hungan1
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2011
- Messages
- 14,067
- Reaction score
- 4,148
- Points
- 113
Gopher Illustrated Exclusive: Interview with Gophers TE coach Clay Patterson
Ryan Burns, July 29 2019
I don't know if this has been posted. It is interesting how PJ Fleck also recruit his assistant coaches.
Here is a segment of the GI interview of interest:
WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO BE RECRUITED / COURTED BY PJ FLECK AS A COACH BACK IN 2018?
Patterson: "It's a very interesting story. My wife's from Houston and we're down there for Christmas. It's January.And if you guys know anything about Houston, it's not cold, ever. Well, it was this time as this waterfall froze over next to my wife's coach, but anyways, I get a call from a number and as a junior college head coach, I don't answer my phone. If I don't know the number, you gotta leave me a voicemail because there's no telling what there's what's going to be said. So I listen to the voicemail, and so listen to the voicemail, and it starts "Hey, it's PJ Fleck." So I think, okay, he wants one of my players, but turns out he wanted to talk to me about a job and in typical coach Fleck fashion, I went to the AFCA convention that year. I'd already taken an offensive coordinator job at a division one school and said I want to go interview with coach Fleck.
And at that point, coach Fleck is a very unique guy, you guys know, and everybody always asked me about coach Fleck. Is coach Fleck real? Is he this person, is that person, and I tell them, he hired me. What I mean by that is, people don't hire me in this profession. Because I don't have a pedigree of division one football. I've never coached division one football. But coach Fleck is the kind of guy that understands what he wants in people, and saw that and what we're doing with our JUCO culture, and said, I want to interview that guy.
And he interviewed five division one coaches, and myself, and came out of it and hired me. And it was a very unique experience, you know, coach Fleck is a unique guy. And going into this interview, I knew I had a job, which in this profession, you're blessed if you have a job, and I had a job. And I went in there. And I said, you know what, I'm going to spend, I get to spend an hour and ended up being an hour and 45 minutes with Coach Fleck, and I'm going to be a better coach today.
Coach Fleck feels that making people feel special with the opportunities you have, it's all about experiences. So as you guys sit out there and you're like, why the heck are these guys going to the WWE and watching Wrestling, when they should be getting ready for football? Well, he understands that life's about experiences. And, you know, he decided to hire me. And he's unique enough that he understood how big of a moment it was for me. He wanted to tell me a person and he kept me there. Him and his wife Heather brought me in and made that moment very special for me.
So kind of uniquely, my wife was not there. So coach Fleck is talking and he says I want to offer you a job at the University of Minnesota. And he kept talking about why I should come to Minnesota. And I'm like I live in Miami, Oklahoma, which is a great place and I love it. But I don't make very much money as you're a junior college coach, and he keeps talking. Then he talks about money, and he way overshot what he needed to. And I'm sitting there and my wife keeps calling me, I keep ignoring it as coach Fleck keeps talking, and then finally I was like, coach Fleck, I apologize, but I need to call my wife real quick.
That's the unique part about coach Fleck is that he understood the moment of what we had been through as a family to get to that moment. He made it special and it was a really cool opportunity."
https://247sports.com/college/minne...tball-Coach-Tight-Ends-133976342/#133976342_1
Ryan Burns, July 29 2019
I don't know if this has been posted. It is interesting how PJ Fleck also recruit his assistant coaches.
Here is a segment of the GI interview of interest:
WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO BE RECRUITED / COURTED BY PJ FLECK AS A COACH BACK IN 2018?
Patterson: "It's a very interesting story. My wife's from Houston and we're down there for Christmas. It's January.And if you guys know anything about Houston, it's not cold, ever. Well, it was this time as this waterfall froze over next to my wife's coach, but anyways, I get a call from a number and as a junior college head coach, I don't answer my phone. If I don't know the number, you gotta leave me a voicemail because there's no telling what there's what's going to be said. So I listen to the voicemail, and so listen to the voicemail, and it starts "Hey, it's PJ Fleck." So I think, okay, he wants one of my players, but turns out he wanted to talk to me about a job and in typical coach Fleck fashion, I went to the AFCA convention that year. I'd already taken an offensive coordinator job at a division one school and said I want to go interview with coach Fleck.
And at that point, coach Fleck is a very unique guy, you guys know, and everybody always asked me about coach Fleck. Is coach Fleck real? Is he this person, is that person, and I tell them, he hired me. What I mean by that is, people don't hire me in this profession. Because I don't have a pedigree of division one football. I've never coached division one football. But coach Fleck is the kind of guy that understands what he wants in people, and saw that and what we're doing with our JUCO culture, and said, I want to interview that guy.
And he interviewed five division one coaches, and myself, and came out of it and hired me. And it was a very unique experience, you know, coach Fleck is a unique guy. And going into this interview, I knew I had a job, which in this profession, you're blessed if you have a job, and I had a job. And I went in there. And I said, you know what, I'm going to spend, I get to spend an hour and ended up being an hour and 45 minutes with Coach Fleck, and I'm going to be a better coach today.
Coach Fleck feels that making people feel special with the opportunities you have, it's all about experiences. So as you guys sit out there and you're like, why the heck are these guys going to the WWE and watching Wrestling, when they should be getting ready for football? Well, he understands that life's about experiences. And, you know, he decided to hire me. And he's unique enough that he understood how big of a moment it was for me. He wanted to tell me a person and he kept me there. Him and his wife Heather brought me in and made that moment very special for me.
So kind of uniquely, my wife was not there. So coach Fleck is talking and he says I want to offer you a job at the University of Minnesota. And he kept talking about why I should come to Minnesota. And I'm like I live in Miami, Oklahoma, which is a great place and I love it. But I don't make very much money as you're a junior college coach, and he keeps talking. Then he talks about money, and he way overshot what he needed to. And I'm sitting there and my wife keeps calling me, I keep ignoring it as coach Fleck keeps talking, and then finally I was like, coach Fleck, I apologize, but I need to call my wife real quick.
That's the unique part about coach Fleck is that he understood the moment of what we had been through as a family to get to that moment. He made it special and it was a really cool opportunity."
https://247sports.com/college/minne...tball-Coach-Tight-Ends-133976342/#133976342_1
