Behind the scenes with Washington coach Kalen DeBoer
Behind the scenes with Washington coach Kalen DeBoer
DeBoer let me tag along for a few hours before the Huskies' spring game. I learned more than I expected.
SEATTLE — OK. Here I am. Twenty minutes till 10 a.m. on Saturday, ready to follow Kalen DeBoer for a few hours before Washington’s spring preview, hoping to capture what this day is like for a head coach.
It doesn’t take long to get an idea.
Five minutes after I arrive, the coach is behind a closed door, meeting with a recruit and his family.
NCAA enforcement staff would not be keen on my presence at this meeting — and I’m guessing DeBoer wouldn’t be, either — so for now, I wait, seated on a couch outside the coach’s office as Huskies players come and go, helping themselves to a breakfast spread of scrambled eggs, bacon, steak, biscuits and gravy, oatmeal with toppings, hashbrowns, muffins, fresh fruit, yogurt, pure green juices and immunity shots.
Alison VandenBerghe, UW’s director of football performance for nutrition, says she wanted to simulate a game-day meal. That means familiar foods that have been served throughout the week, so as not to risk upsetting stomachs — or anxieties.
Players eat together at tables spread throughout the spacious fourth-floor lounge. When they leave, staffers turn the room over, laying out purple tablecloths with gold UW helmets and pom-pom centerpieces, because not long after the current players finish eating and head to the locker room, some 40 recruits — currently checking in and mingling inside the ground-floor facility entrance on Husky Stadium’s west side — will make their way up.
Washington’s spring finale is less game and more practice, with about 70 plays of scrimmaging broadcast on the Pac-12 Network and free for fans to come watch. More show up on this day than in recent years, though the event is far from a spectacle.
It is, however, an important, busy weekend for the program. DeBoer estimates 25 or 30 of the Huskies’ key recruiting targets are here. So are many parents of current players, as this is one of the few times the head coach will gather them in one room.
He has agreed to let me tag along for a few of his pre-practice duties. By the time I retreat to the press box, I’ve learned a lot — and been reminded, too, why all of this really matters.
It should be noted that my day might have started at 9:40, but DeBoer has been at the facility for about four hours by this point. That’s a 4:30 a.m. alarm, if you’re wondering, yet DeBoer says if he were to walk into his office at 5:30, particularly during the season, he might be the last coach there. Many of UW’s assistants live in the eastside suburbs, and often stay late enough at the office that a planned 11 p.m. bridge closure — a somewhat frequent occurrence, due to ongoing construction — complicates their commute home. Later, at the parent meeting, DeBoer says he hasn’t seen his family since Tuesday night.
With so many visitors in the building, staffers are working to take down the names on Washington’s “Starving Board,” a motivational ranking of players into three different categories — starving (where everyone wants to be), hungry (not bad) and satisfied (not good). It’s displayed inside the weight room. DeBoer might be the most transparent head coach in the Power 5, but some items don’t qualify for public consumption.
It’s 10:30, and Aaron Knotts, Washington’s chief of staff — he’s been at the school since Chris Petersen’s first season in 2014 — is about to give a presentation to parents about navigating the NFL Draft and agent process. DeBoer gives him a brief introduction but doesn’t stay, because the Huskies are scheduled for a walkthrough inside the stadium at 10:40. They’ve been monitoring the weather, and just got clearance to hold it outside rather than in the Dempsey.
We join players walking out of the locker room and into the tunnel. Members of the nutrition staff hand them collagen shots — “Dawg shots,” they call them — in small paper cups. The drink, a staffer tells me, helps activate muscles to max capacity, and is typically given to players about 30 minutes before they take the field.
“It all matters,” DeBoer says.
This being April, the mood is fairly light at the walkthrough. Players wear sweats. Jalen McMillan partnered with local apparel company Simply Seattle to launch a new T-shirt on Saturday — it reads “i run routes.” in lowercase letters, and comes in purple or black — and he wears it onto the field, stopping to make sure DeBoer sees it.
“What’s that say?!” McMillan asks him, playfully, pointing toward the letters. DeBoer raves about McMillan’s personal progress since this coaching staff arrived in December 2021. “Thriving,” is the word he uses.
Eric Schmidt, the edges and special-teams coach, starts by organizing the special-teams units — personnel groupings, calls, responsibilities. DeBoer gathers the team for a quick layout of the walkthrough. “Never try to give them too much information too far ahead,” he tells me. It’s all stored in Google Docs, anyway, but he likes to wait until just before to reinforce the primary objectives.
For home games, the Huskies typically hold their walkthrough in the parking garage of the team hotel in Redmond. On the road, they’ll do it in a parking lot or a hotel ballroom — unless it’s a late kickoff, in which case they might just do it at Husky Stadium on Friday before eating and heading to the airport.
Like many college programs, UW uses the app TeamWorks to distribute its calendar to everyone in the program. DeBoer shows me on his iPhone: each day’s schedule, installs, travel itineraries, roommate assignments, travel squad lists, playbooks, scripts, birthdays and more.
The two things that divide organizations, DeBoer says, are “communication and money.” It’s why he’s obsessive about planning. For example: they made the decision last summer to begin spring practices the first week of March, and already have planned their daily calendars, to the extent possible, through February. At the parent meeting, DeBoer shows the workout schedule through the end of June.
Individual player meetings follow the end of spring practices, but coaches are constantly evaluating the roster. Thursdays are for strength and academic meetings. Each Friday, coaches meet to assign a grade for every player on the team — one from his position coach, one from his coordinator and one from the strength staff — and document it with an explanation. This helps with positive reinforcement — DeBoer might set a reminder to make sure he shares that sort of feedback with a player — and to set clear expectations for those whom the staff believes need to improve.
Within an hour, we’re walking back up the tunnel to the old team assembly room. I’m in here all the time with other reporters, because it’s where we do press conferences and postgame interviews. It’s a different crowd today, though.
It’s 11:36, and parents are still filing into the room before DeBoer begins his presentation. He starts by introducing the assistant staff — “I’m gonna say it and not even flinch: this is the best coaching staff in the country,” he says, though not all are present, with some presumably handling recruiting duties. Tight ends coach Nick Sheridan tells the parents he has three young children, “and I hope my kids grow up to be like your kids.”
JaMarcus Shephard, Washington’s eternally vibrant receivers coach, requests that parents rise from their seats and engage in a call-and-response. They oblige, replying, in part: “I’m gonna be there … to support my son … more than ever … because that’s what he needs … and that’s what we need … more than ever.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” DeBoer tells the parents. “You guys have done an amazing job raising your sons, and we get the luxury of being around them every day.”
He plays a video of some of his favorite behind-the-scenes moments from last season. The word “love” is repeated throughout. It shows players and coaches giving speeches, and an emotional DeBoer thanking the seniors in the locker room after the Alamo Bowl. A longer version played at the team’s postseason banquet. DeBoer says he has seen it 35 or 40 times. “The first time I saw that, I was like, in tears,” he says. “I don’t watch it and pay attention, because I’m afraid that might happen in front of all you.”
He shows some of his favorite photos throughout the meeting: Rome Odunze and Jalen McMillan posing during a practice … Jeremiah Martin asking to address the team after last season’s spring preview … a Space Needle stair climb organized by strength coach Ron McKeefery … a trip to TopGolf … a team paintball outing, long clamored-for by the players.
“I know what it is. This is their way to legally shoot me,” DeBoer says to laughter. “I’m on to them. Because that happened. I ran out of ammo, I put my hands up, and there was no regard.” He shares a story about his daughter wanting to participate. At first, he examined the welts on his own arms and said no. McMillan convinced him to relent, volunteering to watch after her, and the two posed for a photo afterward that DeBoer shows on the projector.
The coach references a “master plan” for the program that, presumably, is shown during recruiting presentations. This is what I’m most interested in. Chris Petersen held off-record meetings to go over some of UW’s Built For Life philosophies with the media, but this is the first time I’ve seen DeBoer in this setting.
There are three maxims that he believes should guide everything they do, some of which already have found their way into interviews with coaches and players:
1. Relentless pursuit of continuous improvement. Everything funnels from this. “All we ask is that guys bring their best energy and their best attitude every day,” DeBoer says. The goal is that no matter the season and no matter the roster, the team in September will look nothing like the team in April.
2. First be your best, then you will be first. DeBoer uses academics to make this point: if you’re a 4.0 student, you should strive to achieve at a 4.0 level. Success for others might mean a 2.5. He notes that 30 current players will finish their degrees by the end of the season.
3. Winners win because that’s what winners do. Self explanatory, and ties in with another of DeBoer’s principles: “How you do anything is how you do everything.”
Their goal as a staff, DeBoer says, is to “make this one of the most incredible experiences” of every player’s life. That’s what college football was for him, back at the University of Sioux Falls. The first slide he shows to highlight that experience so far: where last season’s 11-2 record ranked among the school’s best. “Winning is a lot of fun, right?” DeBoer said. “That’s one of the most incredible experiences. … That’s a big part of being fun, right there.”
Similar to Petersen’s “Real Life Wednesdays,” DeBoer has a Friday speaker series during May workouts. He has invited four guests to speak with the team about life skills. Didier Occident, a wealth management advisor who spoke to the team last year, will return in August for a talk on financial literacy.
DeBoer shows a list of 11 ways to conquer each day, a slide players have seen “a million times,” he says, because coaches come back to it every week. Some examples: Treat each day as a gift. Stay positive. Be thankful. Learn, inspire and grow. Be a blessing to others. Replace “got to” with “get to.” That one comes up a lot. “You get to go to practice,” DeBoer says. “You get to go to class. A lot of people would love to be in your shoes.”
A few more of the principles ingrained in DeBoer’s messaging:
You don’t have to be great to serve, but you have to serve to be great. (He shows slides from Washington players organizing and serving a Thanksgiving meal after practice, two days before the Apple Cup.)
You aren’t a true success unless you help others be successful.
We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
Never let a negative thought complete itself in your mind.
DeBoer and his executive assistant, Ali Smith, answer a few administrative questions before the meeting is adjourned. It’s time for the coach to pop up to his office for a minute before heading back down to the field, and nearly time for us to part ways.
It’s been an instructive few hours. Yet it’s what happens when we arrive upstairs that I’m left thinking about days later.
Tim Nygard was a Seattle guy. He was born and raised here, and made a life here with his wife, Alicia, and their three children — sons Beau, 9, and Griffin, 7, and daughter Elle, 5. He was a man of faith — he worked as a finance manager at Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission — and a dedicated husband and attentive father. His family came before everything, Alicia said, but she joked that if there was a close second, “it would be sports.” Tim was big into golf and tennis, and the Mariners and Seahawks and Sounders and, yes, of course, the Sonics. Huskies, too. Alicia’s grandfather played baseball and basketball at UW, and her brother, Evan Steinruck, was a walk-on punter under Steve Sarkisian.
Tim loved playing ball with his kids and taking them to sporting events. The whole family was at T-Mobile Park last October to see Cal Raleigh’s walkoff homer that ended the Mariners’ 20-year playoff drought. The moment also held a deeper meaning for the Nygards: Tim had recently experienced a setback in his battle against colon cancer, and Raleigh’s homer provided some kind of joy amid the anguish.
These days, peace can be fleeting. Grief is like that. Tim died on the evening of March 18, a little more than three years after his diagnosis. He was 40.
Michael Penix Jr. didn’t know any of this when Alicia approached him in the parking lot outside Husky Ballpark on April 16. Penix was there to throw out the first pitch at that day’s UW baseball game, but a steady downpour wiped it out. Still, Washington’s star quarterback stuck around to sign autographs and pose for pictures in the rain, and Alicia’s brother, Evan, took her three kids and her two nieces down to meet him.
“I’m not sure who was more excited, Evan or the kids,” she joked.
One problem: Griffin didn’t have anything for Penix to sign. That was fine, he said. They got a hat signed, and he could just share that with Beau. Plus, they had come to a rained-out baseball game and still got to meet Michael Penix Jr. It was a good day.
It so happened, though, that Penix had parked his car near the family’s van, and a staffer had given Griffin a baseball. Alicia’s mother, Dawn, urged her to approach the quarterback as they walked to their vehicles.
“Oh, yeah, let’s do it, no problem,” he said. It was still pouring. Also, the pen didn’t work. Penix insisted he could get the ink out, even scribbling on his own hand, determined to get it going. Eventually, Griffin got his signature.
The family left the park laughing. There were tears, too. Dawn was so moved by the interaction that she began drafting an email to the UW football office on the ride home. “I have to tell someone this,” she said.
“(Penix) just was patient and kind,” Alicia said. “When I think back on that, I’m so impressed. My kids idolize athletes because they’re able to do phenomenal things in sports. But what they don’t always see is the character piece. He was so warm and friendly.
“When you do feel so sad and down, and you have these pockets of joy, and pure excitement and happiness, it is such a reprieve from just the heaviness of what’s going on. It’s so beautiful to have been provided these times for them to experience that love and kindness.”
Will Gulley, UW’s associate athletic director for content strategy, knows the Nygards well. His wife is good friends with Alicia, and he coached Beau’s basketball team. Evan reached out to see if the boys might be able to visit the football facility. Gulley offered to host them the day of the spring preview.
Accompanied by Evan and their grandfather, Jim Steinruck, the boys had a blast. They even got to take pictures sitting on the “Montlake Motion” throne that you see in all those recruiting photoshoots. Gulley was excited to show them DeBoer’s fourth-floor office, with its views into Husky Stadium and Union Bay.
That would have been cool enough. He wasn’t expecting the head coach to step off an elevator and walk down the hall while they were standing just outside his office door, maybe 20 minutes before the start of practice.
“There was a family that emailed…” Gulley starts, but he doesn’t need to finish.
DeBoer sits back against the assistant’s desk across from his office and engages the family as if nobody else were there. He asks the boys if they play football (both play flag). He asks Griffin if his older brother is treating him OK. He says he heard they got to meet Penix. “He’s OK, isn’t he?” DeBoer jokes.
“We’ve got some really good guys,” he tells them.
He signs a football for each of them — one in black ink, the other in purple, per each boy’s preference — and invites them to attend practice in the future. “We’ll have to get you out to some games, too,” DeBoer says. They pose for a photo together.
Tim would have loved it.
“It felt so fitting,” Alicia said. “It was obviously a super cool experience to meet such big names in UW sports, but also to see such beautiful character, because that’s who (Tim) was, and that was even more important to him than our kids’ sports.
“They could not believe everything they got to do. They were so thrilled and surprised.”
We step into DeBoer’s office, now bustling with activity as 1 p.m. nears. “I want to show you something,” he says. He hands me Dawn’s email, which he has printed out and sitting on his desk.
As part of his presentation to parents, DeBoer shows a graphic outlining the program’s foundational goals. Atop the mountain: win the Pac-12, win the bowl game and graduate everybody.
Some players are dreaming bigger, and talk openly about chasing a national championship. The program recognizes two in its history, in 1991 and 1960. When Odunze announced his return in January, he wrote: “We’re coming for a third.”
“We’re not going to sell ourselves short. In college football, the end-all, be-all is the national championship,” Odunze says after the spring preview, some three hours after DeBoer held court with parents in the same room. “If we’re going to strive for greatness, that’s the top of the mountain. We’re not going to sell ourselves short. We know this talent. We know with this coaching staff, we know with our hunger, we can get there. That’s not to say we’re not going to hit some adversity through that journey, but we’re not afraid to strive for the top.”
DeBoer has added some hardware to his office since I was here last spring. Mementos from UW’s Alamo Bowl victory rest just inside the door, to the right. His Pac-12 Coach of the Year award — DeBoer shared the honor with Oregon State’s Jonathan Smith, but it appears the conference sprung for two trophies — sits on a shelf behind his desk. The design team is currently working on the commemorative Alamo Bowl placard to hang in the tunnel with all the others from past bowl games.
He’s redecorated in other ways, too. There is a hallway off the tunnel that, at DeBoer’s request, now bears images of past UW greats — NFL players, All-Americans — as well as coaches like Jim Owens, Don James and Chris Petersen. Large, gold numbers — placed, not painted — signify the program’s first-team All-Americans, bowl appearances, conference championships, Rose Bowl appearances and, yes, national championships.
Bullish as they might be on their 2023 ceiling, the Huskies, like any program outside of the sport’s stratified top tier, still face a steep climb toward No. 3.
If they ever get there under DeBoer, you’ll know how.
— Christian Caple, On Montlake
This is absolutely fantastic, Christian. Great read.
Wow! This article by itself worth every penny of On Montlake subscription. Great work Christian. I love it!!!