. He had four kids very young and I had none at the time. And he said, you find out the meaning of life once you have kids. And for me and most of my friends, I think that's true. So I hope you get to experience that. And I know you will at some point one day. No, I appreciate it. I'm planning on it. Let's talk about sense of enjoyment

and being good to yourself. You work your ass off. You're excellent at what you do. You're making millions of dollars a year as a coach and it's public. So it's not, you're a humble guy. Unfortunately, people know what you make. It's time to treat yourself.

And let's talk about draft day this year. The coaches are at home. You've got this beautiful modern house, big windows on a golf course. Picture this go viral. And you got Patrick Mahomes liked it. And he tweeted, I'm trying to have a home like Cliff or a crib. I think he called it like Cliff. And the guy's got a $500 million contract now. So I'm sure he has a nice crib. I think he's doing all right. Yeah. He's doing okay.

So what are some of the other things that you've treated yourself to besides the house? That was really it, probably because I spent way too much money on that and I still pay on it. But no, I got out here and it's beautiful, obviously, living out here and just wanted to have a good place. Like you said, when I was done working hard,

I could separate it, go home, have a relaxing atmosphere and was fortunate enough to be able to buy a place like you said when i was done working hard i could separate it go home have a relaxing atmosphere and was fortunate enough to to be able to buy a place like that but other than that i don't spend i'm not a big like watch guy a car guy anything like that that's that's really it i like to i like to take trips i'm a big experience guy so i'll spend my money taking trips going places fun nights out different things like that i'm i'm a life experience guy. Give us your daily schedule, start to finish. What time do you wake up? What's the routine? And what time do you go to bed? Yeah, right now, and it's pretty consistent, but I'll try to go to sleep by 8.30, try to wake up by 3.30. I try to get to work by 4, working out by 4.15, be done working out by five, 5.15, then get to work. And work can vary day to day, what we have going,

whether it's offensive install, whether it's draft preparation, whether it's free agency evaluation. I mean, there's a lot that can change. So the hours are consistent. I'd say what we're doing will change, but work till usually 5.36 and then go home, have dinner. I usually eat dinner fairly early.

Usually watch a Netflix show, fall asleep doing that. What are you watching right now? I just watched this documentary on, it's called Made You Look, I believe, about the fake art. This guy, they had done a bunch of these counterfeit paintings and it's an insane documentary. I saw it. Did you see it? Yeah, incredible.

Do you think she conspired in that or do you think she was really, I don't know. I couldn't tell either. I couldn't tell. Because she would go through like six different experts that would all check the box saying, no, it's real. So how is that on her? I don't know.

But people were mad. Yeah. What's your daily motivation? saying, no, it's real. So how is that on her? I don't know. But people were mad. Yeah. What's your daily motivation? You wake up and what motivates you every single day? I'm big on improvement, self-improvement. And I'm a short-term guy when it comes to that. So it's kind of like, how can I get better today? How can I get better this week? How can I get better this year and this season? And so I just try to be more efficient every day. I try to not be on my phone as much, or I try to watch more film, or I try to come up with more ideas. And so that's something that is highly motivating to me is like, all right, let's get better today. And you're going to have your bad days. There's days where I'm like, oh,

shit, I was on my phone all day. This didn't get anything done. My mind was scatterbrained. But as long as you can kind of reset and every day you wake up and you're like, all right, how do I get a little bit better today? That's worked for me. You're 43 years old. You have a long life ahead of you. What are your top three things you want to accomplish in your lifetime? Not in any order, but win a Super Bowl professionally. I want to have a profound

impact somehow through philanthropy. I don't know exactly what that'll look like, but I want to give back a lot and spend a lot of time doing that. And then the third thing, yeah, I think family. I think at this point, it's have a family and be a good dad. Do you have any regrets about anything you've done in your life or things that looking back, you'd do a little differently today? I think the biggest one would be,

I mean, you've talked about Tom a bunch, his maniacal approach to the game and where every single aspect of every single day is about him being the best player ever. That, I wish I would have had a similar approach. I worked hard, but I still wanted to have fun, still wanted to go out. And I could have given myself a better chance

to have a successful NFL career. And so I regret that at the same time, I learned a lot from my failings there and have been able to apply it to this next phase of my life. But I wish I would have given that a better run. We're coming to the end. And before I ask my last question, I want to know what impact you want to have on the world.

I guess from a coaching point of view, just because that's pigeonholed in that career, I want young coaches to be able to look at me and just say, hey, you can do it your way. You don't have to be put in a box. You can do it your way. You can treat people good and still have success if you work really hard at it. And then overall, I think just like I said, whatever charitable endeavor it

is, just be able to help change lives and help people breathe easier in any way, shape, or form I can. One of the messages about In Search of Excellent podcast is doing things we're passionate about doing and pursuing our dreams. Your favorite book is The Alchemist by the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho. And the main idea of the book is that individuals should live in the singular pursuit of their individual dreams. Is that your main message to our listeners and viewers today? And what other advice do you have for us in our search for excellence to live up to our potential and to achieve greatness? It's funny you mention that book because that,

I read that when I was kind of in my dark period, my mom had passed away, I was partying a lot, I wasn't focused, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and I read that and it just kind of like hit me, it's a book I'll still read to this day just to kind of reset and refocus but I would say to any young people listening, and I mentioned earlier,

but to me, everything starts with work ethic. If you truly want to be successful and you want to create better situations for yourself, luckier situations, if you will, it all comes down to work ethic. Even when you have failings, okay, pick it up, restart and outwork the next guy. And eventually you're going to get where you want to go. I love it.

I'm going to put you on the spot for a second before we go. I have a lot of things on my bucket list. And I said, okay, my buddy Cliff is now the head coach of the Cardinals. I like to come to a practice one day when it's open to the public. I'd love to throw a couple of passes to DeAndre Hopkins or Larry Fitzgerald. So if you can make that happen. We got AJ Green now too. We got AJ Green. So if you could just let it, you could just let it fly. If you just let me throw a couple,

I would be eternally grateful. Cliff, thank you so much for sharing your incredible journey and your story. You're an awesome friend. This was incredible. I'm going to wish you a ton of success this year. I'm rooting for you. I'm going to get

my Cardinals gear all set and ready to go. And I will be at some of your games this year again. I appreciate it, Randy. Thanks for having me, man. That was fun.