Posted on Feb 09, 2022
We had our first chance to interact with CSU’s new head football coach (and the first Black head coach in the history of the school), Jay Norvell, at our in-person meeting on February 9.  After introduction by Dave Stewart and CSU Athletic Director Joe Parker, Coach Norvell gave a brief summary of his own history and then launched into a detailed discussion of his coaching philosophy, his goals for the team, and his goals for the young men who would be on the team. 
Coach Norvell grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, and his connection with the University of Wisconsin football team through his father gave him an early appreciation of the connection and interaction between a college and its surrounding city.  He played football in college at the University of Iowa.  This was followed by 30 years of coaching including  a number of colleges as well as six years coaching in the NFL.  He is proud to be at CSU and is looking forward to establishing a high-quality and successful football program here. 
 
In putting together a program, he has several bounding principles.  Have only a few rules, but live by them.  He wants the team, including both players and staff, to form a family or brotherhood.  And he insists that everyone treats everyone else with respect – wants the team to be gentlemen.  Everyone on the team should be 100% accountable for their actions.  Quoting one of his early coaches, you don’t have to get ready if you stay ready. 
 
From his players, he expects old-fashioned hustle and “grit”, which he defines as passion plus perseverance – play when you don’t feel good, do something hard and follow through.  You can’t start over when things don’t go your way.  Never give up! 
 
As for his actions with the team, he gave extensive commentary on the activities for the eight-week winter training period where he seems to focus more on leadership than on technical football skills.  Every week focuses on a different leadership lesson, emphasizing things that are most important for leadership.  He believes that leadership is a learned behavior and he teaches and then provides opportunities for leadership practice. He will take some of the team members and explain to them why they will be doing certain things and then expects them to exercise leadership by going to the rest of the team and explaining to the rest of the team.  He wants them to be comfortable with the idea that, although they may not want to rock the boat, they have to care about the team rather than their budy’s feelings. 
 
For the winter, the weekly schedule includes Thursdays off but full-day practice on Saturdays – so the players have to go to bed on Friday evenings.  The Saturdays focus on some sort of military challenge: do long periods of rope challenges; run 500 meter races (longer than 400 m); play basketball so the coaches can see how the players work together; go on a long hike followed by more typical training and competitions. 
 
He tries to teach a combination of humility and pride.  As an example, when he saw that the players were leaving the varsity locker room messy, he moved the team to the smaller and less luxurious junior varsity locker room to teach them to appreciate the quality of the room that they have.  A locker room should look like a championship locker room – and now the JV locker room is spotless.  A locker room and a team bus should be cleaner when they leave than it was when they arrived.  Overall, it’s the little things that winners do. 
 
On the field, he wants to focus on advancing the ball on offense – throw deep.  He wants big people (big receivers, big linemen) since big people generally beat up on little people.  On defense, keep the other team from scoring.  And special teams commonly make the difference so the best players will play there the most. 
 
Spring training begins in April with a kickoff on April 23 where kids will be able to participate.  Presumably the kids on the field will enhance to connection between team, school, and society.  After camp this summer, the first game will be on September 3 in Ann Arbor, MI – which should be a real test. 
 
Questions: 
Does your leadership curriculum include any focus on active listening?  Coach Norvell started by pointing out that the letters that make up the word “listen” can also make up the word “silent”.  Listening is a part of accountability – everyone is valuable and everyone has to understand and do his job.  Leadership goes way beyond football and requires that everyone pay attention in meetings.  There are no phones allowed at meals so the team members are forced to interact with each other and have some time to reflect. 
 
What kind of focus do you have on academics?  The team/school provides a framework to assist team members in focusing on academic achievement and graduating.  At his previous school, the team had a team average of 3.1. 
 
What about retention and recruiting?  He admits that is a big question.  On the one hand, the Transfer Portal rules allow a player to change schools one time with the only requirement that he clear it through the Compliance Department.  On the other hand, twelve of the players from his previous school have used the Transfer Portal to move to CSU, implying that he and his coaching staff will minimize the possible retention problems.  As far as the “name, image, likeness” rules are concerned, they (like most programs) are still studying the implications and looking for the right balance for the program and the athletes.  What is best for the players as well as for the institution?  Clearly, all programs will have to adjust to this new reality or fail.