LINCOLN — Without even a note card to guide him, Bo Pelini delivered an insightful, engaging and humorous presentation Tuesday at the Nebraska Coaches Association multi-sports clinic.
Nebraska's normally buttoned-up coach offered rare public insight into his football philosophy and personality during the 40-minute speech. Pelini paced the center of the gymnasium floor before the packed bleachers at Lincoln North Star High School, stressing responsibility, discipline, accountability, positive reinforcement, balance and uncompromising high standards.
Attendees also heard new details of an old story about Ndamukong Suh that involved his first meeting with Pelini shortly after NU hired the coach in December 2007.
“The first conversation I had with him, he wasn't sure if he wanted to stay,” Pelini said. “He didn't know who Bo Pelini was. He wasn't sure if he wanted to go through a coaching change. Honestly, I didn't know who Ndamukong Suh was, and I didn't really care.”
Pelini said he had heard that Suh was a good player. However, minutes before meeting Suh, Pelini watched film of the defensive tackle from USC's 49-31 drubbing of Nebraska that September, a game in which the Trojans ran at will against NU's defense.
“I said, ‘You want to leave?'” Pelini said. “‘Go, You ain't any good anyway. I just watched your tape. You stink. You couldn't even play for us at LSU.'”
Suh, of course, opted to stay and won nearly every major defensive award two seasons later as a senior in 2009. He was a Heisman Trophy finalist, the Associated Press player of the year and the No. 2 pick in the NFL draft.
“Thank God he stayed,” Pelini said. “They probably would have run me out of town.”
Such honesty sits at the heart of Pelini's coaching beliefs, he said.
“The first thing you have to do is establish trust and build relationships with the kids,” Pelini said. “There's some kids in our program who are going to say, ‘He's a players' coach.' There are others who say, ‘He's a disciplinarian.' Others will say, ‘He's a (jerk).' In the end, I'm all of those things.”
Most important in coaching, Pelini told the audience, players need someone they can trust.
“Unless you really understand who they are, you're never going to understand what buttons to push,” he said. “I think it's a part of this profession that many people overlook.”
When he arrived at Nebraska, Pelini told the group of high school coaches and administrators, the program was in disarray.
The coach said he set out to establish a new culture, describing that task as the biggest challenge for any coach. Last December, after the Huskers' last-second loss to Texas in the Big 12 championship game, Pelini said, the culture began to take hold for the first time.
“Our culture means that our kids understand what it means to put in a hard day's work,” Pelini said. “They understand what it means to play for the guy next to you and the guy next to him.
“They understand what it means to represent the University of Nebraska. It's bigger than them. It's about the fans. It's about the state. It's about all the people who played at the university before them. It's about a much bigger picture than them.”
Pelini praised NU Athletic Director Tom Osborne and former coach Frank Solich. Without his year as defensive coordinator under Solich in 2003, Pelini said he never, ever would have been prepared to take over at Nebraska.
Upon meeting with Osborne in 2007 to discuss the NU job, Pelini said it was obvious the two made a good match.
Jeff Smith, president of the Nebraska Coaches Association, said he saw some of Osborne on Tuesday in Pelini.
“That's probably why Tom hired him,” said Smith, the boys basketball coach at Lincoln Southeast and a former Nebraska assistant. “It's great, as a high school coach, to hear a guy who should be one of our coaching role models has that same desire to teach, desire to teach life lessons.
“It was nice to see him relaxed and speak from the heart.”
Pelini spoke openly of his stance on off-field conduct. He said he sets few rules in his program but directs his players to do the right thing.
“When they seize responsibility, it's a good sign,” he said. Just this summer, upperclassmen have intervened twice, Pelini said, to hold younger players accountable for mistakes.
“If it's always coming from me,” Pelini said, “we have a problem.”
He also discussed his recruiting pitch. Instead of selling prospects on potential championships or awards, Pelini said, he tells them that the experience at Nebraska will prepare them for life after college.
“I tell them if you're not ready to come out and compete and get after it on a daily basis,” Pelini said, “then you're coming to the wrong place, because we're going to ask you to compete in every area of your life. And if you're not, we're going to take our foot and stick it straight up your you know what.
“A lot of them say, ‘Whoa, that's a little different.' Well, you know what, Nebraska is different. If you want to be special, you have to be different. You have to make a conscious decision every single day to be different.”
Contact the writer:
402-444-1031, mitch.sherman@owh.com
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