Author : our esteemed friend and college football/basketball writer @MattZemek, Editor at @TrojansWire .
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You have lived long enough (yes, even if you are only 15 years old) to have heard people tell you, “You REALLY have to listen to this program,” or “You REALLY need to see this video.”
Today, I am telling you that you REALLY need to listen to this interview on Sirius XM Radio, in which co-hosts Brock Huard and Ben Hartsock talk to former Boise State and Washington head coach Chris Petersen about life, football, fulfillment, success… and, yes, the Pac-12.
The show is roughly an hour, but it’s worth your time, believe me.
Petersen is no longer an active coach, which has enabled him to step back and see a much bigger picture. He doesn’t speak the way most coaches speak in public — maybe in private, with other coaches, but not in a public forum. Petersen has always been a different kind of person, and now that he is no longer coaching, his unique views shine through even more.
For an ACC audience, the most interesting part of a richly revealing conversation emerges when Petersen talks about Dabo Swinney.
We all know that Dabo stirs the pot at times, and that he is a polarizing figure. We’re not here to litigate his views or render any sort of verdict on him.
What is worth noting, when you listen to Petersen, is that regardless of whether you personally like or approve of him, Dabo has built his empire at Clemson on a few central foundations, one of them being that the people he talks to and works with really like him.
Petersen and show co-host Huard (who has talked with Petersen a lot in private, due to their professional relationship in Seattle when Pete coached Washington; Huard is a Seattle-based radio host when he isn’t calling football games on the weekends during the NFL season) spend time examining what it means to be a “connector,” a person who naturally makes other people feel part of a bigger project or a larger community. Connectors make you feel you have known another person somewhere before, in a previous part of your life. They create an easy rapport in one-on-one conversations, drawing you in and making you feel entirely welcome, fully at ease.
They make you want to be around them.
It’s a very different dynamic from a coach’s public press conference statements or the battles a coach fights with the press or a rival school. Those are combative and political tactics.
The direct, person-to-person encounter is different, and it’s not the side of coaches we see on ESPN College GameDay or in a one-minute halftime interview.
Chris Petersen knows his profession at a very deep level, and he knows Dabo Swinney makes strong connections in the professional relationships which matter most to his success.
On a national level — at 40,000 feet — many people can’t stand Dabo Swinney. Yet, at the face-to-face level, removed from the cameras in an intimate professional context, Dabo Swinney forges very strong connections.
That might surprise a lot of people.
What might also surprise a lot of people: Chris Petersen hammered home that insight.
For those that couldn’t find the interview from the link in the article see below… for the entire interview. Peterson speaks about Dabo at the 50 minute mark.
Retired CFB HC Chris Petersen joined @BrockHuard & @BenHartsock for an hour this week.
One moment that stuck out was how a book helped in his decision process to retire from college football.
Listen to the entire interview herehttps://t.co/M27EoMKvtg pic.twitter.com/d6GbvFBy8m
— College Sports on SiriusXM (@SXMCollege) April 22, 2021
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