The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 616: Bob Stoops- Building a Winning Culture, Connecting With People, Creating a Coaching Forest, Caring For Your Team, & Winning Championships

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Mindful Monday is the best way to start your week. Sign up for free here: https://ryanhawk.kit.com/profile Bob Stoops was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 2021. He was the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma from 1999 to 2016. He led the Sooners to a 191-48 record over his career. His 2000/2001 team won the national championship. He earned the National Coach of the Year award the same season. Since 2020, Stoops has been a head coach in the XFL, winning an XFL Championship in 2023 with the Arlington Renegades. He played college football at the University of Iowa, earning team MVP his senior year as a defensive back. Notes: Coaches Bob has worked for: Hayden Fry at Iowa, Bill Snyder at Kansas State, and Steve Spurrier at Florida. He's worked for some amazing coaches. Relationships are everything. You must connect with people. You must be authentic. Learn from other coaches, but you have to be yourself Sherri Coale: "One of my favorite things about him is he's the busiest man on the planet but never appeared that way. That's a skill and an art. That fascinates me." What makes a great head coach? They relate to people. They care about them. They can motivate and influence by clearly sharing the vision of the program and inspiring others to get on board. They are decisive people. Most importantly, they know how to connect with people. All leadership is a people business. If you can't connect with others, you'll probably struggle. Creating a "coaches forest" (beyond a tree) - Mike Stoops, Mark Mangino, Mike Leach, Bo Pelini, Kevin Sumlin, Kevin Wilson, Lincoln Riley, and more. How has Bob prepared so many guys to be successful head coaches? Hiring – "I always tried to hire people smarter than me." A lot of people say this, but not all do this. Coach Stoops looked for people who had a track record of performance… And then he used his gut instincts after he spent time with him. He paid attention to how they treated his secretary, how they treated the waiter at lunch… Some call those the little things, but they were very important to Coach Stoops The overarching theme of the entire conversation was the simplicity of how Coach Stoops built his program. He didn't try to overcomplicate anything. He knew he wanted coaches who were accomplished, high-character people. And he wanted tough players who loved football. Their offenses may have looked exotic but they didn't have a ton of plays installed. They focused on what they did and then practiced it relentlessly so that they would execute better than their opponents. I think there's something beautiful in the simplicity with how he's built his program and the results speak for themselves. Great players want to be coached - Jeremiah Smith, Adrian Peterson. What he looked for in players: They have to LOVE football. Need to be tough and physical. Someone like Dan Cody. From Oklahoma, was skinny, and nobody on the staff wanted to give him a scholarship, but Coach Stoops did, and he turned out to be a great player. Liked to keep local guys home. Off-season workouts create the culture of the team. "We won because we outworked everyone." The attitude of the national championship team - "They were tired of being kicked around." And "I shared with them the history of Oklahoma and let them know the way it should be. When we started, they were a losing team." Josh Heupel - The most valuable recruit ever for Coach Stoops. Mike Leach was a 1 of 1. An original. He seemed relaxed and casual, but he was also very demanding that they do it right. He was also focused on just a few plays instead of trying to do everything. FOCUS. Do what we do Wife Carol - Impressive leader at Mary Kay. Won a pink Cadillac 16 years in a row. National Sales Director. Life/Career Advice - Go hard, be tough, be true to yourself, enjoy the struggle, and look forward to the fight. Nothing great happens without going through struggles first.

Be true to yourself, go hard, play hard, be tough, and enjoy the struggle. I think too many times people shy away from the fight, and you can't. Anything worthwhile isn't going to be given to you, and you've got to be willing and ready to fight for it. And usually it isn't going to be easy. Don't let that surprise you and go up every day and go get it. This episode is brought to you by Insight Global. Insight Global is a staffing and professional services company dedicated to being the light to the world around them.

If you want to learn more about the CEO, Bert Bean and Chief Revenue Officer Sam Kaufman, check out episode 424. We had a fantastic conversation talking about my partnership with the great people at Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through talent or technical services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Hiring can be tough, but hiring the right person can be magic. Visit Insightglobal.com slash learning leader today to learn more.

That's Insightglobal.com slash learning leader. Welcome to The Learning Leaders Show. I am your host, Ryan Hawke. Thank you so much for being here. Text Hawk to 6.5. 6-866 to become part of Mindful Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world, will receive a carefully curated email for me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right.

You'll also receive details about how our book, The Score That Matters, will help you become a more effective leader. Text Hawk to 66866. Now, on to the night's featured leader, a special one, the great Bob Swede. Stoops was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2021. He was the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma for 17 years. His 2000-2001 team won the national championship. He earned the National Coach of the Year award the same season.

Since 2020, Coach Stoops has been head coach in the XFL winning an XFL championship in 2023 with the Arlington Renegades. He also played college football at the University of Iowa, earning team MVP, his senior year as a defensive back. During this conversation, we discussed the coaching forest, not a tree, but forest, he's created and why so many of his assistant coaches have gone on to become great head coaches. Then he shared how to develop and create a culture where the players hold each other to high standards. And we discussed how this could apply in the business world as well. Then we talked about high performers and how they want to be coached and coached hard.

And he shared how you can coach them, both whether they're athletes or these are leaders within your organization, so that they continue to be inspired to want to improve and work with you. And then the through line of this entire conversation I felt is the simplicity for how coach Stoops approaches his life and work and why it's important to focus on a few things and doing them with excellence instead of trying to do everything. everything at the risk of being averaged at all of them. So good.

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

around the people you mentioned that are just incredible people and coaches. So I would say first, My father was a 30-year high school coach football. He ran the defense while the head coach ran the offense and saying they were together for 30 years, multiple state championships. He was also a head baseball coach. I think more than anything, what I learned watching my father is how he related to players. Players, he could coach him hard. He could do whatever. They love to play for him.

And to me, that's a big deal. And I think I come by it naturally from watching him and the relationship is everything. You can motivate, you can teach, you can do everything if you have a strong relationship. And then all my other coaches, of course, I was lucky enough to go to Iowa to play under Hayden Fry. And then not only Hayden Fry on that staff is Bill Snyder, Barry Alvarez, Kirk Ferrence, Dan McCarney. These are my guys I came up under. And as a grad assistant, as a player.

And so I truly, and one may be the best that isn't talked about is Bill Brazier, was Hayden Fry's defensive coordinator for 50-some years. And he taught those guys. So anyway, I was so blessed to be around those people. And then I go to, I went to Kent with Dick Crum for a year, and he was wonderful. He was really a great guy to work under, but I was just there the one year. And then I was with Bill Snyder for seven years. And you learn a ton.

Coach Snyder was, no one is more attention to detail more than he is. And I learned that from him. And then I think I got polished off with going to, going to Steve Spurrier to go to Florida for three years. win a national championship. And I think the experience there was, there isn't any wrong or right, but Steve Spurrier is over here and Bill Schneider's over here. You couldn't get two people more opposite in their personalities

and how they teach, coach, everything. So, but, but, you know, that's okay. You know, they both have won. Both are Hall of Famers. But I thought my personality was more like Coach Spuriers. So it allowed me going in to be the head coach and to develop my form of being a head coach. I was allowed to be like that because all the success he had, I wasn't afraid to do it to what would fit me the most. What do you mean by that?

Your personality is like Spurrier. How would you describe that personality? I don't know how to explain it. A little more casual, a little more, but listen, but make no means you think. coach burger. He knows what he wants and what he wants to see. And so he's casual to the point he doesn't see it the way he wants to see it. And a little more casual, but still detailed, a little more free lancing, a little more, you know, he's just a little more relaxed. And, you know, that kind of thing. I don't know how to, you know, again, none of them are,

there's no positive either way. It's just, it was more me. it feels to me like those are great examples of the fact that there isn't one prescribed way to do it. Exactly right. What is important it feels is, and I know this as a player, I talk with my brother about this all the time. You've got to be authentically you as a coach. Players sniff that out instantly if you are trying to be somebody else. And I think that's also that it goes for leadership outside of the sporting world as well as yes, you want to learn from the greats like you've been around, but you've got to figure

out your own voice and your own style and your own personality. And if you're trying to be somebody else, I rarely, if ever, have seen that work. You're absolutely correct. You cannot be who you are not. You can't be somebody else and you cannot fool a locker room. You cannot full players and or other coaches. It's too authentic. People, you know, people sniff a rat in a heartbeat. So, you know, the locker room guys and, and again, your staff even, they know when you're, you know, putting something on. And I've never tried to. You have to be who you are. Be authentic. You know, and then there are certain principles of what you've got to do to make it right. But anyway, yes, you're totally correct that you cannot, you know, you can. You

can't be who you're not. Never, no. One of the things you mentioned about what made your dad so good as a fellow Ohio in here, so I have a kinship with Ohio high school football is awesome coach, is the fact that you said he related to his players so well, like he got to know them. He truly cared about them. And when I asked our fellow friend and your fellow hall of famer, Sherry Cole, I said, Sherry, what is something about Coach Stoops that you know that I can't find on the internet? because she knows I'm going to do my research.

And she said, this is, quote, one of my favorite things about him is he's the busiest man on the planet, but never appeared that way. That's a skill and an art that fascinates me. The fact that you have a million different things going on, but she told me when you're in the room with him or when you're talking with him, he makes you feel like you're the most important thing in the world to him. And maybe it just comes natural to you or maybe you got it from your dad.

I'm curious, but when you hear that as a compliment given to you, what do you think of that? Well, that's an awful kind of Sherry. She's an awesome person, coach. Always enjoyed my time whenever I get to see her. I appreciate that. When you are football with the number of people we deal with, 120 players, 20 coaches, trainers, you know, on and on and on, there is a lot coming at you. and I'd like to say I surrounded myself with really quality people, so I had helped that way. And then I always knew, I guess maybe relating to Sherry, and I always had time to visit with softball recruits, gymnastic recruits, basketball recruits, whatever it was, I would make time

on Fridays ahead of games. They would all come in for games that I had that time because I always felt in college ball, my job was to be a part of the university also. Not just to win games, not just to be a football coach and worry about just my stuff. I felt an obligation that I was part of this university and I was part of this big coaching tree. And if I could help and assist anybody, I was going to do that. And it was really natural. And again, I think like you said, my father was that way.

Relating to people is a big deal. and in fitting, you know, and to me, that was it. I felt my players would do anything for me because I genuinely cared about every one of them. And when you do, and they know that because you can't fake it like we talked, they're going to do about anything you ask them to do and do it happily. And so anyhow, but I appreciate Sherry saying it because, again, it was my job to be a big part of this university and to help any of them that I could or be a part of it. I was lucky.

We had a bunch of great coaches like Sherry and Patty Gasso, our softball coach. And I could go on and on. Our gymnastic coaches are incredible. And anyhow, so it was fun to be a part of that. You make it sound like it's normal to do that. I don't know. I've never been a college football head coach. But is that a normal thing for the football head coach to be making, especially in season,

when every second is important to be preparing to win the game? Because, you know, if you don't win, they'll run you out of town. quickly. So you've got to win. That's just the way college sports, especially football is, and a place like Oklahoma where their fans are very passionate. But to make time for other sports to be an ambassador for Oklahoma seems really cool of you to do. But how normal is that in college athletics? I don't know what other people do. I can't say, but I found it if I'm not ready by noon on Friday the day before the game, I haven't done my job. So point being, it was, was, you know, most of the recruits of these other sports came in for the game. And they would come in on

Friday for their official visits and then be a part of, they'd be on a sideline, a head warming up to the spectacle of OU football. They'd be there for the games on Saturday. So I found it fairly easy by noon, somewhere around noon, Friday, or might have been in the early afternoon to carve out an hour, hour and a half to, hey, let's meet, take pictures with these people, show them, around a little bit. And I didn't feel it was that hard. I mean, again, if you're, you're not prepared by that point, you haven't done your job. One of the other things, and you briefly mentioned this, is that you have created quite a coaching forest. I'm not even to call it a tree. I'd call it a coaching forest, meaning your assistant coaches that have gone on to

become head coaches. There's so many of them like Mike Stoops, brother, Mark Mangino, Mike Leach, Evan Wilson, Lincoln Riley, and many, many more. Chuck Long. Yeah. So many great ones, great ones, right, that are out there. I'm curious, how have you been so good at one selecting high caliber coaches, then developing them to become head coaches in their own right? Well, I don't know that I developed them. I'd like to think I had an influence on how they coach, and I think our success led to some of them, obviously, becoming head coaches.

I always tried to hire guys I felt were smarter than me. I have no problem with that. I want a guy in the room that I feel is smarter than I am. And I always tried to hire guys that I felt not only is he smart in what he's doing, but he has the leadership traits to be a head coach. And I always wanted to hire guys that I thought would be head coaches. And so many of them did become head coaches. And I'm happy for that.

and I never held anybody back. If anything, I promoted them. I didn't want to lose them, but you know what? That's going to be good for him. He and his family, I'd go to bat for him. I wanted it for him. And then it was my job to go out and find another guy that I thought could be a head coach.

And I'll be honest, if I did anything right, I hired really good people. And because I don't believe in this profession in football is the ultimate team game. There isn't anybody doing it by their self. you've got to be surrounded by good people, each side of the ball and special teams and players, coaches, everything. And again, if I did anything right, I hired really good people. Well, coach, let's drill down on that because this also has application far beyond the football

field or football team. Because leaders, that's, I think, maybe the most important thing they're going to do is choosing the people to surround themselves with, let's say you're a CEO of a business, which is basically what a football coach is at a huge college like University of Oklahoma. And so I would love to get inside the process of how you first identified who those people are. And then maybe even your interview process, some of the questions you asked to see, wait, is Lincoln Riley a genius play caller? Or, you know, stuff like that. Like how do you figure that out on the front end? Because it's easy now to look back and say, oh, yeah, all these guys are great.

It was obvious. But on the front end, that's really hard to do. people try and fail all the time at hiring great people. We all want to do it, but most of us aren't that good at it. So what did you do to identify that talent as well as make the right choices for who to hire? I'll give you two really good examples because some of the guys I hired when I first got on, I hired Mark Mangino, Brent Venables, Mike Sto. So I'd work with them at Kansas State.

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

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

So six of the eight are head coaches. I'm like, well, and they're calling plays. So I'm like, well, they're not going to come. And so there was two, whether it be TCU, Doug Meacham and Sonny. Dice. Sonny, not Dites. He was at Cal at the time. He's up in three, though.

Sonny, I think of his name. And then I had Lincoln Riley. So I'm like, all right, I bring two of them in and Lincoln. And so, but point being, now I bring them in. So I like what they did. They have proven success, not for one year, but for multiple years. And that's what I was looking at when I hired Mike Leach, proven success multiple years. Kevin Wilson at Northwestern, proven success multiple years.

This isn't a coincidence. Lincoln Riley was at East Carolina. And again, he was in the top 13 in all these categories. And I'm like that. And then after the intercourse. view to me. I want to see what a guy's like. Can I be around them every day? Is he a leader? Can he, you know, and then, and obviously when I, I had Lincoln, I hired him the next day. I did. He always tells the story. He went home and I didn't call him that night. He figured he didn't get the job. And I called him the next day. I always, I always sleep on it, you know, and then sure enough, he came and did a great job for us. So to me is, is there proven success? for more than just one year. So it's been consistent.

And can I stand in front of that guy and he's a leader? And when I talk to him, he talks back to me. I know he can look at team in the eye in front of them and lead him. And those guys were all that. But so to me, it's what's your track record as well as I want to stand in front of somebody and see what kind of leader they are? What is it like in that room? Is it more conversational?

Do you have them up on the board? I'm not a big interview guy. I don't have a lot of questions. I want to see how a guy goes to lunch, how he talks to the waiter, how he talks to my secretary, how when I look at him and he talks back to me, look at me in the eye, I don't have a whole page of things I'm going to ask a guy. That's just not my style. I trust my gut, my feelings, my instinct more than I do anything else. So it's really about, okay, the table stakes are track record of success over more than just a year or two. And then the second part is I just need to hang with the guy. And I want him to be around other people in addition to me. I want to see how he treats people. So it's like that kind of the character stuff.

And so I know he's got the track record of success. And then I get a feel for what he's like as a person. And then you go with your guy. Do I want to be around him every day? So we're a lot of stuff. We're up there a long time. I'll tell you funny story. Steve Spurrier called me.

I didn't know coach Spurrier from the man. in the moon. I was at Kansas State. He needs a new D-coordinator. Jeremy Foley, his athletic director, goes, guess who who the number one defense is in America? And we were number one in total defense and number two

in scoring defense. And he puts it down and it's Kansas State. So he says, you know, way, that's a good idea. I'm going to call him. Jim Levitt and I were co-coordinators and Jim had already gone to South Florida. And as a head coach, they were going

start their program. But then Steve Spurrier, Coach Spurrier, calls me out of the blue. And at first I thought it was one of my buddies pulling a prank on me. I don't know Steve Spurrier. No way he's calling me. And I didn't even know they had a coordinator job open. I was one of those guys. I didn't pay attention who did, didn't. Anyway, we got to talking for two, three days. And he offers me the job. And then I said, well, coach, I said, I want the job. But I said, don't you think the two of us ought to meet, make sure we could look at each other, get along, whatever. And he goes, you know, that's a good idea. And so the next day or two, whatever it was, he set up a flight for my wife, Carol and I to go visit with him and to see him and the staff. And it was great. But that was the gist,

though, you know, don't you think we ought to make sure we could get along or this is going to be okay? And then he did say to me, he says, now let me ask you something. He said, now you'll have a beer every now and then what's right? I said, oh yeah, coach, I'll have I'll have more than one. And so he goes, oh, we'll get along good then. So that's just the point being, you know, the personalities mesh. Yeah. I think sometimes this stuff gets overcomplicated, you know, coach. And it's refreshing to hear that you really had this mentality of, yes, they've proven they can do it. And I bet they'll do it even better with better players because they're going to have better players at Oklahoma than they did it Northwestern or East Carolina or wherever they were. And then are you a guy who basically is a high character, high integrity person is what I'm gathering for what you're saying.

High character, high integrity, meaning you want to be around a person like that. And that's it. That's pretty much it, right? Absolutely. And because that matters. Character, integrity, all the things you're going to be with someone, your job, your family's lives depend on it. You want to be with people of high character. And I'll be honest, I tell my coaches different times, you intentionally cheat or you're a bad person off the field and I find out about it.

You're not going to be with me. And I don't care how good a coach you are. That doesn't matter because eventually, you know, it's going to reflect on you or the program. Have you had to make those tough calls where you fire assistant coaches for various reasons, whether it's performance or character or anything like that? I've had to change here or there, but never for character or, you know, or reasons like that. It's just sometimes you get stuck wherever, you know, and you just feel you need something different to change and to get something new going. You said earlier that you like to hire assistant coaches that are one smarter than you,

which I think is similar to like what Mark Zuckerberg calls about. Which isn't hard to do. I don't think that's true, but I'll keep. keep going, but higher, they're smarter than you, that you also think could become head coaches someday. So, like, what, this may be tough, but what are some of the qualities or the makeup of somebody who is an excellent head coach? Well, I think a number of things. I think first, how they relate to people, you know, and how they can motivate and get their point across, you know, influence people to do, explain what they want them.

do in a clear path and a clear way where there isn't any indecision, someone who is decisive in what they do, because I don't ever think there's one way to do something, but whatever you do it, be decisive about it because then people are going to follow it and believe in it. And if you're not, then, you know, you're going to get the opposite, you know. So to me, it's just having a clear path, being able to present it, being able to present it, being able to be decisive and motivate people to do it. And yeah, and then have, you know, have people connect with you. To me, connection's a big deal.

You could be a smartest guy in the room and you don't connect with anybody. There isn't anybody going to follow you. There are very few people, you know, but people that connect and know you got their best interest. This is the way we see it. We're all in it together. This is how we're going to do it. you've got to be able to motivate people and to be that gathering point that everyone believes in what your vision is. Yep.

How about the players now? Okay, let's shift because recruiting is a tough thing. There's all these services, guys have stars. I'm not even going to get into the NIL stuff right now. I just want to talk about how you decide which players to bring to your team. Certainly, you can just say, let's just get all the five-star guys or whatever. But I feel like the type of player that played at Oklahoma. especially for you, it seemed like a lot of high character guys.

I wasn't there. I don't know that. But I'm curious, when you were looking to recruit a player, they obviously need to be good. It helps if they're fast and big and can catch and run and tackle, right, all that stuff. But beyond those skills, what were you looking for in a player to recruit to come be part of your team? Yeah, you know, like everybody, guys that love football, tough, toughness. There's no replacing it. That tough attitude, guys that love to play.

and guys that were physical. You look for all those things, but you can't replace guys that just love the game, you know? And then I always was pretty emphatic that we're at the state of Oklahoma. We're not a big, a very populated state. Let's make sure we give every kid in the state of Oklahoma a chance first. Of course, through the years, we might have missed some, but I always said, look, man, don't pass up anybody in our state.

And let's, you know, if we're going to make a lot, a mistake, at least it was here. When I can remember first team, All-American, D.N. Dan Cody, boy, he was a tall, skinny guy, but he knew he was going to fill out. I mean, he could run. He could do, I mean, he was tough,

played hard. No one wanted to take a, like, tight end didn't want to give him. The end didn't want to give him a scholarship. No one knew where he's going to play, so none of those coaches wanted to offer up one of their scholarships. Finally, I said, I don't care. I said, we're offering them.

I said, he's going to play somewhere. And he was a tremendous player for us for four years. And point being, that's just an example. He's an in-state guy. I'm not going to play against him, hopefully somewhere else. And he'll play somewhere. Don't worry about it. And I had how to make some executive decisions once in a while, like, no, I'm offering them.

That's just an example, though. But tough, toughness, it's hard, because that travels through the, out of season. It creates attitude in the locker room. It creates an attitude and how you do everything. And I'd like to think through our years here in my time, if we were anything, we were tough. And we didn't always win, but it wasn't because of that. How do you know if somebody has that from just watching film? Because you can't get in the room with everybody. I mean, you talked to their coaches. I can't say that we didn't make a mistake here or there. I mean, it's, yeah, I don't know. Just this.

visiting with them, getting to know them, you know, talking to their coaches, you know, their coaches in high school or junior college, whatever it might have been. And then you see it on tape to some degree too. But coaches, assistant coaches and high school coaches can tell you a lot, too, about, oh, this guy, you know, they know what he's like, what kind of leader is on the team. Yeah. Coach, I was reading a story about Jeremiah Smith recently. He's that stud freshman receiver at Ohio State.

just an amazing player. And after they beat Tennessee, or I think it was leading up to that game, actually, he went to us receivers coach, Brian Hartline, who's a great coach, and he said, I want you to coach me harder. I want more.

I want to get better. I need you to push me. I need to get on me. I want to be coached. And I found that to be a commonality, not only with athletes who want to be great and who already are great, like Jeremiah Smith is,

but is that they want to be coached. And I think this also plays, in the business world when I've led sales organizations where my best people, they weren't okay with me just leaving them alone and letting them work. They wanted to be coached. They wanted to get better. Can you talk to me more about some of the greatest players that you've coached and their desire to be coached hard?

The easiest one to talk about is Adrian Peterson. Wow. Out of high school is as talented as anybody I've ever seen. He walked on campus and won every sprint. one every conditioning drill. I mean, I walk in the weight room. He's holding like two 70-pound dumbbells, and he's jumping on the highest plyometric box.

I'm like, we're going to get him hurt. What are you doing, Smitty? And he goes, don't worry about him. Anyway, Adrian was that way. He wanted to be pushed. And he even kind of said it. I remember way back when he committed and came with us, that he goes, I knew they'd push me,

that they weren't going to, And we did. And he, but man, he, any conditioning drill we might do after practice, summertime, whatever.

I remember Alan Patrick, one of our other running backs every now and then would try and sneak up on him. I'm going to beat him this one time. Adrian had see him or feel him and boom, he just turned it on some more. I swear, he'd never let anybody beat him in anything.

And that's the kind of guy you want. And, you know, that sets the tone for everybody. and but we had a good number of guys like that. Like I said, if we did anything, we were tough and we worked our, you know what off. I mean, our guys in the out of season, we killed it. And we would promote that recruiting. Say, look, if you're looking for it easy, this isn't your place.

And our guys are telling them that on recruiting visits. Like, well, no, we get after it. And if you're looking for a country club atmosphere, this isn't you. And because we didn't want those. guys. We weren't going to change the way we did things. And our out of season was grueling and tough, but our guys kind of took pride in that. I think that work done when nobody sees it, right? Is what one creates evidence for a team that they can do hard things. And that shows up when the lights are bright on Saturday nights playing college football. I feel like that's when

teams are actually built, those off-season puking workouts that are running the steps or however many one-tens or half-gas, whatever you're going to do, that's when teams are really forged. Well, that's what we felt. We felt like we had outworked everybody. So we deserved to win. And that was kind of what we built our mentality on early on that, you know, because when we arrived here, we had not had a winning year in like five or six years.

and so our guys didn't know how to work. But when we did, and we lost guys that didn't want to do it, they were trying to set their own face, and we let them go. And then the guys that stayed truly believed, hey, we deserve the win. We've worked too damn hard not to win. I'm sure someone may have outworked us here or there, but we didn't think so. I was like, you know what, we deserve to win. We've worked hard for this, and we're going to win.

And that was the attitude. And then year two, we go undefeated. And those guys, they had earned it. Like, no, man, this is our time. You know, we've worked too hard for this not to finish it. What was special or unique about that national championship team? When you guys win it all, right? You take a program that wasn't great to one that's the best in the country.

What was special and unique about that team? Their attitude, they were tired of being kicked around. We had a bunch of older guys that had been. and told they're not worthy. They, you know, this, that, the other. You know, the image here when I arrived was really pretty poor. The self-image, the community's view of our program, all of it was pretty poor. And we just felt their attitude, they were sick of it.

We're going to do something about it. I was big on promoting what the history of Oklahoma had been for a good number of years, all the championships, which you go back through the Wilkinson and Switzerland. Serereras and this is an end and I was big on this is what we're supposed to be and we're not going to shy away from it we're not going to hide from it and that was going to be our we were going to be one of those kind of teams and they they they latched on to our vision and and believed in us and went and did it you know I try to do this analysis of I've been on winning teams and losing teams as a player not as a coach but as a player and then a coach in the business world I've been

on teams that have done really well and teams that have not. And there's a number of attributes to both. But one of them that I found to be a commonality among the ones who won a lot is the players are so bought in that they become the leaders of the entire organization. They hold each other accountable. They don't let somebody go this close to the line and not touch it. They don't let that stuff happen. The coaches create the environment for the players, usually like on a football team,

like juniors and seniors, usually, not always, to keep the standard super high, hold themselves to it first, and then hold everyone else to them as well. And that then creates the excellence and usually the winning. What have you found on the teams that win versus the teams that don't as well as far as being player led and accountability amongst the players? Yeah, that's always the best. Yeah, when you have players that are your top dogs that nobody's going to mess with, with and they're going to listen to and they're not afraid to speak up.

Those are the best. And we were definitely like that in 2000, that we've worked too damn hard. And we got, it's right in our grasp. You do everything you can. And that was by them. We had a bunch of really great leaders. The, you know, the Torrance Marshalls, Rocky Calmus, Roy Williams, Trent Smith, Josh Heppel, for goodness sakes.

He was our leader on offense, you know, along with a few other guys. Trent Smith and some other older old linemen. So now those guys, they had the pulse of the team. And that's when you know you're really getting somewhere. What do you think of Hypo now as a head coach at Tennessee? Did you see that in him when he was your quarterback? Oh, sure. He's a great leader and really happy for him.

They've done a great job there. And everywhere he's been, you know, you also ahead of that at Central Florida. So no, I'm glad he's done so well. And yeah, he was our true, you know, our big time leader, of course, in 2009 to get us started as well as 2000. And I've said it before. I said it in my book, The Making of a Head Coach, that I've had other players, Heisman Trophy winners.

Josh was a runner up, but first picks in the draft and whatnot. But he's the most valuable recruit I've ever had because he started. He came in year one. Mike Leach wanted Josh. That was his pick. I trusted Mike. This is who he wants to get us started. And he did an incredible job.

And then Mike moved on to tech, and then we win the national championship in 2000. So now definitely he'd be the most valuable recruit that I ever signed. Mike Leach is quite a character, coach. I miss him. And I didn't even know him, but I knew him from afar. What made him tick? He just seemed like a different bird, but one that it's hard not to love the guy. No, he was genuinely that.

Just watch all his crazy interviews and in front of the podium. And he was truly just a natural character, easy guy to be around, really a peaceful guy. Mike, I love Mike. It's sad. But truly, that was just him. He wasn't trying to be funny. He wasn't, you know, he was just that way, naturally that way. But here's the thing about Mike, as casual as he came across, as funny in those interviews

after games or whatever, I mean, he was so bright he could go off on tangents, which we've all seen. But when his offense, what he wanted done right, he was demanding and he was a leader in front of that team. So he didn't come across. He might casually come across, but they knew we better get this stuff right. they're going to be hell to pay. Mike was very demanding on how he wanted his offense to run, to look, and in practice what he, and if he didn't see it, you'd see some blowups now.

So anyway, so it's, unless you work with them, you wouldn't see that. It seems like those types who make it, it's like a stand-up comedian that just like wanders out on stage, making it seem like it's effortless, even though they've repped it a billion times. I feel like that's Mike Leach. One other thing that's purely a football thing and maybe only for me that I find fascinating. Mike Leach, Lincoln Riley, there may be others. Their play cards or sheets are like this big.

They're tiny. They just have like a little. What? They're not. What do you mean? It's the whole sheet and sometimes part of the back. And they just fold them. Okay.

So like when I look, watch them though, they look like they have just this tiny little piece of paper in their hands. Because in the situation, if you look close, they'll be that. But then they'll flip it over. and it's like for third downs. So they just don't want to have the big like Sean Payton.

Their specialty plays. They know where they're at. It's it's a little bit of a Rubik's Cube. Oh, I was cute. You're right. Why do they do it that way? Big sheet. It's just a regular piece of paper that they fold different ways so that they can get to

what they're looking for. They just like to have a small folded up piece of paper in their hand. Rather than, you know, why not? And they know how to find what they're looking for. Okay. All right. Okay. Because I was going to say most.

Don't get me, Ron, they're, they're very smart on not having too many plays, but they don't have just eight plays. Okay. So they're, they're all in different spots. Okay. Okay. It just looks different when I watch them versus like I was just watching Sean Peyton.

He's got this giant, like most offensive coordinators, giant, I know, laminated thing that has a thousand plays on it. I would probably get lost on that thing. Well, they're very good, though, at not having too many. That's where to that tree of coaches, they're smart about that. Like, first year with Mike Leach, Man, Gino wants to put in this play, that play, whatever. And Mike goes, that's fine, but which one you get rid of? In other words, he's not having too many plays.

And Mike was big on what we do. We don't do what everyone else does. words, he'd say, well, this is a really good play. He would agree. You know what? That's a hell of the play. But we're not running it. He knew what we did. And that was it. I think there's a learning there though. And you correct me if I'm wrong. No who you are. Is there a, there is something about the simplicity of, for example, Steve Jobs. They could do 20 different things. But he said, we're going to do three. We're going to do five. And then you become an expert at those five plays or those 10 or those 20. and you rep them like crazy and you run them like,

maybe you change the formation, you put in motion, you shifts or whatever you got to do to confuse the defense a little bit, but it's about getting excellent at what we do, not trying to do everything. That's exactly what Mike was. And our offense early on, absolutely that. He was, we're going to do it better than you can defend.

And we know all the ins and outs of it. And that was it. And he's not going to sit up at night trying to dream up another play. We're just going to run. They need better than you can deal with them. I think there is something to be said for that for all of us when we're trying to get exotic and crazy and all over the place when it's like, how about we get really good at what we do? Like excellent at what we do as opposed to looking all over the place. And I feel like that's almost been the synopsis of our entire conversation coach of this is what I look for in a guy to be a coach.

This is what I think it's going to take. This is what I look for in a player. This is how we build culture. This is how we build a team led by players. and then we go. And I think there's a beauty in that simplicity, and that's why it's led to you having so, I mean, you won titles in college, titles as a pro, your MVP of your team as a player in college. It seems like all of this has worked over decades' worth of your life. I've been like I said, I've been incredibly lucky, fortunate, all the breaks in my life. Maybe the

biggest break you're getting the chance to go to Iowa, you know, out of Youngstown. No one else big time school recruited me. And at the time, Iowa had a winning year in probably 16, 17 years. So anyway, and then it's led. It's just been around great people. And I've been smart enough to pay attention, you know, to what's out there with different ways of doing things. And I think, too, if I'm anything, I'm relational.

I relate to my coach as well, to my administration. I've related to my players, you know, and yeah, I've always knew I didn't have all the answers, but search for them and then do the best you can and work, work and be tough. One of the other people that you've surrounded yourself with that Sherry Cole told me about was your wife. And she said that Carol was like an amazingly successful Mary Kaye National Sales Director. Right. And so she like did her own thing while you are the guy. You're Bob Stoops.

What's that like? I mean, I'm always looking for marriage advice, too. I always want to improve everything. Like, I'm curious about that. No, she was amazing, an amazing career and a great leader. Initially, that wasn't her nature to be outgoing like that. And then she made herself into that and created this great business and not, you know, it's a great company, Mary Kay Cosmetics. And she became a national director. She was a teacher, initially a great school teacher. And she came home. day and she was going to quit and she was going to be a Mary Kay director. I was like, oh, time out here. I was still in my first couple years at Kansas State. I wasn't making any money yet. And I was like, don't you think you ought to see if you're good at this before you just go and she goes, ah, that's a good point. So she waited a year or two and did both. And then she just kept

getting better and better and earned a car. She earned a car for probably 18 years. The pink Cadillac, right? Oh, yeah. That's awesome. On an assistant coach's budget, it was fantastic. Anyway, but on top of it, she's raising my daughters at the time. She's raising three little kids. I had identical twin boys. When I got to Oklahoma, they were born here. And my daughter was three when we got here.

And she's doing that while she's doing that business. And funny story, great story. I had been gone recruiting for a week on December like we do. I come home and I ring the doorbell. I didn't have my key with me and it's like a Friday at four in the afternoon. We have recruits coming in. I just got back from being on the road. And my son, Isaac, opens the door and he's like five at the time.

He yells back in the house. He says, hey, everybody, Bob Stoops is here. So that's so that's kind of, you know, so she did an amazing job. with little kids, big job, and I'm gone a lot. Or even at the office, we don't have nine to five jobs. So she managed it really well. So good. Coach, I'm curious one more before we run.

Let's say like somebody's fresh out of college. Maybe they played football. Maybe not, but they want to leave a positive dent in the world. They want to do well. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you'd give to that person? You know, much as anything, be true to yourself, go hard, play hard, be tough, and enjoy the struggle. I think too many times people shy away from the fight, and you can't.

And I think it's great business advice, anything you're going to do. Anything worthwhile isn't going to be given to you, or at least usually not. And you got to be willing and ready to fight for it in the proper ways is what I'm saying. And usually it ain't going to be easy. Don't let that surprise you and go up every day and go get it. I met my son played at OU. I tell them every day. I said, hey son, I said, look forward to the fight and enjoy it and play hard.

You know, that was it. You know, play hard. Great player. Man, he's a great player. Oh, thank you. He's done a good job. But yeah, I mean, playing hard. That equates to everything.

You know, you got to go earn it. in business world or whatever you're doing. Every quarterback wants one of those tough guys in the slot who's going to go anywhere and everywhere, who would be the guy you look for maybe when you're scrambling, he'll go up and catch the ball over the middle. Like, we love those guys. We've got to have those guys. No, no doubt.

No doubt. I love it. Coach, this is awesome. And you mentioned before we started recording, you got some of your own stuff going on. I want to give you a second here to maybe share what that is, where people could go to listen or watch or pay attention to some of the things that you're doing, especially the Matheme Conahey, a conversation you had recently.

That I didn't record. I thought I did, and at some reason it didn't. But yeah, just go to your app store, the Bob Stoops app. It's free. It's right there in your app store. And I have interviews, players, coaches, or predict games, you know, all that kind of stuff from time to time. And there's a ton of already,

through the last couple of years that are on there. Anyway, like I said, it's free to download. Love it. Well, thank you, Coach. I really appreciate this. And I'd love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. All right, Ryan, all the best. And yeah, you keep going to get it.

Sounds like you're doing it. Thank you. Thank you. It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note, Ryan at learningleader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great. conversation with Hall of Fame coach Bob Stoops.

A few takeaways from my notes. Hiring. He said, I always tried to hire people smarter than me. I think a lot of leaders say this, but not all of them actually do it. It takes a lot of humility to hire people who you genuinely think are smarter than you. But Coach Stoops looked for people who had a track record of performance. They've actually done it before more than just a few years. And then he used his gut instincts after he spent time with him.

He paid attention to how they treated his secretary, how they treated the waiter at lunch. Some call those the little things, but they were very important and they are the big things to coach Stoops. Then what makes a great head coach? They relate to people. They genuinely care about people. They can motivate and influence by clearly sharing the vision of the program and inspiring others to want to get on board. They are decisive people, but most importantly, they know how to connect with people. All leadership is a people business. Businesses and teams are made up of people.

If you cannot connect with people, you will probably struggle. It's all about connection. And then the overarching theme of the entire conversation was, I felt, the simplicity with how Coach Stoops built his program. He didn't try to overcomplicate anything. He knew he wanted coaches who were accomplished high character people and he wanted tough players who loved football. Their offenses may have looked exotic but they didn't have a ton of plays installed. They focused on what they did and then practiced it relentlessly so that they would execute better than their opponents. And I think there's something beautiful and the simplicity with how he's built his program. And obviously the results speak for themselves.

Once again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two. Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Bob Stoops. I think he'll help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that and you also go to Apple Podcast and Spotify and you subscribe to the show. And you rate it hopefully five stars and you write a thought. for review by doing all of that you are giving me the opportunity to do what i love on a daily basis and for that i will forever be grateful thank you so so much talk to you soon can we