Norvell's Football Influences Carry Roots from Home
Respect, accountability and hustle serve as his foundation
There are too many influences in Jay Norvell’s life for him to ignore.
He was coached collegiately by a legend, Hayden Fry, with a staff filled with future leaders. Barry Alvarez. Bill Snyder. Kirk Ferentz. He has traveled the country as a college coach, standing under some of the brightest lights at UCLA, Oklahoma and Texas. He’s exchanged ideas and learned from Hal Mumme, Mike Leach and Chris Ault. He did a turn professionally, impacted by the philosophies of longtime Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis, a man he refers to as “coach.”
They are all part of Norvell as he becomes the 24th head football coach at Colorado State University. But so are Merritt and Cynthia Norvell and what they taught him as a youth growing up in Madison, Wisc. What his team will find is their principles are also woven into his Xs and Os.
He was raised that faith was important. So was work ethic, character and integrity. They are, in Norvell’s opinion, “the basis of who I am.”
The mixture he’s landed on as a coach, well, that’s all him. It has to be, or he can’t be what he professes to be, and that’s genuine.
“I think you have to find your own voice in yourself, and you can’t try to be somebody else,” Norvell said. “I think that’s a growth process. I think it’s trial and error, and our three tenants are things I tell my own son, that I believe you need to do to be successful. It’s a growth process. What you do believe in, it needs to be yours. It’s not real if it’s not, and it’s not credible to the players. I told the kids in that meeting room I’ll never lie to them, and I won’t. I want credibility when I speak to them, and if I tell them something, I want them to know it’s true. That’s something that’s really important to me.”
Tuesday was a whirlwind for him, getting up long before dawn in Reno, Nev., to catch a flight to Denver for a van ride to his new home, Fort Collins. He did a quick tour of Canvas Stadium – more than he’s ever seen in scoring nearly 100 points against the Rams in his two previous trips -- before meeting with the team at 11 a.m.
He expressed his empathy for them, considering he will be the third coach for many of them in just five years. Then he told them he doesn’t have many rules, but the three they will all hold dear will not be cheated – respect, accountability and hustle.
No more, no less. Then he taught them the way they’ll start meetings: By sitting upright, feet flat on the floor and reciting those three things, followed by finger clicks by both hands and two punches, the second to their chest.
Those three things are sprinkled throughout all of the successful places he’s been in football, but also a big part of the Norvell family dinner.
His team will show respect within the program, player to player, coach to coach and all the interactions which will take place between all parties. They will be gentlemen, he said. He expects yes sir and no ma’am, please and thank you and for them to open doors for others on campus. He wants to hear about them doing those things, too.
When you have respect, when you show manners, he said, teams rarely have problems.
Nor do they when individuals hold each other accountable for the choices they make. His belief is once someone understands their decisions determine their success rate, you can really start to get things done. Then there’s good old-fashioned hustle. Roll up the sleeves and get to work. Do your best, do it consistently and not when it’s convenient.
You have a choice the way you look at things. You can look at the negative or the positive, and I’ve always been one to encourage those around me to be optimistic. I think that’s why I’ve had success in my career.Jay Norvell
Those pillars of his upbringing have served him well along the way, and made him something Colorado State needs about now.
A person with a positive outlook.
“That probably comes from my parents and my upbringing. We’ve always been optimists,” Norvell said. “I think it’s a family trait. I think it’s a positivity in the way we look at the world. You have a choice the way you look at things. You can look at the negative or the positive, and I’ve always been one to encourage those around me to be optimistic. I think that’s why I’ve had success in my career.
“For a long time, I didn’t know if I was going to be a head coach, I just always was affected by my time in the National Football League, of being a professional and what that meant. I always try to do that, my very best every day. That’s paid off. I treat people right, and I think that’s paid off for me.”
Director of Athletics Joe Parker and a small staff of campus had the help of a search firm, but when his group started conducting interviews, one candidate started to stand out. About midway through their interview, Parker felt a ‘wow’ moment, one he knew the others shared when they all started texting each other.
“It was the first time we engaged with him,” Parker said. “It was midway through it, and we were all looking at our monitors and engaging with him. He was the real deal.”
The way Novell conducts himself and treats others has paid off in people being devoted to him. He built a successful program in Nevada, which wasn’t easy. His reputation is of a person who builds a strong culture, in the locker room and the support staff which surrounds the program.
Jordon Simmons, Norvell’s strength and conditioning coach at Nevada, said the man is type of leader people follow, because the values he preaches he puts into practice every day.
“It’s just the man he is. He is one of the most genuine, caring honest people I’ve ever met,” Simmons said. “I’ve told him since day one I’d follow him anywhere. Seriously, he’s like a father figure to his guys, but also to his staff. He genuinely cares about people, and that’s something that’s easy to follow.”
He became emotional to a couple of occasions and wasn’t afraid to cry in front of others. The first time came with the players, late in his meeting when he told the he would be honest with them, and right before he acknowledged it took him a long time to become a head coach because he wasn’t one to play the game and he will be a person who will always care more about what they think than the thousands of voices from outside.
The second time was in his press conference, when referencing his wife, Kim.
He is big on eye contact. It’s how he feels he connects best with people, how he can really red them. You can sense another’s energy and devotion. He’ll be quick to extend a hand, to give a hug, to put a hand on the shoulder.
Some players, naturally, walked away still wanting some time to digest what has happened in the past five days. Receiver Ty McCullouch, well, he feels somewhat hardened, recruited to play here by one man who is now two coaches old.
McCullouch wanted to go in with an open mind, and he came away feeling the man who delivered the message was not selling anything, but expressing his truth.
“It’s never easy, but I looked him in his eyes the whole time and he seemed sincere. I’m ready to get to work with him,” McCullouch said. “I like what he hit on first, respect, accountability, manners, all those things, and just win. That’s always been our goal. I think it’ feasible, and I think we can do it this upcoming season.”
Which is what Norvell told them. He will bring urgency, and he expects it in return. He wants to win, and not down the road, but this year and the year’s after. He expects to chase championships in Fort Collins, and he wants players who are willing to put in the work to get there.
He was honest. He needs players to fit his system, which is an Air Raid offense with a dash of the old West Coast Style, a pinch of Pistol and a smidge of power. He wants big receivers and strong-armed quarterbacks to throw to them deep. He wants big players, because they beat up on smaller ones – another Davis philosophy. He wants a championship defense with corners who will press and a front seven which applies pressure.
All across the board, he wants aggressiveness, backed up by fanatical play on special teams. And yes, his best players will be on those units.
He will find those players. Some of them are already here. Other will come via recruiting or even the transfer portal. The first signing period is next week, and while important, he won’t rush the process, with a second signing date around the corner. The transfer portal is nice, but it will also leave some prep players behind and ready to be found.
He will recruit locally and nationally, with particular interest in the west, where he has had success.
"First and foremost, you noticed he gets in a lot of players,” current Denver Broncos linebacker Malik Reed told the media on Monday. “So, I think right away in recruiting, he's going to get in a lot of players at CSU. He's really ironed out, he wants things to go a certain way. He's very detail oriented. So, I think that's going to be something that he adds to their program. I think he's going to add that right intensity when it comes to the practice field and day to day organization."
When he finally gets settled in and has a complete staff in place, there will be urgency. Each and every day of winter workouts and spring practice. It will come from him, and he’ll expect it from his team. He has plans, and they start immediately.
“We expect to win. We expect to be good,” he told his team. “We expect to compete for a championship next year. Next year. We expect that. And then we expect to do that every year. I want to play on New Year’s Day.”
He will bring energy to the table, and he expects it to be met. He told the players their energy was their focus. If one of them has it, good for them. If all of them have it, for themselves and for each other, it amplifies.
Do that, and the Rams just may move mountains. They may even have a chance to remold the Mountain West.