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Clark Lea is the head football coach at Vanderbilt… He’s led one of the best turnaround stories in college football. Before football, Clark was a baseball player. He started at Birmingham-Southern College, where he helped the team win the 2001 NAIA national championship as a freshman. He then transferred to Belmont University for another year of baseball before eventually landing at Vanderbilt… This time as a football player. He came back as head coach in 2021 to inherit a program that had gone winless the year before. What he’s built since is remarkable: a 40–35 upset of No. 1 Alabama, back-to-back SEC Coach of the Year awards, and Vanderbilt’s first 10-win season in program history. He’s won games and changed the culture completely.

I recorded this in the Vanderbilt locker room with Coach Lea. Check it out on YouTube.

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The Learning Leader Show

Key Learnings

Better people make a better team. Development in one area is development in all areas. We’re trained to see life in separate lanes (coach here, husband here, father here, student here, athlete here), but when you live that way, you’re in constant conflict. Instead, see each person as a circle where all those roles define who we are, and development in one area is development in all areas.

Show up on time, deliver on time, engage resources. If you show up on time, turn your work in on time, and engage the resources that are here to help you, you’re not just going to survive, you’re going to thrive. This is what it takes to be a great football player and a great student.

“We are not victims in this process.” After missing the playoffs, Clark told his team: This is the ground we stand on, this is who we are. Let’s be really proud of what we accomplished, but also acknowledge we’ve fallen short, and that is no one else’s fault. Vanderbilt football doesn’t need to complain loud enough to get someone to change their mind. We need to play better football.

The joy we can experience is equal and opposite to the pain we can experience. In athletics, you’re suspended between the pain and the joy, and the depths of that pain can be excruciating. But the joy we get to experience together in a shared way is unbelievable. The entry fee is the acceptance of that.

?This is exactly where we’re supposed to be because there are no mistakes.” Driving into work the day Vanderbilt didn’t make the playoffs, Clark realized: this is actually exactly where we’re supposed to be because there are no mistakes.

As a leader, they have to know who you are. How do you coach a team and make sure your personality shows up on the field? As a head coach, being open, honest, and exposed in front of the team is essential to leadership philosophy.

Take new players through your entire story. Clark does an intake meeting with new players every year that runs an hour and a half. He starts with an image of himself as a kid and takes them through high school, college, his career journey, where he met his wife, where they got married, where each of his kids was born, the highs, lows, all of it. Then he takes them through the state of the program when he got here and every team since.

Share your family with them. Clark’s kids are around all the time, his wife comes out to practice, they talk about things in an open and honest way. That’s a gateway to really meaningful relationships, and that’s been the bedrock of this program build.

“Change is hard. Change is painful. Are you willing to go to the hard places?” This job has been a personal evolution for Clark which has allowed for program evolution. He had to change, and he didn’t know about going to the hard places until he took this job.

When you get so obsessed with long-term goals, you leverage the moment in such a way that makes it impossible to breathe. Clark thought he was going to be a major league baseball player. He went to Birmingham Southern, won the NAIA World Series, but his skills were diminishing. He was experiencing the yips, a mental block, because he was holding it too tight.

Even though you change places, your problems will follow you. Clark transferred to Belmont for a fresh start, but the skills diminished even further. It was humiliating and challenging to his identity. That year was really difficult.

“Relatedness is our edge.” Brotherhood is the most overused word; family is overused. Relatedness is this shared experience we have, a sense of belonging and community, a deep respect, a foundational respect. Once we learn how to see each other at that depth and understand one another and care for one another and fight for one another, we carry that as an edge in our performance.

“Belief is a practice.” Clark said four years ago that they’re building the best program in the country, and everyone laughed except the people internally. The phrasing is important: “We are building the best.” That means it’s in its early stages. Hope is passive; belief is an active decision.

Hope is passive; belief is an active decision. When you hope for something, you kind of sit back, and you go, man, I hope that’s the case. Belief is, I believe this is the case, so here’s the thing I’m going to invest in that puts me on the pathway to actualizing that outcome.

If the belief isn’t there, your tolerance for sacrifice won’t be there. You’re going to see the entry fee, and you’re going to hope that it happens. When we take belief into a practice, you make it happen.

“I don’t have to be bigger, faster, stronger in my role anymore, but I need to suffer.” Anyone on an aspirational journey makes sacrifices. Clark’s tolerance for suffering shows up in getting in the weight room and training, eating habits, social habits.

“Make sure before you give the thumbs up that you get your skis up.” Clark’s dad taught him water skiing: if your skis are parallel or pointed downwards, you’re going to go up and over those skis and just be dragged in the wake of the boat. As a leader, once Clark gets in the building, his time belongs to everybody else. He has to have his skis up in the morning.

If you’re late at night drinking, you’re not going to be able to have that time in the morning to prepare yourself to be what I need to be for others. There’s sacrifice, but it’s also joyful. Sacrifice isn’t something you have to do; it’s actually what makes us special.

“Head, body, head, body.” This is from the movie The Fighter. This is Clark’s mantra that puts you in the present: no matter what’s happened, I’m not going to focus on what’s come before, we’re not going to forecast, we’re going to be right where our feet are, and we’re gonna remember the plan. Body shots accumulate. You can’t knock the opponent out in one punch.

Be the chief alignment officer and the chief reminding officer. Mike McDonald (Seahawks HC) said these are two of his primary roles. Clark uses the spear as a representation of alignment: the spear has to move in one direction to be effective.

It doesn’t matter what you say as a head coach in the team room if it’s not taken into the tightest echo chambers. That environment’s not powerful enough to inspire action. The culture of a school is defined in the classroom. For Clark, if what he says isn’t taken to the position groups and reinforced, then driven into behavior, they’re going to  lose alignment and lose focus.

“The culture of a school is defined in the classroom. Good teachers make for a good experience. Poor teachers make for challenging experiences.”

You can never tire of driving the standards and behaviors. The reminding part is: how tired can you get of driving the standards and behaviors? The skill becomes, can we focus on the things that impact winning?

Let me focus on the things that are most important, and let me be relentless in making sure those show up. Clark is reminding coaches, players, staff, all of it, and helping them and guiding them into driving accountability within their spaces. Then he has to let the program breathe a little bit.

Performance can’t be tight; it can’t be restrictive. Clark needs his guys to bring their unique personalities and their creative energy that makes it so much more fun, and it shows up on the field. Let me remind you of who we are and what we do, and how we do these things and how it impacts winning. But then let me let you be yourself and bring your personality and help us elevate this program, not just be a part of it.

“Coach, I look forward to coming to Vanderbilt to help you win championships.” When Diego Pavia got off the phone with Clark after their first conversation, he said this in the most genuine way. Clark had spent a lot of time trying to convince a lot of people of what was possible at Vanderbilt, and that felt like the first time that someone was meeting him right where he was.

“The world doesn’t need a watered-down Diego Pavia.” When Diego’s at his best, he’s being himself. It’s also important to have boundaries, and without conflict, there’s erosion. So you have to fight for those boundaries. 

“We really are a group of misfits.” Brian Longwell, one of their linebackers, commented during a team-building exercise. A five-star coming to Vanderbilt is not your typical five-star. That choice in and of itself is the acceptance of a challenge. The misfit ignores the external and tends to the internal.”

As we elevate our people, we don’t ever lose our identity. As long as they’re true to who they are, the people they accept in this program will quickly get in lockstep with where they’re moving.

Reflection Questions

  • What area of your life are you treating as separate from the others? Development in one area is development in all areas. How would this shift change your approach?
  • Are you practicing hope or practicing belief? Hope is passive, belief is active. What would change if you made the shift?
  • Do you have your skis up in the morning? What sacrifices do you need to make the night before to be what you need to be for others?

More Learning:
#062: Jim Tessel – Servant Leadership Through Coaching

#325: Ron Ullery – Demanding Excellence & Delayed Gratification

#503 – Sherri Coale – The Art of Asking & Winning On & Off the Court

Audio Chapters:

00:00 The Price of Becoming

01:10 The Turnaround at Vanderbilt

02:48 Coaching Network and Mentors

04:48 Winning with Academic Standards

07:48 Have a No Victim Mindset

11:56 Leaders Must Share Your Story

17:27 Relatedness Is Our Edge

18:44 Belief Is a Practice

21:30 Belief As Practice

23:13 Sacrifice And Suffering

24:30 Do You Have Your Skis Up?

26:05 The Head-Body Mantra

27:35 Leaders Must Align And Remind

31:53 Quarterback Diego Pavia

34:33 Misfits And Five Stars

35:48 EOPC