FORMER BAYLOR COACH GRANT TEAFF
Papa Bear
___Grant Teaff has been executive director of the American Football Coaches Association since 1994, but Texans remember him best for the 21 years he spent as head coach of the
Baylor Bears. Teaff's Bears won the Southwest Conference championship in 1974 and 1980. Including the two Cotton Bowl berths that went with those championships, they appeared in eight bowl games during his tenure. Teaff was six times voted Southwest Conference coach of the year and was AFCA and the Football Writers Association coach of the year in 1974 and 1980. A Snyder native, Teaff attended San Angelo Junior College and earned bachelor's and master's degrees at McMurry College. He and his wife, Donnell, have three daughters and three grandchildren.
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Q.
___ What is the American Football Coaches Association, and what do you do as executive director?
___The AFCA was founded about 80 years ago by the leaders of the game, head coaches at the time. There had been some turmoil about college football in l906. President Teddy Roosevelt had decided it was a brutal game. There had been many deaths in one year.
___They used an offensive system called the "flying wedge," which basically was just line up and run over people with virtually no equipment. It was an offshoot of rugby and soccer. They were maiming and killing people. Roosevelt called together coaches of the day and said they were to either change it or he would eliminate it. That handful of coaches rewrote the game of football and set it on the road that it eventually took. They instituted the forward pass and became a rules committee out of which eventually came the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
___In 1922, many of those same coaches and others got together and said we have to have an organization where coaches can come together and promote and protect the game, develop our professionalism and initiate the ethics we believe must be a part of our profession.
Q.
___ How many schools were playing football at the time?
___Probably 100 to 150 nationwide. One of our founding fathers was the coach at a black institution, Hampton University, and our current president is the current head coach there, Joe Taylor. The organization moved forward under such names as Amos Alonzo Stagg, Knute Rockne, Fielding Yost, D.X. Bible from Texas. One of the first things they formulated was a code of ethics, and it has been the heartbeat of our organization, the ethics by which we serve and live and the only organization I know of that has an active ethics committee where coaches appear before it. Coaches are role models, whether they want to be or not. In most communities, the most influential person in the community is the coach. That responsibility is overbearing.
Q.
___ What is the duty of the ethics committee?
___It serves as the policing arm. If a coach has a problem, he has to appear before the committee. He could be dropped from membership, could not serve as an officer of the association, may not coach in an all-star game. If he berates officials publicly, he knows the next January he will be meeting with the ethics committee. It's taken very seriously. The people who serve have to be squeaky clean in every way. There is always pressure to win; that's not going to change. But we have to have a standard of ethics we must adhere to. In the Southwest Conference in the l980s, I saw morally good people succumb to things they would never have done without the pressure. There were 29 division 1-A coaches fired last year. Four or five had winning records; two won eight games and were fired. No one can deny that in that echelon there are pressures on winning, because winning affects revenue. ... It's a little monster that has grown up that we are having to deal with, especially as far as ethics is concerned. We urge our coaches not to succumb to the pressure of winning at all cost, and it's difficult because you're talking about having to feed your family, about prestige and all that, and two or three players can often make the difference.
Q.
___When did you know you were going to be a football coach?
___I knew I wanted to be a football coach when I was 13. I decided to be a football coach when I was 14. When I was 15 and just a country boy from Snyder, who had never seen a college football game, I decided to be a head coach in the Southwest Conference. It was what drove me. As I look back, it was the key, because I wasn't big enough to play. I was undersized and extremely slow. But I had a burning desire to be like my coaches. It changed my life. My family and the people in Snyder I was surrounded with, particularly my mom and dad, gave me a set of values, a clear set of values, that I had early on, but my coaches and teachers taught me how to win, how to take a value system and use it as a foundation and then to win on and off the athletic field. The things I learned from them were the things I wanted to impart to others in my lifetime. I wanted to be like my coaches.
Q.
___ What did you like best about coaching?
___I really feel good about imparting to another human being information that will allow that person to perceive there is a right way to do things and they can be successful if they do it that way. I have always felt football teaches so much more than just football. One thing I have always said is if all you are teaching is football, then it's not enough. You use football to teach the lessons of life. You teach them to come back from defeat. You teach basic traits that allow persons to become successful--a work ethic, to give constant, full effort. If you give constant, full effort, you will be successful even though someone may be bigger, faster and more intelligent. You give it in every way, every day on every play, on or off the field. It teaches self-discipline.
Q.
___ What did you like least about coaching?
___There was very little I disliked. I even thought I would miss recruiting when I left coaching. I was wrong. I haven't missed recruiting, but I enjoyed the challenge of going into a home and enlightening a player and his parents about the opportunities they might have. I enjoyed it, but I haven't missed it.
Q.
___ Should college athletes be paid?
___No. Absolutely not. Those who play on the Division 1-A level have scholarships, and they deserve them. But I have never believed college athletes should be paid. There is a threat now in California, where a group has gotten together to try to unionize college players. That is the wrong way to go. We have done a poor job of translating in a youngster's mind the value of a college education. ... It's an opportunity to be educated for a lifetime.
Q.
___ Should athletes meet the same criteria for admittance and for staying in school as other students?
___In most instances, they do. Certain institutions allow a percentage of students based on certain criteria. I think that is good. You have to have standards, but I think it is important to have the opportunity to bring in a youngster and give him an opportunity for an education. There are some youngsters out there who have no father, no male role model who is positive. They have been under a single mom, fended for themselves, never had a chance to come home to a situation where they could go into their room to study, to use their own computer and to get themselves in a position to be qualified. I speak from experience. I have had hundreds of guys through the years who on paper didn't look like they should be admitted to a college, but when you looked at their hearts and their desire, you knew they were going to make it. Mike Singletary (All-America linebacker) graduated from Baylor in four years but couldn't get in under Baylor's standards. He got in under NCAA standards, and the rest was history.
Q.
___ What was the percentage of athletes who received degrees during your career?
___During my total career, it was about 82 percent to 83 percent. We placed great emphasis on it. I came into coaching with a sound foundation, a belief that a person is physical, mental and spiritual. ... We tried to recruit kids who had a chance to graduate from Baylor. They might not have been the best students in their high schools, but they had to have the work ethic and mental capability of graduating. ... As to the spiritual side and its development, well, subtlety is sometimes misinterpreted, but subtlety is allowing a youngster to know it is important for him to develop in that area without being preachy--giving good examples, through my own life, and others, saying here is a standard and a way that is an option you have, and it is important that you grow spiritually. I always had mandatory devotionals for staff and players every Saturday for every game I ever coached. Twenty years later, I see some who I felt never got it who are leaders in their churches.
Q.
___ What is the key to a successful, winning program?
___You have to be strong fundamentally. Individuals have to be taught fundamentals. No team is stronger than the weakest player on the team. You become a strong player by being fundamentally sound, highly motivated--self-motivated. I believe a team has to be taught the methodology of self-motivation. You look for the potential of that to happen when you are recruiting, but that doesn't rule a player out, because it can be taught. Philosophy of the game is important. Games are lost on any level based on your philosophy.
Q.
___ Do you have to win to be a good coach?
___You have to win to keep coaching. You can't be a good coach unless you have longevity. If you are a good coach, you are going to win.
Q.
___ What role has your Christian faith played in your coaching career?
___There is no way I could have done what I've done through the years or what I am doing today without my faith. It would be impossible; it's too big a job. There is too much pain, too many negatives without faith. And faith is not just faith in God, which is essential and the uppermost part of faith. Faith derived from God gives you personal confidence, faith in yourself and the ability to develop faith in others. You can't be a coach unless you can put your trust in somebody. You have to put your faith in a skinny-legged quarterback to execute the plans you've made. And often, in putting your faith in that skinny-legged quarterback, you've done something for him. You've shown you believe in him and told him he can go out there and make it happen.
Q.
___ What advice would you give a young man considering a coaching career?
___He has to be called to coach. What that means is you have to come into coaching with a higher purpose than making money or winning games or receiving coaching honors or making the hall of fame. It's important for him to know it won't be easy, and he may not make a lot of money doing it.
___Interview by Toby Druin
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