Charlotte Head Coach Will Healy (4-1-20)

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Well, sometimes. On the drive with Josh Graham. Will Healy, Charlotte 49ers head football coach now joining us. You might know him from the bull bound Charlotte 49ers of last year.

You might know him from Club Lit where he's shirtless and having a lot of fun. You might know him from this show where he's been a great delight for us all throughout football season. We were hoping to catch up with you at about this time to talk about spring practice and all of that.

But of course now that we're in very strange times is the way I'll put it, things have changed and we'll get to how everybody's reacting to that in just a little bit. But I remember reading a story David Hale wrote about you in December and your program and you spoke a little bit about branding and trying to put Charlotte 49er football on the mat. When you win games people will notice. When you're in a bit a bigger better conference, and Conference USA is a good football conference, people are gonna take note. When you play in bowl games people are gonna take note and there's gonna be a big audience for that. Before the sports world shut down, essentially, what are some tangible ways you notice some of your branding efforts paying off?

Well, I would say recruiting is probably the biggest way. You went from walking in a high school with a brand that was pretty much, it was not recognizable. A lot of people had to ask you, where are you from? And some were shocked to even hear you had a football program too. Now people have heard about you, especially locally. People were following what you did and you got more congratulations before you even said anything than you did.

What school are you from and why do you look 12 years old? I mean, it's fundraising. It's fans in the stands. It's recruiting.

It's, you know, whether, you know, any media outlets. I mean, it's growing. We're not where we want to be. We are much more recognizable and I think people have taken notice, which in ways puts bullseyes on your back that you haven't had in the past. So now you got to live up to some expectations and see if you can create a winning program consistently versus just having a good year every once in a while. When you're fostering a winning culture, but also one you're willing to be fun and to be different, how much of that was intentionally part of what you wanted to do before it actually happened?

I guess a better way to ask the question would be, how much of it is you just being yourself versus you when you're being interviewed by the folks at Charlotte and hiring a staff intentionally choosing people and selling what this brand, what we all saw it to be? You know, the funniest question I get whenever we have staff changes and I have to interview people and really I don't get it. The staff gets it when they have one-on-one conversations is what is this guy really like?

You know, I see Club Lit. I see him take his shirt off. I see him, you know, doing something crazy or abnormal or in a lot of ways what people call stupid. And they're like, how much of this is for show and how much of it is really him?

And our staff laughs and is like, you haven't seen half of it. That's him. You know, that was me with the buddies that I'm fortunate enough to work with every day. That was me as a College football player. That was me in high school. And I always wanted that.

I craved that as a player. And a lot of the ways that I coach is the way I wanted to be coached as a player and the type of environment and culture I wanted to be a part of as a player. So, I mean, that's our staff, you know. I mean, we have a lot of fun with each other. Part of it, the toughest part about all of this for me is that I don't get a chance to be around that staff every day. That's what I enjoy. That's what I love about the profession.

And if you take that away, it's not the same. So, we do have a lot of fun. I think Club Lit is a way where people have been able to see how much fun we have. But if you came to a practice, it would look the same way.

And I think if you don't enjoy the other 353 days of the year, then it doesn't make the journey a whole lot of fun. So, we've definitely enjoyed every step of the way. It's Charlotte49, our head football coach, Will Healy, who's on Twitter, and we have a question from coach underscore Healy. So, if coaches respond to the question, is this what he's always like? What's he like behind the scenes with?

Oh, you don't even see half of it. Give me an example of something that we haven't seen in Club Lit that speaks to some of the craziness and fun you're talking about. Our staff meetings are pretty interesting.

There's definitely been times where maybe the shirtless Will Healy shows up in a staff meeting, you know. I think that there are different ways to keep it lighthearted, especially in times where you've lost four games in a row, and you're trying to see if there's any light at the end of the tunnel or is this going to work this year. And I think those are the times, much like right now, where you've got to be yourself and make sure that you don't change as times change or the situation dictates how you respond and bring some positivity and fun to life. I mean, that's, again, why we all got into it.

And it doesn't have to be some militant dictatorship. You know, we enjoy even the tough times. I mean, our staff meetings right now on Zoom are a lot of fun. And so I've actually added another staff meeting during the week. I think maybe it's as much to help me survive as it is anything. But, you know, every day, I mean, I'm serious. You get a chance to go work with your best friends every day, people you care about, you love being around.

We have a lot of fun. Give me the time your lighthearted humor got you out of the doghouse with your wife. She doesn't think I'm very funny. You know, I mean, I think she looks at me like, I mean, really took a shirt off again in the locker room and now it's on the damn levitate show.

Oh, it might be the other way then. Give me the time you tried to be funny and you ended up making it worse. I think that's pretty much every day. I'm not real sure how excited my wife is to be quarantined with me right now. She doesn't think my jokes are quite as funny as the staff does.

So we started dating in seventh grade and she's probably had more days than not where she doesn't think my humor is quite as funny as others. How did you propose to your wife? We were during the season.

This was 2011, 11, 11, 11. We had a Friday night off and we went to Atlanta. I proposed that the canoe restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia, and had all of our friends inside the restaurant. I proposed outside and then walked in and all of our friends were there.

My brother was hiding in the bushes taking pictures and the pictures were awful. So obviously we did not hire him as our photographer. We were in Atlanta and our first date was in 1997. We got married in 2012.

So she stuck with me and put up with me for a long time. It's Charlotte Head Football Coach Will Healy with us. Have you had a chance to talk with new Panthers Coach Matt Ruhl?

Yeah, I have. I actually was talking to him the other day about a software that they've used for tackling. But he's been awesome. I saw him in New York before he took the job with the Panthers and we set up a trip. My wife and I were going to go to Waco and go spend time with he and his wife. I was absolutely blown away by what he did at Baylor, what he did at Temple.

From a culture perspective, I think he gets it. He's done an exceptional job everywhere he's been. So we were planning to go to Waco to go see him. He just cut our trip. Now you're driving two miles instead of going all the way to Waco, Texas.

So nice to have that resource very close to home. Based on his college track record, which you noted a bit, what do you think the identity of this team is going to look like? I've talked about it with other guys that an offensive line coach background and someone who's as well-rounded as he is is going to bring a certain identity to pro. Not even just that, also a guy coming from college to pro.

How do you think that looks in the NFL? I think there's a couple of things. One is he's smart enough to understand he's got to surround himself with people who probably know a little bit more about the pro game than he does. I think that there are a lot of ways where he's smart enough to understand he can't change who he is as a head coach just because he moved to a different level.

But maybe how he handles the day-to-day operations have to be a little different. I think that you're seeing now personnel is going to be extremely important to build the organization that he wants and to build the consistency that he wants. It was interesting for me.

I learned a lot. I went to a couple of Hornets games last year and was fortunate enough to be able to sit close enough where you could see how some of the coaches were coaching in the professional basketball league, in the NBA. Some of the guys, the players are on the show. Half the players are at the scorer's table during the timeout not paying any attention to what's going on. Then you watch a guy like Greg Popovich and those guys don't lose eye contact with them. Everybody is into it the entire game.

The bench is into it whether they're playing or not. I think different coaches have different ways of doing things. I think Matt is going to be himself. But he's also going to make sure from a front office perspective that the guys that are on the team match his philosophy. Very similar to probably Belichick and how he forms a roster.

You're hiring a head coach to be the GM of the program and to run the organization and help develop the players that are in it. I think Matt is great with relationships. He's very, very well spoken. He also understands some of the new technology that he can use to extend guys' careers. Some of the GPS systems and things like that that I think he'll sell to get some really good players here.

But I don't think he'll change who he is which is what made him successful and got him the opportunity in the first place. You're the best, coach. I hope things are going well for you, your family. I know you had. When was your second child born? He's 14 months old. Oh my gosh. About a month after I got the job. Well, congratulations on the successful year. We haven't spoken since the end of last season. And we hope to be catching up and talking about things firing up and things returning back to normal very soon. Thanks for giving us an escape from all the other stuff and we hope to be having fun sometime soon. Let's do it. Thanks for having me, guys. Have a great day.

You got it. That's Will Healy, Charlotte head football coach, spending a little bit of time with us. B-Dot just stepped into studio and the Jordan documentary is getting set to come out. I mentioned the Scheme doc that's on HBO. It's about the FBI's investigation into college basketball. I wish I saw all the red flags there the last few months about how this investigation maybe wasn't as awesome as we thought it was going to be. Or maybe not as encompassing as we thought it was going to be. The Jordan doc, it comes out at a perfect time for entertainment purposes. But what about for Jordan's legacy, though? We'll discuss that with B-Dot next.