Author Archives: itlneil

Volunteers

26 Thursday Jun 2014

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I wanted to take a minute today to talk about how important it is to volunteer in your quest for a career in football.

If you live in an NFL city, and you want to work in pro football, find a way to volunteer with your local team. If you have an FBS (or FCS, or good D2 or even D3) team in your city or town, go volunteer. Granted, volunteering for NFL teams may be a little harder, but usually if you poke around on a team’s website long enough you’ll find someone that will take you. As for colleges, summer camps have become a really big revenue stream for most coaching staffs, and if you’re willing to work for no pay, they can usually find something for you to do.

I’m always struck by how many people in awesome football jobs started off as volunteers, hung around, paid attention, showed their intelligence, and got hired. Dru Grigson started off as a volunteer scout with the Eagles in 2005, and 10 years later, he’s the Director of College Scouting for the Cardinals. Tom Ciskowski volunteered as a defensive coach with Butch Davis at Miami (Fla.) in 1985; in 2008, he was named Director of College and Pro Scouting for the Cowboys. Steven Price volunteered with the Panthers at the age of 16 and now he’s a scout with the Vikings.

Granted, some of them had an angle and had some assurances that if they put in work they’d get the first opening, but not all of them; Price started interning with the Panthers because his mother was a secretary there.

Can’t get an NFL team to even let you work for free? Have you tried the AFL route? Two Titans scouts, Jon Salge (Nashville Kats) and Brandon Taylor (Columbus Destroyers), were with AFL teams before landing a job in Tennessee. Bears scout Zach Truty was Director of Player Personnel with the Arizona Rattlers before coming to Chicago. Eagles scout Bret Munsey was Director of Player Personnel for the Orlando Predators before he latched on in Philly. Steelers area scout Mark Gorscak was the GM of Pittsburgh’s arena team in 1987 before moving over to the city’s NFL team.

I don’t know how many of these people got AFL positions by emailing resumes, knocking on doors or waiting in the parking lot to assail a top team executive. What’s more, there are lots of indoor teams of dubious nature that are not AFL teams, per se; they’re just teams trying to copy their model. Sometimes, these teams can be a little shaky and offer limited ability to provide reliable contacts.

Still, there are many routes into the game. We’ll discuss this at greater length tomorrow.

 

 

War Story Wednesday: NFL scouts edition

25 Wednesday Jun 2014

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Since it’s WSW, we thought we’d pass along a few stories about NFL scouts that we thought illustrated the inexact nature of the business.

I think there’s a perception that the evaluation process is very scientific, dry and unerring. Nothing could be further from the truth. No matter how many scouts a team has on staff, and no matter how long they’ve been evaluating personnel, there’s a human element to it, and people make mistakes. They always will.

One example of this is the Bears, who in 1991 drafted running back Darren Lewis out of Texas A&M in the sixth round (161 overall), though they didn’t mean to. In ’91, the combine was still in its early stages, but the league did perform drug tests on those they invited. Lewis failed his drug test, causing many teams to remove him from their boards. That includes the Bears. So how did they wind up drafting him? It turns out there were two running backs named Lewis in the 1991 NFL draft: Greg Lewis out of Washington in addition to the Aggies’ Lewis. According to reports, the Bears took the wrong Lewis off their board, then accidentally took the rusher struggling with off-field issues. Perhaps not surprisingly, the he lasted less than three seasons, getting cut by the Bears in 1993. As of last year, he was in jail after a series of petty crimes.

There are also a series of disagreements between scouts on teams that lead to players falling through the cracks. Longtime NFL scout Bill Groman illustrated this by telling this story at our first-ever seminar for parents of draft-eligible players in 2010.

“Dominic Rhodes was at Midwestern State, I think was the name of the school. . . Back then I was a national cross-check scout (for the Falcons), and I was in the Dallas area, up in that area, covering another school, and I thought I’d run into the school. Another guy had gone and seen him and given him a free agent grade. He was about 5-foot-8 and a half, 5-9, a short guy, and about 205 pounds, but I saw him run real fast, and I like speed, you know, and athletic ability, and I saw he had some stats, and he could really (play).

“I went and looked at film and tape on him, and then I stayed over on Saturday and went to the game. Shoot, the game I was at, I think he was at 200-some yards rushing, and did all kinds of stuff, so I wrote him up to be like a third- or fourth-round pick and make somebody’s team. The other (scout), I know what he was looking at was the fact that this was a Division II school, he doesn’t play against the great big guys, but I think offensive linemen, defensive linemen, from those schools, yeah, they aren’t playing against the big guys, but when you’re a skilled athlete, a receiver, a defensive back, a running back, I don’t care who you’re playing with. If you can do it, you can do it. He just stood out so much, and what ended up happening was, I was at Atlanta at the time and Dan Reeves was our coach, and so what happened is, I wrote him up good, and this other guy had just given him a free-agent grade, and for some reason or other, our Director of Player Personnel at the time put him as a free agent, and we didn’t talk about them, so we didn’t talk about him in our meetings, so Dan didn’t know anything about him.

“Well, he gets drafted late by the Indianapolis Colts (Rhodes was actually signed as an undrafted free agent after the ’01 draft), and doesn’t play, like, the first 5-6 games, and then they come and play at Atlanta, and the starting running back (Edgerrin James) gets hurt. Dominic starts the game and gets like 170-some yards rushing (Rhodes ran for 177 yards on 29 carries with two TDs in a 41-27 Colts win), and I get a telephone call Monday from Dan, and he said something about, well, this guy runs so well, and you know, I said just go look at my grade, which he did.”

For more stories from Bill, check out our video archive at Inside the League.

For another story discussing how players fall through the cracks, check out this interview I did with former Cowboys scout Jim Hess. In this YouTube clip (the interview starts at :34), Jim discusses how he, along with then-Cowboys quarterbacks coach Sean Payton, came to like an Eastern Illinois passer named Tony Romo. From obscurity, Hess and Payton came to champion Romo, so much so that he turned down a more lucrative UFA offer from Denver to sign with the Cowboys after the ’03 draft.

 

Thoughts from a rare rookie year

24 Tuesday Jun 2014

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John Thornton got certified last fall, and by any measure, it’s been a great rookie season. In his first season, he negotiated a big veteran free agent deal (new Bucs DE Michael Johnson got $43.5 million over five years) and had a player drafted (the Seahawks took Marshall OT Garrett Scott at 6/199) despite being independent. Though he credits Chicago-based Rick Smith of Priority Sports as being a huge help and a big influence, he has no specific affiliation with Priority or any other firm.

Also making him unique: he’s one of only a handful of contract advisors who also played in the league; he was a 10-year veteran with the Titans and Bengals after being drafted by Tennessee in the second round in 1999. As such he’s got some unique takes on the football business after his first year certified by the NFLPA. In fact, he had too many thoughts to fit into Monday’s newsletter, so we thought we’d pass along some of what we couldn’t use in today’s post.

On the draft, and the expectations of draft prospects: “I think the rookie side of the business has gone out of whack on how they train and agents are told where (players are) going to go. I would say that’s the craziest part of this thing. You almost don’t want to deal with a rookie, and if you have a first-rounder you spend a lot to get them and to train them. It’s almost better to find a guy that you know is a good football player and have a great relationship with. Who cares if you have a first rounder if you overspent on him? I’d rather have a fourth- or fifth-rounder that you didn’t spend as much on but have a great relationship on. On the rookie side, so much is done for egos. Being (an ex-player, you know) it doesn’t matter where you’re training at and (you know) a guy can train at school, like Garrett did, and had better numbers than probably 95 percent of the guys at the combine. You got to send them here and there, and that’s part of the game. You know a lot of that is BS, but everybody’s doing it.”

On protecting a client while also managing expectations: “You gotta really keep your circle tight on who you do business with. Most people say they can do things and they can’t, and they’re usually marketing people or financial people. One thing that (Arizona State Director of Athletics and former NFL Executive V.P. of Football Operations) Ray Anderson told me is to stick to your principles in this business, and if I don’t know someone, I don’t do business with them. Everybody’s not in this business for the same thing. If you’re going to do business with someone, make sure they’re the same as you, business-wise. If you don’t do business with people you trust, nine times out of 10 they’re going to try to stab you in the back. Everybody says they have a deal for you, but they don’t always have it on paper. All they really want to do is to have a player’s name so they can go shop it around. Good players get great deals, but if you’re not a good player, you won’t get a good deal on or off the field. Nobody’s giving a bad player anything. There’s no marketing deal and no second contract to talk about. Football is football, and (Broncos QB) Peyton Manning is getting deals off the field because he’s a great player. That’s the thing I learned.”

On transitioning from player to agent: “When I played, I was always the type of player that coaches would say, ‘do what he does, follow him,’ and I became a big brother to guys like Robaire Smith and Albert Haynesworth at Tennessee. I was (head coach) Marvin Lewis’ first free agent at Cincinnati, and I tried to help change the perception of the team. Rather than being a dominant player, I did the right thing to prolong my career, and in doing that I became a big brother to players. I also had four agents (during my career), and I was always changing. There was Ray Anderson, Ralph Cindrich, Harold Lewis and David Dunn, and I learned a lot from them in what they do best and what they don’t do so well. Then, I helped Frostee Rucker during his pre-draft process, and while I was helping him, the Lions wanted me to come play because (then-head coach) Jim Schwartz had been my defensive coordinator at Tennessee, so I agreed to it, but two days later, I backed out, and I just said, I have something I want to do. I had made enough money to not have to struggle, and I had this itch to be a manger and be a professional and help guys off the field. I told the agents I would handle my side if you handle your side, and I wasn’t a runner. I was really helping the players through the agent process, and then I was coming out of my pocket as well, so that’s why I was given the opportunity to be a player with really good agents. As far as wanting to be an agent, that was the next step for me as player, mentor, manager, and then being an agent.”

Obstacles

23 Monday Jun 2014

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Lots of people dream of being a sports agent. I get to work with the ones who actually go through with the necessary steps to make that dream a reality, and it’s very rewarding when it works out. But sometimes it doesn’t, and there are some very good reasons for that. Here are two.

1. In the interests of full disclosure, Rand Getlin of Yahoo! Sports is a good friend, and even spoke at our last symposium at the 2014 NFL combine. He occasionally cites me on his Twitter feed or posts stuff that I have on ITL. On Friday, he commented on the University of Texas’ cancellation of its agent day, and what followed was this interplay with one of his followers. Now, I understand that Twitter is where snark reigns, and I know that in today’s post-modern society, everyone’s opinion is to be given equal weight, no matter how without merit. Still, Stosberg’s retort really makes me angry because he clearly has no understanding of the agent process and sees only one side of the argument. Which is really convenient.

Yes, I understand that agents make easy scapegoats.

Yes, I understand that the common perception is that all sports agents are sleeping on piles of money, washing their hair with money, drying themselves off with money after working out, etc., but the vast majority of contract advisors are taking great financial risks on long shot players with no prospect of recovering these fees.

Yes, I recognize that sports masses only know of agents what they see in TV or read online. I realize that there’s even a fair amount of jealousy on the part of some sports fans who wish they had the opportunity to play in the NFL.

Still, isn’t it worth considering that these players have a right to make informed decisions about the people in whose hands they’ll be putting their NFL dreams? Is that unfair? Which leads me to my second item.

2. Check out this story that was in the Texas Tribune (and NYT online) on Sunday, and not just because I’m quoted in it. I think the ‘wow’ moment comes when Drew Pittman, a long-established agent with Domann & Pittman (and yes, Drew and I are also good friends) talks about the money he’s spent with the state just staying certified. Even at that, if he wants to stay in good graces, he’ll stay in his lane and not complain when the University of Texas bars him from speaking to any of its players until the entire regular season has been completed. And he shouldn’t expect the state to go out and bring down the few dirty guys out there. He just needs to stay in his corner, and keep his mouth shut until at least the end of November, with no other contact, and hope he can get lucky based on one quick meeting.

Is that how most multi-million dollar business deals are consummated?

Is that how any multi-million dollar business deals are consummated?

The narrative says that your run-of-the-mill agent is so corrupt that you can’t take any chances. You just have to bar them completely from even speaking to players to preserve these players’ pristine, blameless, innocent amateur status. That’s sad. Still, is it so absurd to suggest that if you’re in the education business, and you care about your players (even after they leave college), you might be interested in educating them? Maybe it is absurd, because most schools hold to this kind of policy. There are very few schools with progressive policies that give players the tools to know what to look for and what to stay away from. That’s a real shame.

These are two examples of what NFL agents have to deal with. The issues look simple, but they’re not. If you’re seeking to work with NFL hopefuls one day, keep this in mind.

Dollars and cents

20 Friday Jun 2014

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If you’ve been reading us for our first week-plus in existence, you know we’re here to help people fight their way into the football business and climb the ladder against all odds. We’ve focused mainly on three areas: NFL scouts, NFL agents and high school football coaches, especially in Texas. Though all three have had popular modern movies made about them (Draft Day, Jerry Maguire and Friday Night Lights), some are a little more glorious than others.

Today I wanted to take a quick look at two career paths, scouts and prep coaches, at least in Texas.

Used to, entry-level scouts were called ’20-20 guys.’ That’s because they were hired in their early 20s and were making around $20,000-$25,000, at least in their first year or so. Based on texts from a handful of scouts this morning, new scouts are making in the $40,000-$50,000 range now. That’s about double the old days. The downside is that it’s a very volatile business, and changes at the GM level, and sometimes at the head coach spot, can mean you’re out and on the street. What’s more, it’s not always easy to find another job.

High school football coaches, at least in the Lone Star State, are probably starting off in the $50,000 range, too. That’s because entry-level teachers make around $40,000 in better school districts, and by the time you factor in the stipends involved with coaching a couple sports (football isn’t the only sport for most coaches), you’re in that $50K range. The big difference is that if your head coach gets reassigned, you’ve still got a job. The other big plus is that you’re not on the road 11 months out of the year, as a scout is. Of course, if you’re young and single, maybe that’s not such a big deal, but if you’re more focused on starting a family, coaching is pretty attractive.

We’ll continue to discuss various football careers next week. Happy weekend.

Dedication

19 Thursday Jun 2014

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On Tuesday, as I’ve mentioned in this space previously, I spoke at a football clinic in West Texas (San Angelo, to be exact). The clinic, which brings in hundreds of high school coaches from across the state of Texas and much farther away, is an annual fixture on the calendar for prep coaches in the Lone Star State. While there, I was struck by a couple things there that really espouse the focus, dedication and single-minded effort that you see in people who are trying to accomplish a goal, in this case, climbing the high school football mountain.

The first example involves me. I was scheduled to speak twice about resumes and interviews, once on Tuesday and once on Wednesday, 90 minutes each. As it happened, I was slated to speak in a small room well off the main floor from 5-6:30 p.m. Also speaking at 5 p.m. was former NFL head coach Wade Phillips (one of the clinic’s co-owners), who was scheduled to discuss the finer points of defensive line play. His talks are always one of the high points of the clinic, and it showed, as he was given a two-hour time block.

Then, at 5:15 p.m., perhaps the most talked-about man in Texas football today, new Texas head coach Charlie Strong, was taking the dais for 20 minutes. So if you were a wide-eyed coach looking to learn as much as you could sometime in the late afternoon around 5 p.m. on Tuesday, your choices were a former NFL coach with three of the state’s teams (Texans, Cowboys and Oilers), the new head coach at the state’s biggest and most storied football school, and . . . me.

I should mention that you also had the option of hearing me speak — on the same topic — on Wednesday at noon.

Given all these circumstances, I was pleasantly surprised that we had 11 attendees. At least one is a current head coach in South Texas. Another, Deer Park assistant coach Nolan Patterson, is a longtime friend and a hot name in coaching circles who’s made it to the finals for several coaching jobs so far but not quite gotten his first top post. There were several more, and I hope they all get to the summit. They certainly are willing to pay a price for the chance to improve themselves.

The second example involves a coach named Paul Banks. I was fortunate enough to be invited to a dinner Tuesday night that was a sort of reunion for former Oilers players, coaches and training staff. Oilers greats Dan Pastorini and Carl Mauck were there along with several coaches. Paul was also there as a guest. At one point, John Paul Young, whom I’ve mentioned previously in this space, asked him to stand up and raise his hand. Paul’s a coach in Memphis, Tenn., and on his finger was a state championship ring for a title his team won last year. Here’s the story of Paul and his devotion to Angelo Clinic.

Now, Paul didn’t win a state championship because he’s been coming to Angelo Clinic for almost 20 years, and he didn’t win it because he used to take a Greyhound bus to the clinic, by himself, every year. It’s also not because he chose to honeymoon in San Angelo when his wedding day conflicted with the clinic schedule. But it didn’t hurt. And here’s my point. You’re going to have to take some chances on the road to success, especially in football. It might be missing the opportunity to hear two coaching titans speak on the off chance you’ll hear something that will help you get a job. It might be riding long hours across the country, knowing you could learn some coaching tips you can apply to your own team. There will be no guarantees.

I know I’m not passing along any secrets here, but I’ve always found it helpful to see the kinds of sacrifices others make, especially when, in Paul’s case, they pay off.

I encourage you to keep believing, keep working, keep taking risks and keep doing what it takes to make your dream come true.

First-year agent lessons (cont.)

18 Wednesday Jun 2014

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Today we decided to fuse War Story Wednesday with Tuesday’s theme and continue to roll out first-hand experiences from selected first-year agents.

Coral Springs, Fla.-based Jason Beneby, who represents Falcons DT Nosa Eguae: “There are a few (lessons I learned). One is, knowing the true NFL evaluation system of a player. I think once you understand and have the ability to separate what the mass media think compared to what people in the business know and understand, that point can’t be stressed enough. I would also stress bringing in players with good character and the drive for hard work. There’s a sense of entitlement in this generation of players and the key is to make them understand their work is not done just because they entered the draft and signed with an agent. It’s not about living life like you’re on an NFL team because you’re not. You want players that are good character. The NFL’s reality and a player’s perception are two different things.”

Bellevue, Wash.-based Scott Weitz, who represents Cardinals WR Kevin Smith: “I wish I’d raised investors so I could go after guys with a bigger piggy bank, to pay for the training and whatnot. The other thing is, to really focus on the quality of guys you get rather than the quantity of guys you’re getting. One of our internal goals was, we read an article on (an agent) that signed five guys in a previous draft class, and that was kind of our goal, and he was getting publicity, and (we learned) it’s not that hard to sign five guys that aren’t getting recruited, but it’s hard to sign two guys that are getting recruited. And you learn that once the draft comes, it’s not always easy to be on these teams’ radar and at that point you’re just dealing with disappointed guys afterwards. And another thing, you gotta have ITL behind you, especially that first year.

Fargo, N.D.-based Michael Gust, who represents Redskins CB Bryan Shepherd: “You don’t know what you don’t know. And frankly, that’s why everybody should sign up for (Inside the League). Your emails and the phone calls (you and I have) had . . . you don’t know what you don’t know. Unless you work at a firm that does this, and you come from that background, you don’t know anything about it. And even if you have that firm experience, sports management firm, until you’re actually the one dealing with the player face to face, one on one, you don’t know what you don’t know. Inside the League provides you with that info, (and informs) us of what we should know.”

Hard lessons of a 1st-year agent

17 Tuesday Jun 2014

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At ITL, we take our job of helping new football agents very seriously. In the football business as in life, it’s one thing to think you know about a topic, but until you actually dive in and try to swim with the sharks, your eyes haven’t truly been opened.

This is especially true for contract advisors. Sometimes when we reach out to folks registered to take the NFLPA exam, they’re full of pluck and confidence, even cocky. Sometimes they’re a little nervous. Very often they’re somewhere in-between. But one thing is always true: after their first year, they have a dramatically different take on things.

For the last two summers, we’ve interviewed our clients after the conclusion of their first year certified by the NFLPA. Their thoughts go into our newsletter aimed at those aspiring to one day be agents. We only interview the ones who actually have players on NFL rosters, which is a fraction of the entire class. In other words, this is a select group that has at least experienced some measure of success. The last question we always ask is, ‘What’s the lesson you learned that you wish you’d known a year ago?’ Their answers are always insightful and interesting, but we have to edit them so they’ll fit the restraints of our daily email. We thought we’d pass a few along in long form.

Chicago-based Ronke Champion, who represents Giants FS Kyle Sebetic: “You need to do your homework on a player before you agree (to represent someone). Being a new agent, you want to just represent somebody, but it’s a lot of work to represent a player who’s not going anywhere. When it’s all said and done, the kid who I was doing a favor to his parents was the one who gave me the most trouble. My business got really busy then and I didn’t think I could do it. As a new agent, we just want to represent people, but those longshot kids are the ones that call the most and have unrealistic expectations. When his mom accused me of being a woman and not knowing what I was doing (because I was a woman), I said, you have my permission to go find another agent. I said, ‘You need to talk to me and tell me how you get that feeling. I have another kid getting calls every day, and your son isn’t getting any calls, and that’s not my fault.’ My advice is, don’t sign a kid — help them but don’t sign them — if they don’t have any chance.”

Slidell, La.-based Dr. James Gilmore, who represents Jets TE Terrence Miller: “Don’t assume that just because you’re getting to know a player that they’re going to sign with you. They aren’t yours until they sign the SRA. I traveled to the Cotton Bowl to hang out with (a player’s) family, and was about to go to one of the all-star games, and said, ‘You go on your own, and enjoy yourself,’ and he called me from the bowl game, and he told me he put (my) name on the list as his agent, and I was assuming things were well, and when he got home from his bowl game, he called and said he was going with someone he met at the bowl game. After two months of really good courtship, at the end of the day, his parents made him go with someone who had been doing it longer. He said his dad made him go with experience, and the other agent came to his house. Never assume. If I was smarter, I could have signed him at the Cotton Bowl, but being new to this, I was like, ‘take your time.’ It was like a new friendship, but it’s a business relationship that’s not filed until they sign the contract. Until the SRA is signed, they’re not yours.”

 

 

A bit about our service

16 Monday Jun 2014

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I’ve alluded to the fact that I’m speaking at a clinic in San Angelo this week. I wanted to expand a bit on the subject of my talk and why I’ll be there.

I’m one of six partners in Champions Search Firm. We’ve got some cool videos and we’ve even been referenced (indirectly) on si.com once, but we prefer to stay in the background (though that’s becoming harder and harder to do). Our mission is simple. We work with schools that have vacancies on their athletic staffs, though at this point I’ll admit the only positions we’ve helped fill are head coach and/or athletic director, though we have the bandwidth to help in much more than that. Soon, our website will provide a way for school districts to look for coaches, sorting them by their qualifications, experience level, or other criterion.

I know that coaching high school football may not seem glamorous or lucrative, and to some degree that’s true. However, salaries aren’t that bad after a few years, and the facilities and stadiums are very nice: two high school facilities (Galena Park ISD Stadium outside Houston and Eagles Stadium in Allen, outside Dallas) have hosted college football all-star games since 2007. Meanwhile, high school coaches here often use their careers as platforms into college and pro football. Fun fact: as recently as 1997, four of the hottest coaches in college football — Baylor head coach Art Briles, Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury, Arizona State head coach Todd Graham and Clemson offensive coordinator Chad Morris — were coaching or playing Texas high school football. That same year, Jets Director of College Scouting Jeff Bauer was coaching high school football in the Houston area.

We’ve been fortunate to have helped schools hire more than 30 coaches in the last eight years, plus one college coach. Typically, we’re engaged by the school and we help them through the hiring process, conducting interviews and doing background checks, and then recommend a predetermined number of finalists. The school then picks the candidate it feels is the best fit.

We’ll have more on our firm and keep you posted on the clinic here later this week, so stay tuned.

Finding my ‘champion’

13 Friday Jun 2014

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I didn’t really start this week with the idea of talking about finding mentors (and in one case, going in the exact opposite direction), but since we’re here, I thought I’d close the week talking about my mentor in the game of football, John Paul Young.

I met John Paul in the summer of 2002. At the time, I was a low-level writer/editor at the Houston Chronicle, and I had heard of a football clinic that took place every June in San Angelo, Texas, called Angelo Football Clinic. It was one of the best-kept secrets in football, even in Texas. San Angelo, like most of West Texas, is a pretty remote place, but coaches came from all around (some as far north as Minnesota) to come hear the lineup of coaches who would come in and speak for 90 minutes about the nuances of the game, then retreat to a classroom afterwards to answer questions for hours afterwards. Name a notable head coach in college or pro football over the last 30 years, from Bill Walsh to Nick Saban, and he’s spoken at Angelo Clinic.

Anyway, I made my way to west Texas that year knowing I would launch ITL in a few short months, and I was looking to make contacts. As someone with a black-and-gold heart shaped like a fleur-de-lis, I felt John Paul, one of the clinic’s founders, would make a great one. He’d been Bum Phillips’ right-hand man at nearly every coaching stop, from the Luv Ya Blue days with the Oilers to the frustrating seasons with the Saints. Then, following Bum’s retirement, he’d coached with Bum’s son, Wade, in Denver, as well as Kansas City. He was a coaching veteran and a man I knew would have a thousand stories. There was one problem: he had no idea who Neil Stratton was and absolutely no reason to care.

After hanging around for three days with few connections, I’d arrived at the last day of the clinic. Poised to leave within hours, I happened upon John Paul in a small group of other coaches, laughing and telling stories. I could tell he was busy, but I knew it was now-or-never time, so I approached him, interrupting him mid-conversation, and introduced myself as a guy from the Houston Chronicle who was in town seeking stories about the clinic.

Instead of brushing me off with a “not now, son,” he greeted me warmly. and we exchanged a few friendly words as we traded business cards. Sensitive to taking too much of his time, I awkwardly thanked him and excused myself, then got back on the road. I’d been traveling about three hours when my phone rang. To my shock, it was John Paul. “You never gave me chance to tell you more about the clinic,” he said, and we launched into a lengthy conversation about the history of the clinic, that year’s speaker lineup, his time with the Saints and Oilers, and a number of other topics. From there, we forged a friendship that is entering its second decade, and helped launch Inside the League as well as a number of other projects.

One of them is Champions Search Firm, the company we work with in helping high schools across Texas fill their athletic vacancies, especially at the head coach/AD position. As two of the firm’s six partners, we help good coaches find good situations leading young men on the football field and in life. In my capacity as a Champions partner, I’ll be among the speakers at Angelo Clinic next week alongside Lane Kiffin, Wade Phillips and other recognizable football names. It’ll be a true career highlight for me, but there’s really only reason it’s happening, and it’s because John Paul was willing to help a young man who was eager, respectful and most of all, grateful for his help.

But this story is more than just a sweet reminiscence. If you’re hoping to fight your way to the top of the football world, I encourage you to do what I did. Take a chance and go to out-of-the-way places. Be willing to put yourself in front of influential people, even if you don’t have a clear plan on what to say when you get there. In short, go for it and be aggressive about creating opportunities, but cultivate the relationships around you once you create them.