674: PJ Fleck - Building Elite Culture, Nekton Mindset, Selecting >Recruiting, Intrinsic Motivation, Row The Boat, and Transformational Coaching

Go to www. LearningLeader.com https://www. LearningLeader.com This is brought to you by Insight Global https://insightglobal.com/learningleader/. 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 has the hustle and grit to deliver. www. InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader https://www. InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader My guest: PJ Fleck is the head football coach at the University of Minnesota. Before that, he transformed Western Michigan from one win to 13 wins and a Cotton Bowl appearance. Before his coaching days, PJ was a stud receiver at Northern Illinois and was a guy I played against in college. Coach Fleck has built one of college football's most distinctive culture-driven programs. You'll hear why he maintains an 80-20 split favoring high school recruiting over the transfer portal, how he runs practice with a 32-second clock to make it harder than games, and why he sees himself as a cultural driver rather than a motivational coach. This is a conversation recorded with all of our coaches inside "The Arena." That is our mastermind group for coaches in all sports. And it did not disappoint. Notes: Stop recruiting, start selecting. PJ doesn't chase the highest-rated players... He looks for fit and alignment with his values. Ask yourself: Are you trying to convince people to join your team, or are you selecting people who already want what you're building? Efficiency beats duration. PJ runs 95-minute practices with a 32-second play clock, always moving, always intense. The principle: Make practice harder than the game. Where in your work are you confusing time spent with intensity and focus? Internal drive trumps external motivation. PJ calls his ideal players "Nektons," always attacking, never satisfied. He's looking for people who prove their worth to themselves, not to others. If you need constant external motivation, you're not ready for elite teams. A leader must teach and demand. A team member must prepare and perform. These aren't opposing forces—they're two sides of the same commitment to excellence. My junior year at Ohio University. I was the quarterback of the Ohio football team. We lost to No. 17 Northern Illinois 30-23 in overtime on a Saturday night. P. J. Fleck caught the game-tying 15-yard touchdown pass late in the fourth quarter. PJ finished with 14 catches for 235 yards and a touchdown. (I threw a 30-yard TD pass to Anthony Hackett to put us up a TD right before halftime). Let your team see you played. They do"Guess that Gopher" before team meetings, where players guess which coach's highlights they're watching. Give them a peek behind the curtain. It builds credibility and connection. PJ honors his mentor, Jim Tressel, by wearing a tie while coaching. Who are you honoring through your daily practices? Keep your door open. PJ has no secretary. Players can walk into his office at any moment. Create fluidity between you and your team. Transparency after tragedy is a choice. When PJ's son died from a heart condition, he had two options: never talk about it again, or let it shape him. He chose radical transparency, knowing it would get scrutinized. That's where "Row the Boat" comes from. A losing season reveals what you actually need. After going 1-11 at Western Michigan while also getting divorced, PJ says every coach should experience a losing season. It forces you to identify what you actually need versus what you don't need. Choose what scares you. When deciding on Minnesota, Heather asked him, "Does this scare you?" He said, "Hell yeah, it scares me." His response: "Well then, that's where we're going." Life versus living. Living is the salary and contract. Life is about moments and memory. If you can't stay in the moment and reflect on great moments or hard moments, life will be like mashed potatoes to you. Your expectations should match your resources. The gap between expectations and resources is called frustration. The bigger the gap, the more frustration from everyone around you. Maintain an 80/20 model if you can. 80% high school players, 20% transfer portal. PJ has one of the highest retention rates in the country because of selection and fit, not recruiting. "It's not about the money until it's about the money." The kids' PJ gets value for other things before the money talk. They enjoy the experience of being a college athlete. PJ leads with "I'm really difficult to play for." PJ's opening line to recruits. He asks for a lot. This makes people who are lazy, complacent, or fraudulent run like hell. "This is going to expose me." Start with good people, not good players. Out of 500 kids, who are the best 25 young men? PJ doesn't get five stars. He gets two and three stars who believe they can be five stars. A chip versus a crack on your shoulder. Once you do something the media says you couldn't do, they'll set a new bar. All PJ wants is kids who want to prove to themselves that they can do what people say they couldn't. You don't need PJ's personality. You need the internal drive to be the best version of yourself. That's what he's selecting for. "I'm not a motivational coach. I'm a cultural driver." PJ picks their "how." He picks their journey. If someone needs constant motivation, they're not ready. Peel back the Instagram filter. Everything you see on social media is filtered. You have to dig deeper with this generation to find out who they really are. Hire former players back. PJ's staff has more former players who played for him than ever before. They cut their teeth in the building. In this transactional era, former players help you stay transformational. The HYPRR System. This is PJ's hyperculture framework he created after going 1-11: H (How): The people. Nektons who always attack. How you do one thing is how you do everything. Consistency matters. Y (Yours): Your vision. It's YOUR life, not anyone else's vision. Players are the builders. Don't tell me you want an extravagant home and then hire bad builders. P (Process): The work. The who, what, when, where, and why. Anyone should be able to ask those questions at any point. R (Result): Focus on the HYP. It's not the officials' fault. It's not the other team's fault. R (Response): How will you respond to the result? Don't believe the hype. Everything about hype is before the result happens. Focus on How, Yours, and Process instead. Someone will take what you were taught was horrible and create a business model. PJ uses Uber and Airbnb as examples. We were taught "stranger danger" as kids. Now we get in cars with strangers while drunk and sleep in their homes. The right people plugged into crazy visions can change everything. Define success as peace of mind. That's how PJ's program defines success. Not wins and losses. Train body language. "Big chest" means standing up straight. Players are not allowed to put their hands on their knees or their heads. If you can't hold yourself up, trainers need to check on you. Teach response, not reaction. You can have emotions, but train to not be emotional. The real world wants to see you react. Train to respond properly in every situation. Your words have power. PJ's players know the definitions of 150 words that will help them for the rest of their lives. Give substance to the filters. That's your job as an educator. Cut all the fat off practice. PJ was from the era of 3.5-hour practices. He has ADD and needs to move. He got bored as a player, so he vowed to run practice differently. Run a 32-second play clock constantly. Every 32 seconds, you run a play. You are always under the two-minute warning in practice. This trains your team to operate under pressure. Never practice longer than 95 minutes. It's one thing to watch as a recruit. It's another to experience it as a player. Kids puke during dynamic warmup in the first week because it's that intense. Make practice harder than the game. The game will eventually slow down for your players if practice is legitimately harder. Nektons flow through water currents without being affected. Don't let circumstances dictate behavior. Train this mindset daily. The biggest jump in sports is from high school to college. 17-year-olds playing against 24-year-olds. It's not just talent. It's experience, development, strength, and confidence all at once. Never let any environment be too big for your coaches. Train your staff to be comfortable in all situations, not just your players. Always be learning outside your field. PJ attends leadership seminars with SEALs and Green Berets. At one dinner, a retired military officer who looked like Sean Connery scanned the room quietly, then said: "I'm taking in all the good in the room. I'm also coming up with a plan to kill every one of you, in case I need to." He never came back to the table because he got called to active duty and left for Afghanistan. Always be ready. That's what makes you special. Watch to learn. PJ watched "Landman" and took notes on how to run the next team meeting. His wife hates that he can never relax. Find teaching and education in everything you do. When you stop, you stop growing. Get better at celebrating. PJ has a great bourbon and champagne collection. He celebrates more than he ever has. Balance the intensity with moments of joy. Make transformational programs real. Gopher for Life program. Monthly educational courses. Monthly date nights where players bring their dates and learn dinner etiquette. Monthly racial education class. Weekly coach development on Thursdays, where coaches speak on any topic to advance their careers. Don't let important things stop when the news cycle moves on. COVID and racism got put in the same bracket. When COVID stopped, racism education stopped everywhere. Not at Minnesota. Keep going. Bring back the fun. After wins, players can't wait to pick the design for the next team shirt. PJ gives them five options, and they get into it. People are losing the fun connection that made elementary school great. A coach's job is to teach and demand. A player's job is to prepare and perform. If you're a coach, you better be teaching things: life, sport, relationships. Elite teams are led by players. Your job is to get as many elite people to the front of the bus as possible. More Learning #226 - Steve Wojciechowski: https://learningleader.com/episode-226-steve-wojciechowski-win-every-day/ How to Win Every Day #281 - George Raveling: https://learningleader.com/episode-281-george-raveling-eight-decades-of-wisdom-from-dr-martin-luther-king-to-michael-jordan/ Wisdom from MLK Jr to Michael Jordan #637 - Tom Ryan: https://learningleader.com/tomryan/ Chosen Suffering: Become Elite in Life & Leadership

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Ryan Hawk?

  Welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am your host, Ryan Hoff. Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleader.com for show notes of this and all podcast episodes. Go to learningleader.com. Now on to tonight's featured leader. PJ Fleck is the head football coach at the University of Minnesota. Before that, he transformed Western Michigan from a one-win team to 13 wins and a Cotton Bowl appearance. Before his coaching days, PJ was a stud receiver at Northern Illinois and was a guy that I personally played against in college. Coach Fleck has built one of college football's most distinctive, culture-driven

• 0:43Ryan Hawk?

  programs. And I think so much of what he does can be done also in the business world. I think you'll agree. During our conversation, PJ shares the personal tragedy behind his row the boat philosophy. You also hear why he maintains an 80-20 split, favoring high school recruiting over the transfer portal, how he runs practice with a 32-second clock to make it harder than the games, and why he sees himself as a culture driver rather than a motivational coach. This is a conversation that was recorded with all of our coaches inside the arena. That is our mastermind group of coaches from all sports. It did not disappoint. And I want to give a huge thank you to the GOAT, the Hall of Famer,

• 1:28Ryan Hawk?

  Sherri Cole, for making all of this happen. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with PJ Fleck. This episode is brought to you by Insight Global. I love the leadership team and the people at Insight Global. Insight Global is a staffing and professional services company dedicated to being the light to the world around them. 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

• 2:12Ryan Hawk?

  insightglobal.com/learningleader today to learn more. That's insightglobal.com/learningleader. I want to go back To 2003, I'm playing quarterback for the Ohio University Bobcats. We're struggling. We go up north to Northern Illinois and we're playing against the undefeated Northern Illinois Huskies, number 17 in the country, have a great running back named Michael the Burner Turner. We're really focused on stopping this guy and we actually did a pretty good job. I throw a touchdown pass to Anthony Hackett to give us the lead. We're up by seven. We go late in the game. We're going to knock off on national TV, this team that's undefeated.

• 2:54Ryan Hawk?

  And this little receiver just has the game of his life and including a 15-yard touchdown catch on fourth down to tie the game, send it into overtime and to beat us. And that guy, that receiver was PJ Fleck. And I've paid attention to your career ever since that night. I think you had what 14 or 15 catches, 235 yards, a touchdown. What do you remember from that night?

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Oh my goodness, your memory is unbelievable. We talked last night, you brought that up. I could not believe you brought it up. The only person that still talks about that game is me. And I usually tell my kids or my players or my wife and they could care less, right? I actually have some gloves up that are in my office and they're, these are the ones you're talking about, right there.

• 3:37Ryan Hawk?

  Are you serious?

• 3:38Speaker 01

  NIU 30, Ohio U 23 OT, right there. Yep. So 14 catches, 234 yards. So I remember that game very, very well.

• 3:48Ryan Hawk?

  It was fourth down. I'm thinking we're going to beat the best team in the MAC, nationally ranked us on national TV. This is amazing. And then this dude just killed us. My dad and I have talked about PJ Fleck since that night. And so I'm like, this guy, it's cool to see what's happening in your coaching career, but it actually leads me to question PJ, and that is, how important is it for your players to see that you are a stud yourself as an actual player and not just as a coach?

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Well, I'm not sure I would have recruited my own self. That's the problem is we went to Northern Illinois. We're on like a 20 some game losing streak, but it was amazing who Joe Novak actually recruited that year during all that the the losing piece. He got guys who really wanted to be there and then, you know, we go in our senior year and that's the year you're talking about, which was so memorable. And, and I, I think it's really important for players to know that I'm a guy who loves to, to hire guys that have a huge, huge knowledge of the background of their position. So I love like our right now, our running back coach is the all time leading rusher in the history of Minnesota. Our linebacker coach played here at the University of Minnesota and was phenomenal. I think it's important for you as a coach to share what you did.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  I do, and some of it's used in a joking fashion. I show my highlight tape every year at some point and it's so old. I mean, it's so gritty, but I think it's important for them to see you as a human being, to see that you actually did it. What did it look like when you were a player, you know, but these guys highlight tapes are 100 times better than mine. But I do think it's important that you show yourself playing the game or doing something that they can relate to. Because I think that, you know, you're, you're demanding so much of these young people that they're always going to be like, well, what do you know about that? And they quickly forget that, you know, I played in college, played in the National Football League. I coached in the National Football League and immediately when you become a head coach, now you're that parent.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  So what do you know? And I think it's really important for you to kind of let your hair down a little bit. I don't have any, but go ahead and let that hair down, give them a peek behind the curtain of what it was like when you were playing. And we do it in a little bit more of a fun way than being like, hey, guys, you're going to watch my highlight tape. Watch how much of a stud I was. We do it in a way that's a little bit more exciting. We'll show coaches highlights like guess that coach before a team meeting starts. And then we'll show our coaches as players and show 10 plays of their highlight tape. And then you got to guess that coach. We call it guess that gopher. So we do it with players as well. I think it's just a fun way to start the team meeting, but yeah, we, we show a lot of that.

• 6:17Ryan Hawk?

  One of the other elements about you that I love is you're big on honoring mentors. And one of the mentors that you have is one that I've been lucky to get a chance to know really well through my younger brother, and that's Jim Tressel. You wear the tie on the sideline, nobody really does that, to honor him. And I know he's had a big impact on your life, as well as Mike Nolan, who you also honor by wearing that. Can you tell me more about the importance of those guys as mentors, what you've learned from them, and how you try to honor them?

• 6:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, Jim Tressel and Mike Nolan are two of the greatest influences of my life. Jim Tressel hired me. I got cut from the Niners. And the story goes together because I was playing in the National Football League, it was my third year, I got hurt. Mike Nolan cuts me. The minute he cuts me, offers me a job. And I don't know if I'm still the only person in NFL history to be cut and within the same sentence be offered a coaching job. I'm like, what kind of coaching job? He's like, I don't know, I don't have the job, I'm gonna make it up for you because I think you're gonna be an outstanding coach. And at the time, I have an elementary education degree, I was gonna go teach sixth grade social studies. Of course, I thought I was his star player, so I'm like, how dare you cut me? Like, I'm gonna keep playing. I'm 5'9", 185 pounds, I'm desirable for the National Football League, okay?

• 7:26Speaker 01

  So, I went to the Bears next week, failed the physical, came back to him, said, hey, look, I think this is gonna be really good, just give me another day to think about it. Well, the day I'm thinking about it, Jim Tressel calls me out of nowhere and offers me an offensive graduate assistant job. There were two GA jobs back then, now there's a billion, but there was only two, one on offense, one on defense. And he had never met me, but his fraternity brother was one of my coaches in college, Mike Seabock. And that's why it's amazing that I feel like I'm indebted to so many people, because I've gotta help pay it forward for a lot of my former players and people who I think are gonna be outstanding coaches and serve them. So anyway, Jim Tressel calls me, and I thought it was a joke, I thought it was one of my buddies calling me, playing a prank on me that he's calling from Columbus, Ohio.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  Saying he's Jim Tressel. Jim hired me on the spot, didn't meet me, never met me. He just wanted somebody to get into school and trusted his fraternity brother. So it was about how I played and how I prepared and all the things that I did as a player for our special teams coordinator to one day get a call and I need to be the first one on the tip of his tongue. And it's just pretty ironic that it worked out that way. So I went with Jim Tressel, went to the national championship my first year in coaching and I'm like, this stuff's really easy. I mean, kind of show up with Teddy Ginn, you know, Troy Smith, Brian Hartline, Anthony Gonzalez, and you know, Marcus Freeman. You're like, this isn't that hard. You know, you gotta show up, they win. I mean, this is this college thing. I got this thing down, I think. Long story short, we lose in the national title, but those two men, I wear a tie because they both wore a tie.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  And I wouldn't be where I am without them. And I think it's very, very hard for us to kind of step back and say, we didn't get here alone. Sometimes when you go up the ladder, you're like, here's how I did it. This is what I did. This is what I made of myself. I have nothing to do with really me. If it wasn't for those two men, I wouldn't be where I'm at, or even have the opportunity to be where I'm at. So I love, you know, I'm a sixth grade social studies teacher at heart, and I'd probably be doing that if it wasn't for them. So every single game day, that's how I honor those two men. Jim Tressel taught me how to care about the entire team. His office was right next to the locker room and the team meeting room, which mine is designed that way. I do not have a secretary. I do not have an assistant. My players can walk in my office at any moment, and I'm right by the team meeting where you have to pass my office to go

• 9:38Speaker 01

  into the team meeting room. So I want that fluidity of players feeling okay to walk in there. And Jim Tressel never stopped me or somebody stopped me from walking in his office when I was just bottom of the totem pole GA. And I never wanted that feeling in my building. So he taught me how to care for the entire organization. I mean, the entire organization. He knows everybody's name. He still sends me a text every week. Every single week without fail, and I was a G A for him. Imagine if you were an All American or an offensive coordinator for him. It's just unbelievable how much he has done for my life. And then Mike Nolan taught me how to be incredibly transparent and very honest. There were so many times as a head football coach, you have to just give people what they need to hear,

• 10:22Speaker 01

  not what they want to hear. And I had to learn that. I had to learn that from someone. And Mike Nolan taught me that because it was, he did it with such grace. There's a way to do everything, even though you have to deliver really hard information. And I think Mike Nolan is really, really good at the art of that. So I think those are the two things I learned the most from those guys.

• 10:40Ryan Hawk?

  I'm going to talk about rock bottom 2013. You'd had some unimaginable tragedy in your personal life, uh, leading up to that moment. Then you get a head coaching job. You're at Western Michigan 2013 and you go one and 11 that first year. Can you take me back to that time and what was going on in your head? How are you dealing with it? How did you respond to the combination of this really, really tough, this tragic things in your personal life? In your professional life, yes, you get the head coaching job, but you guys just get destroyed pretty much every week. What was that like?

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Well, I think perspective really comes from tragedy and adversity. And if you don't have any of that, you probably have a real poor perspective of life, of sport, of challenges, of changes. There's been a few things that have shaped my life forever. February 9th, 2011, my second son died of a heart condition and, and I was the last one to hold him before he passed away. And that changes your life. And I think you go one of two directions. One, you never want to talk about it again. You put it out of your mind. It's, it's between you and a higher power and you never talk about it. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's a lot of people who go through really hard things and don't ever want to talk about it again. I'm not here to judge those people. And then there's the other side where you take it and of course it changes you and shapes you, but then you want to use it for really for good and you want to share it.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  Hard part about sharing is when, minute you bring anything public, it's going to get criticized, scrutinized, it's going to get torn apart. People are going to throw darts at it, arrows, and you got to be comfortable enough to handle all of that. If you share anything, so don't get mad when people blast you for very personal things. If you put something personal out there and that's where row the boat came from and row the boat just means never give up, but it's really his life. Uh, we're the only college football program whose slogan is directly tied to charity. And I think that's really, really important for our program of serving and giving, you know, our philanthropy side. And then I was 32 years old. I was the youngest head football coach in the country and I'm coming straight from the national football league as a wide receiver coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And oh, man, I'm full of piss and vinegar and let's do this. And I'm 32 years old. How hard could this head coaching thing be?

• 12:45Speaker 01

  I just watched all these great head coaches do it. And then you go one and 11 and not only go one and 11, I got divorced that year. So now my personal life is in shambles. You know, I lost my son a few years ago. I got this row the boat thing. It didn't work. I'm the worst guy in town. Every rumors about me that known to man, my professional life, personal life all fell apart. And so everybody used to ask me, they're sitting there going, so what are we going to do now? Row the boat didn't work. So we're going to mow the grass, uh, you know, we're going to turn the wrench. Like, what are we doing? I said, no, this is what row the boat's all about. And I think this is the greatest lesson is because the authenticity and the realness of our program showed in the hardest moments and was tested so fast. I think every head coach and every coach should go 0 and 12 or 1 and 11 to start.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  I think that should be a prerequisite because I think that at that point, like you really identify what is very real and what isn't, what you need and what you don't need. It's like throwing away all the car parts that you don't really need and what are we and who are we? And it really makes you feel, do you truly believe in what you believe in? I think that tests everybody. And so then we get to the second year and we turn it around and all of a sudden went from one and 11 to almost being fired, starting one and four the next year. And then we're coach of the year and then boom, then we go 13 and 0 two years later and take them to the cotton bowl, same group of kids. And I think it's just ironic that, you know, 14 years later, here we are still doing the same row the boat culture and had so many ups and downs and highs and lows and the line of success is never straight. And I think that's what people's expectations are, that you're going to start here and

• 14:15Speaker 01

  you're going to end here. And anything that gets you off that line is, is awful. In fact, it's there to teach. You all the things you need and the armor you need as you continue to move forward. So don't be afraid of all those things that are going on in your life that aren't going necessarily. Well, if everything that wasn't good in my life didn't happen exactly the way it happened. The exact moment it happened, I wouldn't be where I am, but that's perspective. When you go back and look at all those things, and I think that really helps you moving forward.

• 14:43Ryan Hawk?

  You were the hot name in coaching after the turnaround of what you did at Western Michigan. What made you choose Minnesota? I have to imagine there were other options. What's made you not only pick Minnesota, but then stay at Minnesota?

• 14:58Speaker 01

  This is a question really for my wife Heather because she's responsible for both of them. We have a question in our family before we kind of do something and take on a new challenge. She always asked me, does it scare you? And the other jobs didn't really scare me. As she said, when Minnesota came about, we were getting ready to sign a new contract at Western Michigan. Because first and foremost, I was coaching in the Cotton Bowl. Anybody'd ask me, are you willing to come out here? No, I'm not willing to come out there. I'm coaching in the Cotton Bowl. You can get me after the Cotton Bowl, but I'm coaching in the Cotton Bowl. I have no idea when I'm going to get back to the Cotton Bowl. I'm going to enjoy the moment memory because that's what life's about. Life experiences, moments and memories. And when you think you're better than the moment, memory and life experience and you pass that up, that's when regret happens. The pain of discipline to stay in that moment versus the pain of regret.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  So, long story short, Heather asked me, does it scare me? I'm like, hell yeah, it scares me. It actually freaks me out. She goes, we're going. Because that's what drives you. If it's scary enough, it means it's big enough for you. And the challenge is going to fulfill that drive that you have because I'm constantly driven. I have the disease of whatever people call success, but I have the disease of it. Whatever was yesterday is not good enough today. And if you're not taking a moment to stop and celebrate those great moments, or stop and reflect on the really hard moments of what they mean, life's just going to be like mashed potatoes to you. And then you're going to look back when you're 55 and regret so many things that you didn't stop and either smell the roses or stop and pick up and recycle the crap and get it better.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  So that was what she asked me and then we stay in Minnesota because we have a great life here. There's a difference in coaching between, I think, having a great life and making a great living. There's a massive difference between those two. And a lot of them have to do with moments, memories, life experiences, as I said, and then being able to do it your way. My boss is the same boss that hired me 10 years ago. We're the longest standing Big Ten AD head coach combination in the Big Ten. We're top five in the country when it comes to that relationship. And I know how good I have it. But some people know how good they have it, but they want it better. That's okay. But that doesn't mean it's always better. And it

• 17:09Speaker 01

  doesn't mean I'll stay here forever. I don't know that. But I know what I have, and it's gonna have to take something incredibly special, special, to take me out of the life that we've created here. Football is a piece of our life, from our players, to our relationships, to our social life, to our friends, to the community. Like, we've been a part of the community for a long time, and I take value in that. So, the life versus the living, I think the living's just the salary and money and what you have and what your contract says. But the life, I think, there's so much to do here. And it's such an amazing place that we loved living here and loved what we've built and want to continue to see where we can take it.

• 17:48Ryan Hawk?

  The Big Ten has become the place that wins the national championships, right? The past three years, they've done it. It looks like that's gonna continue. How is it for you guys at Minnesota? Because it seems like you just need a ton of money. You need a lot of donors, NIL support. That's a tough place to compete when it seems like the national champ is gonna come from the Big Ten every year. I'm a fan of the Big Ten. How was that for you at Minnesota when you see Indiana, Michigan, Ohio State, I mean, USC, all these teams now?

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that one thing is, from an expectation standpoint, I think your expectations should always match your resources. But I think this expectation and reality are where people really get confused, is, there's a saying we have in our program, expectation and reality's here, right? And then, that gap in between, if those don't align and they're not really close, the gap gets bigger and it's always filled with frustration. And those are the fan bases, right? They have an expectation, but the- Reality of the resources are here and so the frustration is massive. I think when those things get closer, I think there's less frustration and more of the ability that we can all get that thing done and whatever that is players, resources, money, billionaires. I mean, that's what this thing is coming down to a little bit. It feels like more major league

• 19:02Speaker 01

  baseball. People talk about it's like NFL. It's not like the NFL. The NFL is a very, very, very meticulous, clean, detailed run business in the world. It's one of the most iconic logos and businesses in the world that is very cut and dry. Here's what we do. Here's how we do it. Period. There's rules. There's regulations. You do this. Here's the consequence. College football is the wild, wild west. And it's a soap opera. That's really what it is. You got to tune in next week and look at the Dr. Pepper commercials. It's all drama. Whether it's the hot seat, that's what sells in college football. The ratings of the CFP are through the roof again. So people wanting all this regulation and all these rules and what are we going to do with college football? The people that are making the money are going like, what's wrong with it? I mean, it is just the wild west and what's wrong with that?

• 19:46Speaker 01

  I do think there's a lot wrong with it when it comes down to that, but I think that because it's coming from the big 10, three years in a row, you see a team like Indiana, if the investment's there, the backing's there, the resources there, anybody can go do it. And I think that's why I stay at Minnesota because I truly, truly believe that we can go do that. We have the right people. We just need to be able to do it more regularly and we need to be able to do it more consistently and we need more people to see the vision of that. But it gives you hope saying, okay, this isn't just some far-fetched dream. It's hard to obtain. It's really hard to obtain. There's two people left in the NFL right now, fight for the Super Bowl and then there's, you know, there's one college football national champion. So it's very limited, but you can if you do it the right way.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  And I think that we're on our way to hopefully continue to pour into that and getting that done.

• 20:34Ryan Hawk?

  When we talked last night, you said you guys are an 80-20 team. 80% of your recruiting is high school kids, 20% are transfer portal guys, which is probably different for Indiana and some other teams that are winning. So I'd love to hear kind of your overall philosophy on that 80-20 high school to transfer portal and why you've chosen to do it that way.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Well, a few things. One, I was hired 10 years ago here. And you're in this rhythm, right, where I can be in that rhythm. Where I don't lose many starters. I mean, we have one of the highest retention rates in the country, even at Minnesota, and we don't pay our players the most. But we're doing that in the selection and fit part of the program, which means we don't recruit, we find selection and fit. I shouldn't have to convince a kid to come here. And when you're doing that, it's based on value system. What do you truly value? And I'm not saying asking a 17-year-old, "What do you value?" And then having the kid lie through his teeth and tell you money's not important. It's all about the money, or it's not about the money until it's about the money. Don't ever forget that. Like, it's, it's, a kid can say it's not about the money, and then it comes down to the money at some point. But our kids value certain things in front of the money.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  And I think that's really important when you're talking about the retention. We've been able to have our freshmen become sophomores, sophomores become juniors, juniors become seniors. One, because we stay here, and I think that's really important. But two, because I think our players really enjoy the experience they get as a college collegiate athlete. Because I don't know how much that still exists. And I think that's really important. I tell parents right here in my office, and I'm kind of like a dinosaur. But I'm a cool dinosaur, I'm like a T-Rex. So, but we are kind of dinosaurs because nobody's really doing it the way that we're doing it. We've adapted to what we've done. We've become a little transactional within this transformational program. But it's a piece of it. It's not the whole thing, where a lot of people are just throwing their hands up and saying, you know, "I'm just being completely transactional, and that's all we're going to do."

• 22:23Speaker 01

  The head coach is separating from the players, the GM's separating from the players. Players, do your job, you're getting paid, or you're going to get cut and fired. We're still that developmental program. Academically, athletically, socially, spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally. And I take a lot of pride in that. But that's my upbringing. I'm a 6th grade soul studies teacher at heart. My mom taught special education. I've seen education at the simplest form. I've seen fun at the simplest form. When you're dealing in special ed and you're seeing these young people who are really going through really, I mean, they have debilitating things that it's just so hard, but they, they celebrate the simplest things. And you learn everything at the simplest form. And I watched my mom do that for years.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  And I think that was so beneficial to me to create one of the most creative programs in the country. And I think everything we do is really creative. I think our players look forward to coming into the building every single day and seeing what we have in store for them, and I don't lose sight of that. I never will, even though it, it can be... Again, expectation, reality. It can be frustrating at times because there's so many more distractions from a player's perspective. They have agents, they have parents, they have people taking 15 to 20% of what they're making. They're having people tell them what to do, which you feel as a coach could be a bad decision. So it's just, you got all these things that you didn't have before, but that's why we say we're adapting, but we're not changing who we are. But I think for us, having that 80-20 model, it's because we've been here for so long.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  If I took another job, it'd be really hard when you have 80 players leave the program, when you got a new head coach. Well, now you're in this transfer cycle and you gotta win right away. It's hard to get that grip and that traction to get back to the freshmen through seniors, because you gotta win really quickly in this profession. So I think it benefits us to have that model because we've been here so long.

• 24:07Ryan Hawk?

  You said we don't recruit. It's about selection and fit. Did I hear that right?

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Absolutely, you did.

• 24:12Ryan Hawk?

  What does that mean?

• 24:13Speaker 01

  I'm not for everybody. I think we think just because a guy can jump high, run fast, shoot the ball, throw the ball, dunk a basketball, you know, shoot a hockey puck, kick a soccer ball, that, hey, they're gonna be a great player. There's so much more to fit and selection than just recruiting. I never want to convince a kid to come here. I tell people, my opening line is, I am really, really difficult to play for. I'm just making this very clear to start with. I'm a high, high thinker, overachiever. I'm a 5'9", 180-pound guy who lasted two and a half years in the NFL. I was one of the youngest position coaches in the NFL, and I didn't have a dad who coached. I've been a head coach now 14 years, and I'm 45 years old. Everything that I've done, I've had to do it the hard way, the blue collar way.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  I've had to make it happen. I've had to put myself around people who are willing to help me, and had to take some risks. So absolutely, I'm not for everybody. I consider our program incredibly difficult, because it challenges you to be the best version of yourself. Tomorrow, or today, not yesterday. This is not a rear view program. This is, we're rowing the boat, man. You can't see where you're going. You have a vision, you set a goal, and boom, we move on. And then you just get everybody aligned, rowing the boat in the same direction, in the present, and you look at the past, which is the only thing you can't change, but you can learn from. And we need people who think that way. I can find 25 to 30 high schoolers, from west coast to east coast, north to south.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  I don't care where you're from, that fit that model of that overachieving, love ball, love their life mindset. Because you gotta love your whole life here. There are expectations academically that are insane that I have for our players. And we get recruited against, recruited of, hey, you can sit anywhere you want in the classroom, don't listen to Coach Fleck, he's taking away your constitutional right to sit anywhere that you want in your classroom, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, yeah, so, we don't recruit, meaning, we're not selling you on something that when you get there, it's not there. We are telling you everything of what it's like to be here, from the academics, to the social life, to the spiritual life, to the football life, to what we do mentally, physically, and emotionally. And we make sure everybody's here to watch it and see it first, and experience it.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  And I'm just telling you, it's identical to that when they get here. Because it's not about the kids that you don't get. It's about the wrong kid you get, that ruins your program. So, I'm not gonna chase a kid who I know doesn't fit, but boy, is he a really good player. I can find really good people who are gonna make themselves really good players. And we always start with the really good person. So, we've already gone past, are you good enough or not? Now, it comes down to the selection of, okay, out of these 500 kids, who are the best, best young men, out of these 500, give me the best people, because I want the elite of the elite. I don't, I don't get the five stars. I don't get a bunch of four stars here. So, I've gotta be able to go get those two, three stars who wanna be that five star in

• 27:06Speaker 01

  their mind, and know that they already are. They just don't need judgment from the outside to get there. I believe there's a difference between a chip and a crack on the shoulder. A chip that's proving to everybody else that you're good enough. You hear it all the time, oh, we're gonna prove it. To who? The media's always gonna find something that you're not good enough at. Once you accomplish something that the media said you're not doing, all they do is find the next thing you haven't done. LeBron James is still proving that he's a really good basketball player. To who? The comparisons of Michael Jordan, that's why comparisons steal your joy. The crack on your shoulder type kids that we select are the kids that are proving to themselves they're exactly who they say they are. That's all I want. And that's when we're talking about fit, selection, and it's a process.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  I want Nektons, man, always attacking, never full. I want hungry dogs. I want people who love and attack their life. Now, that doesn't mean, last thing is, you don't have to have my personality. It's your internal drive to be your best, not the best. The best is subjective, and it'll always be subjective. But you've got to be your best, and that's my job as a coach. And if I've got to start your motor every day, you're wrong fit. People think I'm a motivational head coach. You could be farther from the truth. I'm a cultural driver. I already have motivated kids because I've selected motivated kids. And if I have unmotivated kids, I picked wrong. I've chosen really poorly. And that's very difficult to do.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Now, in the high school levels, people don't get to pick their players. Oh, well, if you're at, you know, private schools, you probably get to recruit. But for us, we get to pick. But I make sure that who we're picking, I'm picking their how, man. I'm picking their journey, their story, how they got to where they are. I'm buying that. I'm buying people's journey because that's what I'm banking on that I'm going to get as well. So I know I threw a lot at you on that question.

• 28:59Ryan Hawk?

  Just saying, man, if I was a high school parent or kid, I'm signing up to go play for PJ Fleck. I mean, just hearing you do your thing, I love it.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Right, just as much as what you just said, that like you would do that. What's great about it too is there are people who run like hell from me.

• 29:15Ryan Hawk?

  Really?

• 29:16Speaker 01

  Oh, my, the minute they hear that.

• 29:19Ryan Hawk?

  Why? Who would run from that, though?

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Because lazy and complacent and fraud, like, don't work with me. And if you know that deep down, like, some of you feel like that deep down passion right now, you're like, yeah. There's a lot of people who feel that and go, no, this is going to expose me. And they go, but that's what's great about our program.

• 29:39Ryan Hawk?

  You mean, some of these four and five star kids you see are lazy?

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Oh, I can see a lot of laziness in young people. This young generation, oh, you better peel back the onion a ton on this generation because everybody's the Instagram filter. Everybody. And I'm talking from a player to a picture to a video, it's all filtered. So you've got to assume everything that you see is filtered. And then how can I peel back this filter to get to the real DNA of what's going on? And that's my job as the head coach. And I'm not saying I'm perfect at it. I'm not saying there hasn't been complacent lazy people walk through this building and then you find out later on. I'm also not saying I haven't taken a chance on a kid. But you have to keep evolving, I think, your strategy in hiring coaches, hiring people.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  I have more former players on my staff than I've ever had. I mean, my staff is really young. My staff is very energetic, but they've mastered our culture. They know it inside now. And I love that former player back inside where they cut their teeth. Like, I love that type of feel inside a building because I think that brings validity. It brings this freshness to this, this new era of transactional football that we can still stay transformational.

• 30:52Ryan Hawk?

  Do you have a set of pillars or core values to go along with your mantra of row the boat?

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, because row the boat is really, it's what we do. I'm going to dissect this a little bit, so you got to stay with me. We have what we call the hyper culture. So row the boat fits in the hyper culture. We name our culture. Go figure, it's called hyper. But when I was one in 11, I created this. I have all this great stuff. But God, I'm so horrible at putting this all together where somebody can like digest this thing. So I created the hyper culture in year two at Western Michigan. It's an acronym, H Y P R R. So H Y P R R. The H is how, the Y is yours, the P is process. The first R is

• 31:36Speaker 01

  result, second R is response. I told John Gordon, this is our next book. So I'm ready to go. But it's called the hyper culture for this reason. If you take H Y P, which you don't know what that is yet, but let's just go back to when we were all kids. My dad used to say, don't believe the hype. I grew up in the Don King era. My dad loved boxing. It was like, he was the ultimate hype man. Everything hype is before the first result. That's what the hyper culture is, right? The hype, and then you get the first R, and that's the result. And then the second R is response. So you have to respond to that result. So let's peel back the onion a little bit on the hyper. The H is how. This is the people of the organization.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  Every business starts with people, but I want a certain type of person. I want people who, when I put your film on, I can see how you play. Everybody plays football. Everybody plays a wide out. Everybody plays quarterback. I want to see spitting off the film how you play. Relentless. Nektone, N-E-K-T-O-N. Navy SEALs call themselves nektones. They always attack. They're never full. Right? How you do one thing is how you do everything. You don't change in whether it's academics or social life. You're a turd off the field, but you're a good football player. I want people who have that consistency. Right? That how is everything to me. Always attacking, never full. So I'm looking for the overachievers in that. So that's the people I'm looking for, whether it's coaches or players.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  Do you take the right people and then you plug them into the yours? Okay, yours is the vision. But it's like you said before, it's gotta be your vision. So I always tell people, we're building the house together. We have a huge house in our team meeting room. And it's a real home. But when you're building a home, you have an architect who designs the home. And then you have a builder who builds the home. So your vision of the build this home you want has to be your vision. So it's your life. It can't be your dad's vision for you or your grandfather's vision for you or your or just the coach's vision for you. I'm the architect as a head coach. I create a blueprint based on what you tell me. What do you want the house to look like? And I'll create that. Right? We just built a home and good Lord.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  What I thought started to be this turned out, you know, you know, when you give your wife the full rein, I mean, it is unbelievable how that plan changed constantly, but it was a blueprint. And then we hired a builder to build it. The players are the builders. Don't tell me you want this extravagant home and then you're a horrible carpenter. Cause a blueprint calls for an elite builder. So that's that your vision. And I always tell people. You know, think about vision in your life, really set it out there. Like, we talk about create a vision and put it on a shelf and don't talk about it. But it's gotta be your vision, because if you keep sharing your vision with other people, they're gonna be crazy. I keep whatever I'm gonna do. I tell the people most important to me, I put it on the shelf, and that's it. But when I was a kid, I was taught stranger danger. Let me give you an example of this.

• 34:36Speaker 01

  Somebody took a business model and said, ah, what a great business model. I'm gonna create a multi-billion dollar industry. And we know what that is? Good, yes, Uber. So, we get in a car with a stranger every time that we need a ride. We don't know this person's background. We don't know this person's driving record. We really don't. We trust Uber to put that person in front of us. And not only do we have an Uber, we're hammered, we're drunk. Like, we're calling somebody when we're hammered to drive us from one place to the other, drop us off at our home, and as we're sitting there telling somebody our garage code, because we just feel like that's the right thing to do, because we had too many toddies. So, like, somebody took that, what we were told as a horrible, horrible thing to do, took it and made a business model out of it.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  The second thing is, I always had to, like, tell my parents, like, where I was gonna spend the night, and then their parent had to call my parent to make sure they were gonna be home. Just sleep in my buddy's house next door, you know? Is his parent gonna be home? Long story short, again, a lot of rules. Now we have Airbnb. Nobody knows who's under the bed, who's in the closet, why is the closet locked? You know what I mean? There's all these things when I go into a home, I'm like, there's a lot of questions to be answered here, but we just trust it. Like, there's not somebody under the bed with a knife. And you bring your family in these things. Look, I use both things, so I'm not saying they're bad. But what I am saying is, the stranger danger was turned into a model. And that's why the vision's so important, right? Talk about Amazon, same way. So, the right people plugged into the crazy-ass visions, big-ass visions.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  I want people who want real crap in their life, like, big stuff. And then you gotta put them to work, and that's how we define process as work. And that's the who, what, where, when, why, and how of anything. So every player can ask me, who are we doing it for? What are we doing? Where are we doing it? Why are we doing it? When are we doing it? And how are we doing it? Think about that. When you give somebody instruction, can they ask you those six questions? And can you answer them? Players can walk in here anytime. Coach, why are we doing this? That's exactly right. Here's why. But you have to define those six things of your process. I'll give you an example. Our how, we're Nektons, always attacking, never full. What do we do? We row the boat. Right? That's what we do. Where are we headed? Success. We define success as peace of mind. When are we going to do it? Now.

• 36:47Speaker 01

  The only thing that matters right now is now. Why are we going to do it? Because we're here to teach you responsibility, trust, and belief. So when you start to get through all those six, that's really, really important. So the who, what, where, when, why, and the how. And, and what? The who part is family. Forget about me, I love you. So we're going to respect each other as a family member. And love is sacrifice. So those are the six things that we promote during the process. Okay? So that people, the vision and the process go together to create a result. If you don't like the result, it's just data. Then your how, your vision, and your process are screwed up. Focus on the hype. Focus on going back and fixing that piece. It's not the result's fault. It's not the referee's fault. It's not anything like that.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  And then you got to respond. And we teach our players how to respond. We have body language classes for our players. Our practices are some of the most unique practices in the country. Our players are taught to respond in every area of their life. Academically, politically, socially, spiritually. And we teach them what elite response is. 75% of our communication as human beings is nonverbal. So you better have a lot of body language understanding. And I think that's one thing that we do really, really well here. So that's the hyperculture. I can speak two hours on that. It just kind of gives you a little peel back of the onion. How row the boat fits into the process of what we do every day. Getting everybody aligned in the organization.

• 38:09Ryan Hawk?

  What does tough body language look like? What are the specific things you are teaching your guys on how to respond? Whether it's on the football field, in life? What are some of those body language tips?

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Well, the big thing is at practice, we have a thing called big chest, right? So just standing up straight. So most players, I think that everybody needs to know their responsibility within the organization. So like our trainers need to know when to jump in, when not to jump in. Like our athletic trainers. How can I help our athletic trainers do their job better? Well, if you can see an issue, you might be able to get it faster. Right? Because I never want anybody in my organization to say, never saw it coming. I never want that. And I say you can't prevent everything, but I'm gonna give you an example. So our players are not able to be like this or slumped over. Our players stand up and we say big chest and they've got to be able to pick that chest out, suck all that air in.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Because if you can't hold yourself up, our trainers need to run over to you. Like our trainers need to be able to say, okay, this is something, I'm just gonna go check on this kid. There's all types of things that people have in this underlying type of medical world, right? And we do so many tests, but can't prevent everything. So how can I make that better? How can I make sure that they're trained for every environment not to be defeated when they get bad news? I think that's critical and I'm not saying taking away the emotion from people. I'm just doing everything I trained them not to be emotional. Every type of information that we get in, people love to overreact. There's difference between reaction and response. So response and emotion go together, in my opinion.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  I think you can help take that emotion and train a response culturally that can help somebody's life. I think the real world wants to see you emotional and react. Where it's an outside trained behavior where we just watch and say, okay, when we lose, I'm supposed to not shake hands with the guy at midfield. I'm gonna walk off the field. I'm gonna get in there, we lose, I'm gonna blame the refs. We don't want anybody in our organization blaming, complaining and deflecting. Those are the BCDs that are not allowed. And I think when you have the BCDs, you have a divided culture. I think you have a very emotional team. I think you have a very reactionary team. You have a very like front-running team. And I don't want any of that.

• 40:24Speaker 01

  So I want to train a response in every area of your life that you're more built like a Navy SEAL or a Green Beret. Or if there's something that somebody needs, they're calling upon you because it's above and beyond. I think that's where this word elite comes from, this necton mentality of how we do it. We want it done at an elite level. If you're not going to do it at an elite level, then it's not going to work here. And again, that doesn't equal perfection. I think though that words have power. We have close to 150 words that our players know definitions to, and this isn't a cult, but it's a baseline definition of what words mean. Success is peace of mind. Okay. That's a baseline definition. That can help you in the rest of your life. We are not saying like, hey, success is money only. You know, and that's it. And that's what we're training.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  We're not. We're doing everything we can to take what people are just hearing on the outside and doing everything we can to turn up the volume and let them listen inside and doing everything we can to give substance to all these filters. And I think that's part of our job as educators is to bring substance to the filter. And we're doing everything we can to kind of peel back that onion here.

• 41:31Ryan Hawk?

  One of the things you just mentioned was how you practice. I'd like to have Garen Stokes talk for a second because I know him and Brooke Cups went and watched you for a day and got to talk to you guys and see you practice. And I know from what they told me, it was different. Garen, can you talk with Coach Flick here about what you saw that day? And I'd love to hear more about his philosophy on it.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Coach, spent two days up in Kalamazoo. We've went and watched a ton of people, high level people run practices. Never seen a better one. And 2016, the energy, the lack of wasted time, every human had a role and like thrived in that role, was efficient, super competitive. The kids were like super locked in and talking to each other. Feedback was constant. It was the most intentional practice we've ever seen. How'd you get that?

• 42:17Speaker 01

  I think it goes back to being a player. I was the era of three and a half hour practices. They were boring, man. I got ADD, man. I need to move. I cannot do things for a long time. I need to change it up. I think every team you have to adjust to, I don't think just because you've done it in the past, you can do it with this particular team. I think every team has their own DNA. Every team has their own blueprint and fingerprint, but how you practice should be really consistent. And for us, I wanted to cut all the fat off practice. I watched coaches waste time because they were the coach and I was the player. And it was their stage to be the coach. And I was like, this is awful. And I got bored so much at practice. And I'm like, if I ever ran a

• 42:58Speaker 01

  practice, man, it is going to be the most efficient intentional practice in the world. And I got to work for Greg Shiano and Greg runs a really good practice, too. But I even, I was like, I can still cut more fat off of that. I want to make sure practice is harder than a game. And truly mean that. People always say, well, practice is way harder. Is it? Or are you just saying that? Because the game's hard. Like, let's face it, the game is hard, but there's a lot of breaks in the game. There's TV timeouts, there's a two-minute warning, there's your offense-defense special teams. I mean, you got a streaker running on the field, you got to take time, and you know, you got all this stuff going on these days, right? But I wanted to create a practice where you were trained for everything. And the word nectar is an organism that can flow freely through the water current without

• 43:41Speaker 01

  the water current dictating its behavior. So Navy SEALs call themselves nectar because they can fight in the air, land, and water. It doesn't matter where they go, they can kill you. Okay, so they're going to be the most dominant in anywhere, any environment you put them in. And we don't want the circumstance to ever dictate our behavior. Right? It's like the coffee bean. So we don't want to just go somewhere or walk into something and let that conform. We want it to conform to us. And so the practice, that's how we've designed it. We have a 32-second clock that runs constantly. So every play that we do has to be run within 32 seconds. I don't care if we're on the one side of the field, we're going all the way to the other side of the field. That 32-second clock's already started. People got to get in a huddle, they got to get the play call, coaches got to get the play call, they got to get administered, we got to get moving to the line of scrimmage.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  You are always under the two-minute warning in our practice. And we're constantly creating emotional, mental strain, constant creating some type of physical strain, because I want them to be okay with a 14-play drive. I want them to be okay in the fourth quarter. I want them to be able to thrive in the two-minute drill. I want them to be able to handle all of it. Last year, we had a really, really young team, so we even had to do it to an extreme level. I usually don't practice longer than 95 minutes. And I think when people hear that, they're like, wow, this is fantastic. And I love when recruits come to watch us practice because they're like, I love how you practice. I said, did you? I said, because what you're gonna have to do, you have to do it. It's one thing to watch it and think, this is really exciting.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  And then the first day in our warmup, our dynamic stretch warmup. We've got one kid puking or two kids, they can't even make it through the stretch. Cause it isn't just a stretch. It is a dynamic warmup. But everything we do, I want to be at an elite level. Even the execution of it. And then the game and what you're doing eventually slows down. Because the biggest jump is the last thing I'll say of why we practice the way we practice. The biggest jump in sport, in my opinion, is high school to college, period. Like it isn't even close. You got 17 year olds playing against 24 year olds. That is a grown ass man, that is a grown woman. Then you got kids at 17 and they're competing against each other.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  When you go to the NFL or the NBA, I mean, you're really good. And all you're doing is playing against really other grown women or grown men. And you're all grown, so it doesn't really matter if you're a rookie or if you're an older guy. It's only experience. But when you get to college from high school, it's experience. It's development, it's strength, it's the confidence, it's all of that. And we gotta do everything we can to get the younger guys ready to go as quickly as possible by putting them under that strain. And same with our coaches. I never want any environment to be too big for them. Any call to be too big for them. And the way you can do that is train it. But you gotta train it constantly. Anybody out there is listening, as long as you're not a Badger or a Hawkeye. You are more than welcome to come by anytime and watch our spring practices.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Watch the way we practice. I will say it is unique, but it is designed to be unique. And it's truly meant to be fully educational at the same time. Cause our coaches have to coach. They don't get to manage and observe. They are coaching constantly.

• 46:48Ryan Hawk?

  One of the other things that you and I have talked about is that you are a learner. You're constantly looking to coaches from all sports, from people outside of sports. You're constantly trying to learn, to grow, to improve. I think you went to, was it Texas A&M? And learn with the Green Berets, what happened down there?

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was a leadership group that kind of invited a bunch of head coach, football coaches and some Green Berets, some Navy SEALs, and brought them in Texas A&M for about two to three day seminar. And I thought it was exceptional. Those are the type of things I love to do, even if it's for a day. I don't have a lot of time to do a lot of them, but I'll go to one or two a year or meet with somebody outside my football world. Becky Burley is a really good friend. She used to be the national championship women's soccer coach at Florida. Buzz Williams is now the basketball coach at Maryland, is a very good friend of mine. There's a lot of people, I like those people who know me, I like to talk with. But this one in particular event was unbelievable. And it was about leadership and development and mindset. And I still remember Heather and I were sitting at dinner and you got to sit with,

• 47:50Speaker 01

  so you had a coach and then you had an Army Ranger or a Green Beret or a Navy SEAL at your table. And I'm sitting with this guy and he looks like Sean Connery. So just imagine Sean Connery, right? And he's sitting there across from Heather and I. And the guy's just kind of, he's kind of quiet. He was pretty energetic at lunch. So we were like, you know, this guy's really cool. So we kind of hung out with him because I love Sean Connery. And at dinner, he's a little quiet, just kind of looking around. And I was like, hey, you okay? He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm doing fine. And I still kind of scanned the room like, Heather, something's going on. And I was like, Heather's like, no, no, are you okay? He's like, yeah, I'm fine. I'll just, I'll just tell you what I'm doing. He goes, I'm just kind of looking around the room just to kind of, you know, take everybody in and see the good in all these people. You know, rarely do you ever get to be in a room like this with so many people

• 48:35Speaker 01

  that are of elite status and have that elite mindset. And then I say, the other thing I'm doing is I'm getting a beat on everybody because I've got to have a plan to kill every single one of you. His face is as serious as mine was. And I was like, I didn't know whether to laugh, to say, he's like, yeah, I'm going to go to the restroom. I was like, all right. He just kind of got up and went to the restroom. But I looked at Heather and go, how's he gonna kill us? Like, do we ask him, like, how do you, now, you, you looked us up and down, how, how you gonna get us, you know? Long story short, he never came back to the table. And one of the guys came over and we're like, hey, what happened to, I won't give you his name, but what happened to, you know, Joe? And he goes, oh, he just got called for active duty. He's on his way to Afghanistan or wherever he was going. And mission, this guy's like 50 years old. And I was like, what a badass.

• 49:20Speaker 01

  And I think it gives you kind of the perspective of not only in the football world, but that dude just got called to game day and he better be ready. And he was just hanging out, sitting with us, just chilling. But that mind, it never stops. And when, when you're a coach, and I think if you're an elite coach, one thing that makes us, it's our downfall is we never stop thinking about how we can improve our program or our student athletes. But it's also what makes you really special. And I think same thing when you're dealing with the elite military, they're never stopping thinking about how, if crap goes down, how they're gonna kick in and save everybody. It's the same thing. And the elite of the elite think that way. My wife loves it and hates it at the same time, because I could never relax. If I showed you my notes right now on my phone, it was just from last night.

• 50:03Speaker 01

  We're watching Landman, the last episode, and I'm taking note after note after note of how I'm gonna build this team meeting from Landman. I mean, whether I do it or not, I just took the notes. I've watched, I don't know how many text messages I sent to my coaches watching the AFC and NFC championship games. I don't watch anything for entertainment. I constantly watch it for education. And that's how I think I can relate to my players is whatever's going on, I, see, I'm not on social media. I don't run my social media. I don't have Instagram, I don't have TikTok, I don't have my Twitter, I can dabble here and there with my GM, but I released all that when I wanted a little self peace, because I was tired of every hilter. You know, you have friends out there putting out their relationship that's so good and you know it's horrible. They just sent a tweet out yesterday or whatever, and these people were married and now they're divorced. Like, come on, just give me real.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  You know, and I think that that's where you've got to find cultural ways to always teach lifetime lessons to young people. That's our job as educators. And I think we do that probably better than everybody, including like reading children's books the night before a game. I mean, nobody reads to their team a children's book the night before a game. But the theme of the week, I find a children's book that has to do with it. And you can take education to the simplest form and you will, it's unbelievable how many kids think that's the favorite part when they come back. Like, Coach, I thought it was so corny, it's so stupid, it's so childish when you started doing that, but I get it now.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  For 14 years I've done that. So those are the things I've, you can find teaching and education in everything you're doing, but that disease of success, if you're not careful, will leak into everything and nothing will ever be good enough. So how I've trumped that is I celebrate way more than I've ever celebrated. I have a great bourbon collection. I have a great champagne selection, but I never did that in the past. And then also I never took time for the empathy to stop, pause, and let the pain work its way too. So I do that more than I ever have.

• 51:55Ryan Hawk?

  I love this Coach Cole, the Hall of Famer. She's the reason this whole thing is happening. I'd love for Sherri to have the final question before we take off, Coach.

• 52:03Speaker 03

  Nice pressure, Ryan. Thank you. And Hershon Conry, I shall be ready right here. You spoke a little bit about being a transformational coach in a transactional system now. And you spoke about how you've adapted. And I would just like one or two or three of the specific ways in which you have adapted to try to still be that transformational coach in this transactional system.

• 52:26Speaker 01

  Sure. That's a great question. And thanks for our relationship. And I wouldn't be on here without you. So I'll do anything for you. And you ask me to be on it? Absolutely. I'll do anything for you. So, you know, I think the transformational piece, it has to be authentic and it has to be real. When you look at like how I run our program, I'm still willing to do a lot of things that I think I'm not sure a lot of people are willing to do. I think you've got to really kind of peel back the onion a little bit. I'm like, what's corny, what's not, but really what actually works within our system and what doesn't. But the transformational piece, like we still do, okay, I'll give you an example. Like, we do Gopher for Life program. Okay, so every month, we're doing a class internally. And we do a relationship course. It's called Date Night. Our players bring a date. We

• 53:11Speaker 01

  take them to a great restaurant. We might bring them into the stadium and have this like wedding. It's like, it's a little like a wedding venue. There's a dance floor. There's a band. There's a DJ. We have a dinner etiquette course that night. We get to know their girlfriends or their partners. And our wives come and you're teaching people how to be human beings, how to date in a filtered world. That's transformational, in my opinion. We have a racism class that we take every month. In Minneapolis, I think it's an unbelievable place. I think it gets a really bad reputation based on media of what's going on. But I think it, one thing I love about our city is that when things don't go right, They're willing to put it out there and they're taking a lot of societal issues and saying, okay, here, the buck stops here. And so, you know, when George Floyd was killed

• 53:54Speaker 01

  about five miles from here, our players created what they call the Here Initiative, helping end racism through education. Because George Floyd was killed here, so helping end racism through education. Juhuru Williams, who is from the History Channel, comes in every month and we do a racism education course for about 80 minutes. And he teaches it. And everyone in the organization is required to be there. Because I think everybody locked arms after George Floyd was killed and everybody marched on the streets and every coach and player were together. And then what I thought happened was like racism and like COVID kind of got put in the same bracket. And boom, COVID ended. So, oh, we're not going to talk about racism anymore. That must end it too. Which is farthest from the 400 year history

• 54:34Speaker 01

  of racism in America. So like, I want our players to be the best version of themselves and have incredible empathy for other people. And I'm not saying that we all have to like each other. But we have to respect each other. And I think that's what's being lost in our society. And I think that as a head coach, you have to set that example. And that course, we all take that piece. And I think that's what makes us really, really unique in the transformational world where people don't have time to do that. I'm paying you to be a great player. Be the great player. I could care less what kind of person you are. And I'm not going to spend time and budget and finance to do that. And I'm just willing to do that. So, I think part of the job as a head coach is to develop your coaches. So I do a coaching development series. I have a coach speak every Thursday in front

• 55:18Speaker 01

  of the team on any topic they want to hit on. My job is to develop my coaches to be head coaches, to be coordinators. I don't know how much longer I'm going to do it. I'm not saying I'm retiring tomorrow. But I don't know how much longer I'm going to do it. If I can't give 100, then I'm not going to, I'm not going to do it at all. But I think that that kind of separates it a little bit is the speaking series from what we do. And then I would say the last thing for transformational is like our themes. I do a Purpose 3 for the whole year. Our number one Purpose 3 this year is E Plur Visumum. And it's written on the dollar bill. And it really means connect one, bring people together, become one. And that's what I want this team, this particular team to do. So everything has to fit within those Purpose 3s.

• 56:03Speaker 01

  Once we hit the season, we do an actual theme. And I'll give you an example, like this year, we did, if anybody could see that, Rock and Row. Everything has Row in it and everything has Howe in it. And that's Goldie with like a skull. But that was the logo for the theme of the year. And then we kind of go on tour, right, of all the people. And then what we do each week is we take our opponent. And remember, I gotta find cultural ways to teach lifetime lessons. So I'll take a Rock and Row band. And then we'll study that band. That's the only thing that'll play in practice. And the whole week is studying how that opponent and this band have a lot in common of what we're walking into. And again, transformation will take a lot of thought and a lot of planning, a lot of team meetings to do that.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  But this is an example of like, when they win, Goldie dresses as Bruce Springsteen, but Bruce Howe-steen. See the Howe in there, right? The Howe-steen, so Howe is everywhere. But every week is, this week was Rock and Row, Rock and Row Band. And our second theme that week was Hunt. But you, you take that and it makes players, in a small way, if you can add all those up of like, fun things that they look forward to that subliminally you're doing, that they can't wait to hear what's coming up next. Can't wait to hear what the children's book is. They can't wait to see what the theme is. The greatest thing you'll see in our building is during the season on Sundays, when we come in from the team meeting after a win, they can't wait to pick the colored shirt. It's the talk of the locker room.

• 57:31Speaker 01

  And they get five options. And we put them up there and they're booing, they're cheering for a pink shirt or a teal shirt. We put these wild colors out there. So I think that people are losing, in my opinion, that connection, that fun. What made elementary school different than high school was that connection with your teachers, that connection with your, your coaches, that connection with the people that you were around, with your classmates. And I think that that's what I think people are striving for. And maybe what made Indiana really special this year was that connection and that group of people. And they became a team. And I think that's the biggest thing that I think we strive for every day as leaders of this organization, that we're here to transform it. And my job is to make sure everybody gets better, including coaches.

• 58:16Speaker 01

  And coaching the coaches is a big part of what I do. Empowering them to have that ability to change other people's lives and not running this as a dictatorship. Early in my career, I was a, I ran it that way. We're gonna do it because I said so. And I went one on 11 and that was awful. I mean, I did so many things that were so wrong so early, but thank God I did them and had people around me saying, hey, we gotta get that better. Or hey, if you're doing that, you should probably do this. And those are the mentors in my life. And like I said, that's why I think everybody should have to, have to not have success first because it teaches you so much about what's authentic, what's not, what's real, what's your responsibility, what's other people's responsibility. And last thing I'll leave you with is one of the greatest things I ever learned was a coach's job is to teach and demand. A player's job is prepare and

• 59:01Speaker 01

  perform. And that could be in life, that could be in football, that can be in anything. You know, coaches, we teach, but you better teach truly teaching life, football, sport, relationships. And then there's a demanding part because we're not, we're not asking, we're demanding we get that done because that's the goal we set. And then players' jobs are prepare and perform. Elite teams, players lead, average teams, coaches lead, and, and bad teams, nobody leads. But the elite teams, players lead. And our job is to get as many of those guys as we possibly can to the front of the bus. So yeah, thank you very much, guys, for having me on.

• 59:36Ryan Hawk?

  PJ, this is amazing. Really, really appreciate it. Thanks, everybody, for being here. And yeah, man, I would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress and love to watch one of those practices come up to Minnesota and see it, man.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  You're always welcome, everybody. Roll the boats, guy. Go Gophers. And thanks for having me on.

• 59:51Ryan Hawk?

  Love it, man. Thanks, PJ. See you, guys.

• 59:53Speaker 01

  Bye bye.

• 59:57Ryan Hawk?

  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, [email protected]. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with PJ Fleck. A few takeaways from my notes. Stop recruiting, start selecting. PJ does not chase the highest ranked players. He looks for fit and alignment with his values. Ask yourself, are you trying to convince people to join your team? Or are you selecting people who want to be a part of what you're building? And then efficiency beats duration. PJ runs nine 25 minute practices with a 32 second play clock, always moving, always intense.

• 1:00:40Ryan Hawk?

  The principle, make practice harder than the games, like actually harder than the games. I love that part where he goes, really? Are they really harder? And in his case, they are. Where in your work are you confusing time spent with intensity and focus? It's not about being busy, right? It's about getting it done. And I love how PJ focuses on that. Internal drive is more effective than external motivation. PJ calls his ideal players Nektons, always attacking, never satisfied. He's looking for people who prove their worth to themselves, not to others. If you need constant external motivation, you are not ready to be a part of an elite team. And then a leader must teach and demand.

• 1:01:23Ryan Hawk?

  A player must prepare and perform. These are not opposing forces. They're two sides of the same commitment to excellence. And I love that PJ honors his mentor, Coach Jim Tressel by wearing a tie. And I asked you, who are you honoring through your daily practices? So good. Let's kind of 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 Leadership with PJ Fleck. I think it'll help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that, and you also go to Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and you subscribe to the show and you rate it hopefully five stars and write a thoughtful 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.

• 1:02:08Ryan Hawk?

  Talk to you soon. Can't wait.