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

Full show notes at www. LearningLeader.com https://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.

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  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 ain't going to be easy. Don't let that surprise you and go up every day and go get it.

• 0:24Ryan Hawk?

  This episode is brought to you by Insight Global. Insight Global is a staffing and professional services company dedicated to being the light to the world around them. If you want to learn more about the CEO, Burt Bean, and Chief Revenue Officer, Sam Kaufman, check out episode 424. 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.

• 1:05Ryan Hawk?

  Hiring can be tough, but hiring the right person can be magic. Visit insightglobal.com/learningleader today to learn more. That's insightglobal.com/learningleader.

• 1:21Ryan Hawk?

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

• 2:04Ryan Hawk?

  He was the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma for 17 years. His 2021 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.

• 2:45Ryan Hawk?

  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

• 3:26Ryan Hawk?

  few things and doing them with excellence instead of trying to do 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.

• 3:44Ryan Hawk?

  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?

• 4:13Speaker 00

  Well, you're, 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, I, I would say first, uh, my father was along, was a 30 year high school coach, uh, football. He ran the defense while the head coach ran the offense and say they were together for 30 years, multiple state championships. He was also a head baseball coach. I think more than anything, what I learned watching my father is how he related to players. Players, he could coach them hard, he could do whatever. They loved to play for him. And to me, that's a big deal.

• 4:56Speaker 00

  And I, 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, if you have a strong relationship. And then all my other coaches, of course, I was lucky enough to go to Iowa to play under Hayden Fry. And then not only Hayden Fry on that staff is Bill Snyder, Barry Alvarez, Kirk Ferentz, um, Dan McCarty. These are my, these are my, my guys I came up under and, and as a grad assistant, as a player. And I, so I truly, and the one maybe the best that isn't talked about is Bill Brazier,

• 5:41Speaker 00

  was Hayden Fry's defensive coordinator for 50 some years. And he taught those guys. So anyway, I was, 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 a, he was really a, 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, 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.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  And I think the experience there was, there isn't any wrong or right, but Steve Spurrier is over here and Bill Snyder is 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 that's okay. You know, they both have won, both are Hall of Famers. But I I thought my personality was more like Coach Spurrier's. So it allowed me going in to be the head coach and 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.

• 7:06Ryan Hawk?

  What do you mean by that? Your personality is like Spurrier. How would you describe that personality?

• 7:11Speaker 00

  I don't know how to how to explain it. More a little more casual, a little more, but but listen, but make no means you've seen Coach Spurrier. 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 freelancing, a little more, uh. You know, he's just a little more relaxed. And you know, that kind of thing. I don't know how to, you know, again, none of them are. There's no positive either way. It's just, it was more me.

• 7:49Ryan Hawk?

  It feels to me like those are great examples of the fact that there isn't one prescribed way to do it.

• 7:57Speaker 00

  Exactly right.

• 7:58Ryan Hawk?

  What is important, it feels is, and I know this as a player, I talk with my brother about this all the time. You got to be authentically you as a coach. Players sniff that out instantly. If you are trying to be somebody else, and I think that's also that it goes for leadership outside of the sporting world as well as. Yes, you want to learn from the greats like you've been around, but you got to figure out your own voice and your own style and your own personality. And if you're trying to be somebody else, I rarely if ever have seen that work.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  You're you're absolutely correct. You cannot be who you are not. You can't be somebody else and you can not fool a locker room. You cannot fool players and or other coaches. It's it's too authentic. People, you know, people sniff a rat in a heartbeat. So, you know, the locker room guys, and again, your staff even, they know when you're, you know, putting something on. And I've never tried to. You, you have to be who you are, be authentic. Um, no, and then there are certain principles of what you gotta do to make it right. But anyway, yes, you're, you're totally correct that you cannot, you know, you can't be who you're not.

• 9:14Ryan Hawk?

  Never, no. One of the things you mentioned about what made your dad so good, as a fellow Ohioan here, so I have a kinship with Ohio High School Football's 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 Sherri Cole, I said, Sherri, what is something about Coach Stoops that you know that I can't find on the internet? Because she knows I'm gonna 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

• 9:59Ryan Hawk?

  different things going on, but she told me when you're in the room with him, or when you're talking with him, he makes you feel like you're the most important thing in the world to him. And maybe this just comes natural to you, or maybe you got it from your dad, I'm curious. But when you hear that as a compliment given to you, what do you think of that?

• 10:17Speaker 00

  Well, that's awful kind of Sherri. She's, 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 Sherri, and I always had time to visit with softball recruits, gymnastic recruits, basketball recruits,

• 10:59Speaker 00

  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, my father was that way. Relating to people is a big deal and, and in fitting, you know, and to me, that was it.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  I, I felt my players would do anything for me because I genuinely cared about every one of them. And when you do, and they know that because you can't fake it like we talked. They're going to do about anything, you know, you ask them to do and do it happily. And so anyhow, but I, I appreciate Sherri saying that because again, it was my job to be a big part of this university. And to help any of them that I could or be a part of it. And I was lucky, we had a bunch of great coaches like Sherri and Patty Gasso, our softball coach. And I could go on and on, our gymnastic coaches are incredible. And anyhow, so it, it was, it was fun to be a part of that.

• 12:20Ryan Hawk?

  Hmm. You make it sound like it's normal to do that. I don't know. I've never been a college football head coach. But is that a normal thing for the football head coach to be making, especially in season? When every second is important to be preparing to win the game because you know, if you don't win, they'll run you out of town quickly. So you gotta win. That's just the way college sports, especially football is. And a place like Oklahoma where their fans are very passionate. But to make time for other sports to be an ambassador for Oklahoma seems really cool of you to do. But how normal is that in college athletics?

• 12:54Speaker 00

  I don't, I don't know what other people do. I, I can't say, but I found it. If I'm not ready by noon on Friday, the day before the game, I haven't done my job. So point being, it was the day, 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 the sideline ahead of warming up to the spectacle of OU football. They'd be there for the games on Saturday. So I found it fairly easy by noon, somewhere around noon Friday, or might've been in the early afternoon.

• 13:31Speaker 00

  To carve out an hour, hour and a half to, hey, let's meet, take pictures with these people, show them around a little bit. And I didn't feel it was that hard. I mean, again, if you're, you're not prepared by that point, you haven't done your job.

• 13:45Ryan Hawk?

  One of the other things, and you briefly mentioned this, is that you have created quite a coaching forest. I'm not even gonna 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, your brother, Mark Mangino, Mike Leach, Bo Pelini, Kevin Sumlin, Kevin Wilson, Lincoln Riley, and many, many more.

• 14:09Speaker 00

  Chuck Long.

• 14:10Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah, so many great ones, great ones, right, that are out there. I'm curious, how have you been so good at one, selecting high caliber coaches, then developing them to become head coaches in their own right?

• 14:25Speaker 00

  Well, I don't, 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. Then 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.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  But you know what? That's going to be good for 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, and football is the ultimate team game, there isn't anybody doing it by theirself. You got to be surrounded by good people, each side of the ball, and special teams, and players, coaches, everything, and. And again, if I did anything right, I hired really good people.

• 15:48Ryan Hawk?

  Well, let's, Coach, let's drill down on that because this also has application far beyond the football field or football team. Cause leaders, that's, I think, maybe the most important thing they're going to do is choosing the people to surround themselves with. And 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, like stuff like that. Like, how do you figure that out on the front end? Cause it's easy now to look back and say, oh yeah, all these guys are great. It was obvious.

• 16:30Ryan Hawk?

  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?

• 16:46Speaker 00

  I'll give you two really good examples because some of the guys I hired, when I first got on, I hired Mark Mangino, Brent Venables, Mike Stoops. Well, I'd worked with them at Kansas State. So I know what I'm getting. That, that's easy. When you know how someone works and how good they are. Kevin Wilson, I did not know when I hired Kevin Wilson. And, but I hired him after his time at Northwestern. And here's a guy that was really doing well, having great success at Northwestern, um, and under really good people. And I thought, well, you know, if he can do it at Northwestern, I'm, we're going to have hopefully better players and he's going to do a great job here. I also

• 17:28Speaker 00

  hired Lincoln Riley. When I hired Lincoln, I, 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 passing. 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, were all in the Mike Leach tree. And you know, Mike Leach was the first guy I hired. I did not know Mike. Another example of, I knew from playing against Kentucky, they gave me the biggest headache of anyone at Florida that I'd went against as a D coordinator.

• 18:09Speaker 00

  So I hired Mike. And now here I am, down the road, 17 years, and I need another offensive coordinator, and here's a list of coaches that come from the Leach tree, 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, um...

• 18:44Ryan Hawk?

  Dykes?

• 18:45Speaker 00

  Sonny, not Dykes, he was at Cal at the time, he's on the tree though. Sonny, I'll think of his name. And then, and then I had Lincoln Riley. So I'm like, alright, I bring two of them in, and Lincoln. So, but, point being, now I bring them in, so I like what they did. They have proven success, not for one year, but for multiple years. And that's what I was looking at. When I hired Mike Leach, proven success, multiple years. Kevin Wilson at Northwestern, proven success, multiple years. 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 interview, to me, you gotta, I want to see what a guy's

• 19:29Speaker 00

  like. Can I be around him 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, and he figured he didn't get the job. And I called him the next day. I always, I always sleep on it, you know, and then sure enough, he, 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 it's been consistent and can I stand in front of that guy and he's a leader? And when I talk to him, he talks back to me. I know he can look a team in the eye in front of them and lead them.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  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.

• 20:21Ryan Hawk?

  What is it like in that room? Is it more conversational? Do you have them up on the board?

• 20:26Speaker 00

  I'm not a big interview guy. I don't I don't have a lot of questions. I want to see how a guy goes to lunch, how he talks to the waiter, how he talks to my secretary, how when I look at him and he talks back to me, looking me in the eye. 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.

• 20:48Ryan Hawk?

  So it's really about, okay, the table stakes are track record of success over more than just a year or two. And then the second part is, I just need to hang with the guy and I want him to be around other people in addition to me. I want to see how he treats people. So it's like that kind of the character stuff. And so I know he's got the track record of success and then I get a feel for what he's like as a person. And then you go with your guy.

• 21:14Speaker 00

  I mean, do I want to be around them every day? So we're a lot of, we're up there a long time. I'll tell you a funny story. Steve Spurrier called me. I didn't know Coach Spurrier from the man in the moon. I was at Kansas State. He needs a new D coordinator. Jeremy Foley, his athletic director goes, guess who the number one defense is in America? And we were number one in total defense and number two in scoring defense. And he puts it down and he's it's Kansas State. So he says, you know what? That's a good idea. I'm 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 to start their program.

• 21:56Speaker 00

  But then Steve Spurrier, Coach Spurrier calls me out of the blue. And I at first I thought it was one of my buddies pulling a prank on me. I don't know Steve Spurrier. There's no way he's calling me. And I didn't even know they had a coordinator job open. 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, 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,

• 22:37Speaker 00

  go visit with him and to see him and the staff. And, and it was great. And, but it's, that was the gist though. You know, don't, don't you think we ought to make sure we could get along or this is going to be okay? 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 with us, right? I said, oh yeah, coach, I'll have, I'll have more than one. And so he goes, oh, we're, we'll get along good then. So that's just the point being, you know, uh, the personalities mesh.

• 23:09Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah. I think sometimes this stuff gets over complicated, you know, coach. And I like, it's refreshing to hear that you really had this, this mentality of yes, they've proven they can do it. And, and, 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 at 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 from 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?

• 23:41Speaker 00

  Absolutely. And, and that, cause that matters. Character integrity, all the things, uh, you're going to be with someone, your job, your family's lives depend on it. You, you want to be with people with high character. And I'll be honest, I, I tell my coaches different times, you intentionally cheat or you're a, 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. It, that doesn't matter because eventually, you know, it's, it's going to reflect on you or the program.

• 24:13Ryan Hawk?

  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?

• 24:20Speaker 00

  Well, I've, I, 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, you just feel you need something different to, to change and to get, get something new going.

• 24:37Ryan Hawk?

  You said earlier that you like to hire assistant coaches that are one, smarter than you, which I think is, it's similar to like what Mark Zuckerberg calls.

• 24:45Speaker 00

  Which isn't hard to do.

• 24:49Ryan Hawk?

  I don't think that's true, but I'll, I'll keep going. But hire their smart of 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?

• 25:06Speaker 00

  Well, I, I think a number of things. I think first how they relate to people. You know, and how they can motivate and, and get their point across, you know, influence people to do, explain what they want them to do in a clear path and a clear way. Where there isn't any indecision, someone who is decisive in, in what they do, because I don't, I don't ever think there's one way to do something. But whatever you do, it be decisive about it. Cause then people are going to follow it and believe in it. Then 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, to present it.

• 25:50Speaker 00

  Being able to be decisive and, 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 the smartest guy in the room and you don't connect with anybody. There isn't anybody going to follow you. There are very few people, you know, but people that connect and, and know you 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 gotta be able to motivate people and, and to be, uh, to be that gathering point that everyone believes in what your vision is.

• 26:29Ryan Hawk?

  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 NIL stuff right now. I just want to talk about how you decide which players to, to bring to your team. Certainly you can just say, let's just get all the five star guys or whatever, but I feel like the type of player that played at Oklahoma, especially for you. Seemed like a lot of high-character guys. I wasn't there. I don't know that, but I'm curious. When you were looking to recruit a player, they obviously need to be good. It helps if they're fast and big and can catch and run and tackle, right? All that stuff. But beyond those skills, what were you looking for in a player to recruit to come be part of your team?

• 27:09Speaker 00

  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 and but you can't replace guys that just love the game, you know? And then I, I always was pretty emphatic that we're at a state of Oklahoma. We're not a big pop, a very populated state. Let's make sure we give every kid in the state of Oklahoma a chance first. Of course, through the years, we may have missed some, but I could, 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

• 27:48Speaker 00

  mistake, at least it was here. When I can remember, first-team All-American DN Dan Cody. Well, he was a tall, skinny guy, but you 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 was going to play, so none of those coaches wanted to offer up one of their scholarships. Finally, I said, I don't care. I said, we're offering him. I said, he's going to play somewhere. And he was a tremendous player for us for four years. And point being, that's just an example. He's an in-state guy. I'm not going to play against him, hopefully somewhere else. And he'll play

• 28:33Speaker 00

  somewhere. Don't worry about it. And I had, I had to make some executive decisions once in a while, like, no, I'm offering him. That's just an example, though. But it 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.

• 29:00Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 29:00Speaker 00

  And we didn't always win, but it wasn't because of that.

• 29:05Ryan Hawk?

  How do you know if somebody has that from just watching film? Cause you can't get in the room with everybody. I mean, we talk to their coaches.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  I can't say that we didn't make a mistake here or there. I mean, it's, yeah, I don't know. Just visiting with them, getting to know them, you know, talking to their coaches, you know, their coaches in high school or junior college, whatever it might've been. And, but then you see it on tape to some degree too. But coaches, assistant coaches and high school coaches can tell you a lot too about, oh, this guy, you know, they, they know what he's like, what kind of leader is on the team.

• 29:40Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah. Coach, I was reading a story about Jeremiah Smith recently. He's that stud freshman receiver at Ohio State, just an amazing player. And after they, they beat Tennessee, or I think it was leading up to that game, actually, he went to his receivers coach, Brian Hartline, who's a great coach, and he said, I, I want you to coach me harder. I, 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 hard. 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

• 30:25Ryan Hawk?

  wanted to be coached. They wanted to get better. Can you talk to me more about your, some of the greatest players that you've coached and their desire to be coached hard?

• 30:35Speaker 00

  The easiest one to talk about is Adrian Peterson. He's out of high school, is as talented as anybody I've ever seen. He walked on campus and won every sprint, won every conditioning drill. I mean, I, 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, what? 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, 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, that, that they weren't gonna, and we did. And he, but man, he.

• 31:19Speaker 00

  Any conditioning drill we might do after practice, summertime, whatever. I remember Alan Patrick, one of our other running backs, every now and then we'd try and sneak up on him. I'm gonna beat him this one time. Adrian would see him or feel him and boom, he'd just turn it on some more. And 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 and we would promote that recruiting. Say, look, if you're looking for it easy, this isn't your place.

• 32:02Speaker 00

  And our guys would tell them that on recruiting this, like, well, no, we get after it. And and if you you're looking for a country club atmosphere, this isn't you. And and we 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.

• 32:24Ryan Hawk?

  I think that work done when nobody sees it.

• 32:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 32:29Ryan Hawk?

  Is what 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-10s or half gas, whatever you're gonna do, that's when teams are really forged.

• 32:55Speaker 00

  Well, that's what we felt. We felt like we had outworked everybody, so we deserved to win.

• 33:00Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 33:01Speaker 00

  And that was kind of what we built our mentality on early on. That, you know, because we had, 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. And 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 to win. We've worked too damn hard not to win. I'm sure there's someone may have outworked us here or there, but we didn't think so. It was like, you know what? We deserve to win. We've worked hard for this and we're gonna win. And that was the attitude. And then

• 33:41Speaker 00

  year two, we go undefeated and, and those guys, they had earned it. Like, no, man, we were, this is our time. You know, we've worked too hard for this, not to finish it.

• 33:52Ryan Hawk?

  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, what was special and unique about that team?

• 34:04Speaker 00

  Their attitude. They were tired of being kicked around. We had a bunch of older guys that had been 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 gonna 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 Switzer eras and this is, and then, 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.

• 34:49Speaker 00

  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?

• 35:02Ryan Hawk?

  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

• 35:43Ryan Hawk?

  Keep the standards 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?

• 36:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, it's always the best. Yeah. When you, when you have players that, that are your top dogs, that nobody's going to mess 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, that was by them. We had a bunch of really great leaders. The, you know, the Torrance Marshals, Rocky Kalmis, Roy Williams, Trent Smith, Josh Heiple, for goodness sakes. He was our leader on offense, you know, along with a few other guys, Trent Smith and some other older O linemen. So now those guys, they had the pulse of the team. And that's

• 36:45Speaker 00

  when you know you're really getting somewhere.

• 36:48Ryan Hawk?

  What do you think of Heiple now as a head coach at Tennessee? Did you see that in him when he was your quarterback?

• 36:52Speaker 00

  Oh, sure. He's a, 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 headed that at Central Florida. So no, I'm glad he's done so well. And yeah, he was our true, you know, our, our big time leader, of course, in 2099 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. Cause he started. He came in year one,

• 37:34Speaker 00

  Mike Leach wanted Josh. That was his pick. I trusted Mike. This is who he wants to get us started. And he, 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's, he'd be the most valuable recruit that I ever signed.

• 37:53Ryan Hawk?

  Mike Leach is quite a character, Coach. Uh, 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.

• 38:06Speaker 00

  No, he, he, he was genuinely that. Uh, just watch all his crazy interviews and in front of the podium. And he was truly just a, a natural character. Uh, easy guy to be around, really a peaceful guy. I, Mike, I, I love Mike. Now it's, it's sad, but just, but truly that, 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.

• 38:44Speaker 00

  I mean, he was so bright, he could go off on tangents, which we've all seen. But when you, 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, or there're gonna 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, you wouldn't see that.

• 39:21Ryan Hawk?

  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 little, what?

• 39:45Speaker 00

  They're not.

• 39:46Ryan Hawk?

  What do you mean?

• 39:47Speaker 00

  It's the whole sheet and sometimes part of the back and they just fold them.

• 39:53Ryan Hawk?

  Okay, so like when I look, watch them though, they, they look like they have just this tiny little piece of paper in their hands.

• 39:58Speaker 00

  Situation, if you look close, they'll, it'll be that, but then they'll flip it over and it's like for third downs.

• 40:06Ryan Hawk?

  So they just don't want to have the big like Sean Payton.

• 40:09Speaker 00

  Their specialty plays, they know where they're at. It's, it's, it's, it's a little bit of a Rubik's Cube.

• 40:16Ryan Hawk?

  Oh, I was like, why do they do?

• 40:18Speaker 00

  You're right.

• 40:18Ryan Hawk?

  Why do they do it that way?

• 40:19Speaker 00

  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.

• 40:27Ryan Hawk?

  They just like to have a small folded up piece of paper in their hand?

• 40:31Speaker 00

  Rather than, you know, why not? And they know how to find what they're looking for.

• 40:35Ryan Hawk?

  Okay. All right. Okay. Cause I was gonna say most.

• 40:38Speaker 00

  Don't get me wrong. They're, 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.

• 40:49Ryan Hawk?

  Okay. Okay. It just looks different when I watched them versus like I was just watching Sean Payton. He's got this giant, like most offensive coordinators, giant laminated thing that has a thousand plays on it. I would probably get lost on that thing.

• 41:04Speaker 00

  Well, they're, they're very good though at not having too many. They're, that's where too, that tree of coaches, they're, they're smart about that. Like first year with, with, with Mike Leach, man, Gino wants to put in this play, that play, whatever. And Mike goes, that's fine, but which one you getting rid of? In other words, he's not having too many plays. And he, Mike was big on what we do. We don't do what everyone else does. In other words, he'd say, well, this is a really good play. He would agree. He'd go, you know what? That's a hell of a play, but we're not running it. So he was, he knew what we did and that was it.

• 41:44Ryan Hawk?

  I think there's a learning there though is and you correct me if I'm wrong.

• 41:48Speaker 00

  Know who you are.

• 41:50Ryan Hawk?

  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 gotta do to confuse the defense a little bit. But it's about getting excellent at what we do, not trying to do everything.

• 42:15Speaker 00

  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 not going to sit up at night trying to dream up another play. We're just going to run these better than you can deal with them.

• 42:35Ryan Hawk?

  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. You're MVP of your team as a player in college. It seems like all of this has worked over decades worth of your life.

• 43:19Speaker 00

  I've been, like I said, I've been incredibly lucky, fortunate, all the breaks in my life. Maybe the biggest break, you 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 had a winning year and, and probably 16, 17 years. So if not, so anyway, and then it's led, I've 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 coaches well, to my, my administration, I've related to my players, you know, and yeah.

• 44:02Speaker 00

  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 can be tough.

• 44:11Ryan Hawk?

  One of the other people that you've surrounded yourself with that Sherri Cole told me about was your wife. And she said that Carol was like an amazingly successful Mary Kay National Sales Director. 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 wanted to improve everything. Like, I'm curious about that.

• 44:34Speaker 00

  No, she was amazing. 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, what 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 one day and she was gonna quit and she was gonna be a Mary Kay Director. I went, oh, timeout here. I was still in my first couple of 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

• 45:16Speaker 00

  or two and did both. And then she it just kept getting better and better and earned a car. She earned a car for probably 18 years.

• 45:25Ryan Hawk?

  The pink Cadillac, right?

• 45:27Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. So

• 45:27Ryan Hawk?

  That's awesome.

• 45:28Speaker 00

  On a assistant coach's budget, it was fantastic. Anyway, and then 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, she 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

• 46:11Speaker 00

  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 kinda, you know, so she did an amazing job with little kids, big job. And then I'm, I'm gone a lot or even at the office. We don't have nine to five jobs. So she managed it really well.

• 46:37Ryan Hawk?

  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?

• 46:54Speaker 00

  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, it isn't anything worthwhile isn't going to be given to you, or at least usually not. And you gotta, you gotta be willing and ready to fight for it in the proper ways is what I'm saying. And, you know, it's usually it ain't gonna be easy. Don't, don't let that surprise you. And go up every day and go get it.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  I met my son played at OU. I tell him every day, I said, hey, son, I said, look forward to the fight and enjoy it and play hard. You know, that, that was it, you know, play.

• 47:46Ryan Hawk?

  Great player. Man, he's a great player.

• 47:48Speaker 00

  Oh, thank you. He's done a good job. And, but yeah, I mean, playing hard, that, that, that equates to everything. You know, you, you gotta go, you gotta go earn it in business world or whatever you're doing.

• 48:01Ryan Hawk?

  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 gotta have those guys.

• 48:13Speaker 00

  No, no doubt. No doubt.

• 48:15Ryan Hawk?

  Coach, this is awesome. And I, 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, 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 Matthew Conahay conversation you had recently.

• 48:31Speaker 00

  That I didn't record. I thought I did, and it, some reason it didn't. But yeah, just go to the, your app store, the Bob Stoops app. It's free. It's right there on your, 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 videos through, through the last couple of years that are on there. Anyway, like I said, it's, it's free to download.

• 49:02Ryan Hawk?

  Love it. Well, thank you, Coach. I really appreciate this and I'd love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man.

• 49:07Speaker 00

  All right, Ryan, all the best. And yeah, you, you keep going to get it. It sounds like you're doing it.

• 49:13Ryan Hawk?

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 49:18Ryan 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 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 them. He

• 50:00Ryan Hawk?

  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

• 50:43Ryan Hawk?

  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 in the simplicity with how he's built his program. And obviously,

• 51:24Ryan Hawk?

  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 Podcasts and Spotify and you subscribe to the show, and you rate it hopefully five stars, and you 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. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.