by Pete Carroll
When we recruited players, we always made a point of explaining that our goal was not to make them Heisman Trophy winners or All-Americans. We didn’t promise trophies, titles, or even that they would start—much less play. As coaches, we would create opportunities for them to show their value and worth to the team and perhaps earn a starting position. What we did promise at USC, and will continue to do so at the Seahawks, is that all players, be they freshmen or rookies, seniors or veterans, would be given an equal opportunity to compete for a spot right away. That wasn’t a sales pitch—it was the truth.
By being open-minded that first-year players could help us win, instead of thinking that they would get us beat, we felt we created an advantage at USC. Most personnel guys in the NFL think that playing rookies is the last thing a coach would want to do. But when I arrived at USC as the head coach and the man responsible for our personnel, I quickly altered my perspective on prospects.
In fact, we began to rely on freshman playing a significant role immediately. We discovered that their game experience contributed not only to early-season victories, but also provided depth and production late in the season. It’s probably no coincidence that USC went undefeated in November for eight consecutive seasons.
There is probably no better example of someone contributing from the outset than former Trojan Reggie Bush. It’s amazing that it took us so long to decide to offer Reggie a scholarship because his film was so unusual that we couldn’t really tell what sort of player he would turn out to be. When I’m looking at prospects, the most important things I’m looking for are competitive will and love of the game. It was obvious Reggie had extraordinary talent, but it was his desire to separate from the crowd to be special that we questioned.
With Reggie, it was just so easy for him in high school that it was hard to tell. I must have watched his high school film thirty times, and time after time he was jogging into the end zone with no one else in the frame. I remember during one of our recruiting meetings I learned that his high school quarterback was Alex Smith, who would go to play at Utah and eventually be selected by the 49ers, as the first overall pick of the 2005 NFL draft. For all the times I studied those tapes before making a decision, I had never noticed Alex—I just couldn’t take my eyes off Reggie. He was just so fast. Once we got him to USC, it only took a few minutes into the first practice to see that he was going to be a great contributor, but until we knew that, we could only hope that in addition to his extraordinary talent, he had that competitive drive. He did, of course—in a tremendous way, as he left USC with a Heisman Trophy and as an All-American, and this past season helped the New Orleans Saints become Super Bowl champions.
It’s a common misconception that coaches dislike hitting the recruiting trail, traveling around the country, and driving from high school to high school. The truth? Some like it and some don’t. Before I went back to college football, other coaches told me that recruiting was a burden. However, for me recruiting was just another way to compete. Once again the philosophy came through as we found ourselves immersed in just another competitive arena. We found ourselves in a “relentless pursuit of a competitive edge” in recruiting and it took us right back to our central theme of competition. This was not only a perfect extension of everything we were trying to do at USC, but also a great job by the recruiting coordinators I was able to work with, Ed Orgeron, Lane Kiffin, and Brennan, my oldest son. Our recruiting classes were at or near the top for eight straight seasons, and that is a credit to our entire coaching staff.
Recruiting was our chance to meet the players who would become the lifeblood of our program. It was as important as anything we did. As we would build our team each off-season, there was nothing more exciting than meeting the families and coaches of our prospects. USC offered a unique situation, as we were able to recruit some of the most talented athletes in America. What was even more exciting was that we felt that each freshman truly had a chance to play for us in the fall.
The recruiting process has accelerated and intensified in recent years, due in part to the Internet and the increased media attention paid to promising high school players. These developments—and the sometimes sensible, sometimes not-so-sensible rules that have been put in place to protect recruits or promote prospects—have altered the rhythm of the process and made it all more formal. The fundamentals of what we were looking for remained the same, and they always would, as skills and talent were just the beginning of the process, but surely not the end. They may have been enough to bring you into our selection process, but if that was all you had to offer, that process was going to be a short one. We needed something additional on top of that, something that would translate into an uncommonly competitive performer.
Every year at USC, we would recruit the most talented high school players in the country—kids with exceptional raw abilities, who were also being recruited by most other major football programs. You wouldn’t really think that confidence would be a problem, but in fact, we found that this was a very important issue. I don’t care how much of a star you had been in high school or how much raw talent you might have; coming to the USC football program was like getting dropped into the deep end of the pool. Virtually every member of the team possessed equal or greater talent, and certainly the older players had more experience. Not every recruit was equipped to handle this situation, so we looked for players who showed the kind of fortitude it took to compete at a college program already filled with topflight athletes.
This isn’t just a football thing—it’s a dynamic that leaders have to learn to manage in any organization that recruits the best to work alongside the best. Not only were we watching out for the younger players and nurturing their confidence, but we also needed to continually support and challenge the veterans. We knew we were walking a fine line in creating this competitive culture.
My favorite part of recruiting at USC was sitting in a player’s living room, learning about his family and how he was raised. It was extremely important for me to meet our recruits’ families, but even more important was that a recruit’s family had a chance to meet our staff and me. After all, they would be sending their son to Los Angeles, sometimes far away from home in Florida, New Jersey, or Texas, with the trust that I would care for him as if he were my own child.
On National Signing Day, when we would add twenty or so top recruits to our program, we had a team meeting where we showed a highlight film of those incoming freshmen to our returning players. I reminded them that our staff had told those young players being featured on the big screen that they would be getting a fair shot from the moment they stepped on campus to compete for a starting position. It was a fun meeting, as the players suddenly became expert analysts, critiquing the incoming players who, more than likely, would be going after their spot. It was a blast to observe this meeting, as we were sure to remind the veterans that they had been told exactly the same thing when they had arrived on campus. It proved to our entire team that there was always an opportunity for every player to compete.
Our players knew that the only way to earn the right to be on the field was by competing for it, and they also knew that we would respond accordingly. When a recruit arrived as a freshman, we respected the effort he had put into his preparation to be there. We were far more wary of setting expectations too low than of setting them too high, and by placing great expectations on our student-athletes, our coaching staff had the belief they could field a championship team year after year.
17
MAKING IT FUN
I will be the first to admit that the coaching profession is demanding and the pressure is real. However, this is the job and the life we coaches have chosen, so how we deal with it is up to us. We can live the experience any way we choose. My choice is to take on the challenges and all that accompanies coaching and find the enjoyment and the fun whenever possible. It is my guess that most observers, even though they often see a grim expression on the faces of the coaches on the sidelines, would think
that those same coaches have a great job and would give anything to have that opportunity. Well, I agree—I think coaching is a great job and I feel fortunate to be in such a position. To me the best thing in the world is to play the game, but when your playing days are over, the next best thing is to be right there coaching. I see the opportunity to coach as a blessing and it is my goal to enjoy it.
Anyone close to me knows I am always looking for the fun in everything I do, and I have always been that way. As a head coach, I feel the responsibility of making the working environment for the staff and the players an enjoyable one. The celebrations in a victorious locker room are the most fun of all. However, there are not enough games and victories to match the enormous amount of time we spend preparing for those winning moments, so we seize opportunities to have fun whenever we can find them. One example of seizing the moment happened in practice this past season on a rare rain-swept day in southern California.
It was “Competition Tuesday” and practice had ended with the offense and defense tied. We didn’t have ties on Competition Tuesday—someone won and someone lost, period. Typically, what I did in a situation like that was just add one more play to the practice script and let our players settle the score on the field, but that day I felt like changing things up. It was pouring rain, somewhat uncommon in southern California, so instead of having one final play to determine that day’s winner I decided to have Pat Ruel, our offensive line coach, and Jethro Franklin, our defensive line coach, go up against each other to determine who would prevail that day.
Our players created two lines, one with the offense and one with the defense, an either side of the largest puddle we could find. Whichever coach dove and slid the farthest through that puddle would earn the win for his side. As the players chanted back and forth, Pat and Jethro started to jaw as only O-line and D-line coaches can. Pat went first and slid about twenty yards. Jethro followed and, believe it or not, slid to the same exact spot! We couldn’t end in a tie, so the coaches had to slide again. This time, Jethro edged out Pat by two feet. The defense went wild and as you might imagine, Pat was not very happy.
Our coaches at USC were very serious about teaching the game of football, but like that teacher you can remember who made class fun in high school, our coaches made sure our learning environment was fun too. They wanted to create a setting in their meeting rooms that the players looked forward to, and that was enormously critical to our success. We wanted the learning environment to always be alive and engaging, and we wanted our learners to arrive each day anticipating what might happen next. We did things just to keep it fresh. Part of our job as teachers is to entertain and surprise our students. Remember, the idea is to keep them fascinated with what’s going on, so they keep coming back, wondering what will happen next.
Depending on who you are and what kind of organization you are a part of, there are a million different ways to create moments to uplift the atmosphere around your workplace. You will not be successful with every effort, and not all of your ideas will be equally effective or appropriate. In our program, I’ve always had a penchant for practical jokes and pranks, so that is one of the things we became known for over the years at USC. It may have been just another Monday-afternoon meeting, but you never knew what was going to happen. Even after our guys learned that pranks were something that was part of our culture, it was amazing how often we were able to fool them. As the years went on, it actually became easier—which was great for us, because there would always be those times when we needed to deliver a dose of energy if we wanted to change the tempo.
One of my favorites, the rooftop prank, got its start in Minnesota at the Vikings training camp in Mankato with the help of linebacker coach Monte Kiffin and a player named Keith Millard, who played defensive tackle for the Vikings. Keith was a great player with somewhat of a volatile personality, which made him a great coconspirator in this case. We arranged for Monte to rib Keith in the locker room before practice, and Keith responded by pretending to go berserk—to the point where the rest of the team had to jump in and separate the two of them and prevent what seemed like was going to be a real fight. Later, when we got to the practice field, I wondered aloud where the two of them were, and of course nobody knew—until someone spotted them going at it on the roof of a nearby building, like a pair of six-foot-five gladiators! The two fought until they disappeared from sight for a second, and then over the edge comes what looks like Monte, with Keith standing behind him roaring like a madman. Of course, it was just a mannequin dressed up in coaching gear, but in the heat of the moment we had absolutely everybody fooled, until a moment later when Keith and Monte—alive and well—came running out onto the practice field.
The rooftop prank was enacted once again more recently on a Halloween night at USC. We wanted to do it with Reggie Bush, but he was hesitant to go up on the roof. Instead, we decided to try it with another running back, LenDale White. During practice I began to rip on LenDale for lack of effort among other things, and according to our plan he began to talk back. After what seemed like an eternity of back talk and generally disruptive behavior, LenDale blurted out, “I quit!” He threw his helmet to the ground and stormed off the field. Our players were in shock, but I made them get back to practice. At the end of practice I brought the team together and told them how proud I was of them for practicing well in spite of that distraction. All of a sudden I was interrupted by one gasp and then another. “Coach,” someone shouted, pointing to a nearby rooftop, “Look, there’s LenDale up there.” Sure enough, there he was, shouting some obscenities, then disappearing from sight. The next thing you know, a dummy wearing LenDale’s jersey came flying off the rooftop. About a quarter of the team thought LenDale had actually jumped. Many of the players fell to the ground in shock. Not everyone thought that this prank was such a good idea, but it would become part of the lore around USC.
Because we allowed opportunities for spontaneity, great moments just grew naturally out of the environment. In my last season at USC, “Lean on me” became an early-season motto for the team, although not through my own doing. It began during training camp as our upperclassmen got to know the newcomers. As in all training camps, the team spent an enormous amount of time together and got to know one another on a variety of levels. It turned out that one of our freshman linebackers could sing, and as soon as the boys found out, he was called out in one of our nightly team meetings. As they began to chant his name, pressuring him to perform, he obliged. As he stood in front of the room, a mere eighteen years old, he began to sing one of the best versions of the song “Lean on Me” you could imagine. After a moment or two, our players began to stand up, one by one, and interlock arms. They began to sway back and forth and sing along. In that moment during training camp, we had chosen our theme for the year.
As that training camp continued, the days got longer and the practices harder. The players, feeling the tension of being around the same faces for weeks on end, decided to stage a mock fight at the end of practice, as a way of turning the tables on the staff. As I jumped in the middle of it, preparing to restrain and discipline our squad, they all burst into laughter. I had been set up, but the following night I would be sure to get them back.
During our evening meeting an unfamiliar man entered. Following my introduction, he began his speech by telling the players that he was an NCAA official and had been summoned to USC to tell the players about a nasty shower fungus that was associated with bone damage. He was fairly convincing as he described the symptoms and dangers of the fungus. As the players began to look around nervously, wondering if they had already contracted the shower fungus, the man at the front of the room came clean, proclaiming, “You’ve been punked!” But that wasn’t the best part—not by a long shot. The “official” then introduced himself—it was Bill Withers, the singer-songwriter who created “Lean on Me.”
Bill called up that same freshman linebacker and sat down at the piano to intro “Lean on Me.” The room quickly became a c
hoir of players and coaches singing his famous piece. It was a great effort by Bill to come that night and we all have a memory that will last forever.
One of our greatest attractions over the years was our relationship with comedian Will Ferrell. Will was an undergraduate student at USC back in the day and a dedicated frat boy. He loves the Trojans and contributed in a big way by participating in numerous pranks over the years. Will’s first prank came on his birthday back in 2003 as we were preparing for the Rose Bowl against Michigan. His friends called and asked if Will could come to practice and make an appearance and actually practice with the team. I said, “Sure, we would love to have him. Just make sure he arrives before we end practice.” This was our first encounter with Will punking the team, and I did not know what to expect.
As luck would have it, he was running late, having trouble getting into his uniform. I had told the players in the morning meeting that some guy from a fraternity had called and asked if he could come out for the team, telling me he could help us beat Michigan. When I made the announcement, veteran players looked at me like I had lost my mind. I quickly passed it off by saying, “Whatever it takes, we need all the help we can get!” I left it at that, and hoped the surprise would be entertaining. As we dragged out our final drill of the day, a golf cart entered the practice field from the far end. I stopped practice and declared, “Here comes the new guy.” Wearing number eighty-five in full game uniform, the new guy approached the team. The offensive squad was told to huddle up and call “I Right Action 2 X-Amigo R-Burst,” a play-action pass calling for the split end to run a “go” route. Before anybody could figure out what was going on, we instructed the new guy to split out wide, get off the line of scrimmage, and “go long.” I had a sudden rush of panic, thinking the right cornerback might knock Will’s head off. I rushed over to tell Marcell Allmond to let Will run by him and not touch him. As luck would have it, Matt Leinart realized what was going on, and lofted a spiral to Will Ferrell plodding up the sideline. To his credit Will made the catch and stumbled into the end zone for the one and only touchdown reception of his career. And, needless to say, a star was born on the USC Trojan practice field. The players rushed over to Will, jumped on his back and had a great time. Fortunately, we went on to win the Rose Bowl, and I think Will took a good deal of the credit for inspiring the team.