Opening statement:
"Good to see everybody this weekend, hopefully it's gone well. Obviously, we put out the statement yesterday regarding Coach Nichol. We were able to tell the team yesterday afternoon. As you can imagine, a lot of emotion with the guys and certainly a lot of staff members. Many of the staff members that we have were very close to Dave. A lot of the guys and people here worked with Dave at various other stops. So just a difficult day. I don't know how else to describe it, just a really, really difficult day. We'll really miss him more than you can imagine. Just a guy that really loved ball. I told the players the other day I'd go home at night here the last couple weeks when he wasn't feeling too good. He didn't want to talk about none of that. All he wanted to talk about was how are the guys doing, how is install going, how are walk throughs? He was Zooming in to everything we did. That just shows you kind of who he was, man. He loved ball, he loved 'SC. He loved this place, this was a dream for him being able to come here. So certainly thoughts and prayers as we said are with the Nichol family. He'll certainly be missed and definitely remembered. We'll certainly have a few things with our football program to honor Dave and his legacy and his memory as we go forward."
Can you expand on Nichol's influence early in your career?
"Honestly, there's a strong possibility I wouldn't be in college coaching without him in a lot of ways. He was really the one that kind of gave me my first shot to walk on at Texas Tech when he was an offensive assistant there. And then when I got into the coaching side of it, he was really the one when I was a student assistant and didn't know anything about anything, he was kind of the guy that guided me, kind of taught me how to become a coach. He taught me the offense really when I was a player. As a walk-on quarterback coming in, you're fighting, clawing, scrapping trying to learn everything you can and I probably bugged him to death those early years just trying to learn it all and he was great to me the whole time. That was kind of him. Like anybody that knew him, Dave was one of those people, he didn't care where you're from, he didn't care your rank in the organization. He treated the head coach the same way he treated some first-day walk-on. That was just him. He was just a really good person to all people and I certainly benefited from that early in our time. And we had a great relationship through the years. He was really funny, really witty, could impersonate anybody as good as anybody I've ever seen. His Mike Stoops impersonation is, we got some old video that I'm sure we'll be breaking out, but they're some of the funniest things you've ever seen in your life. It was just hard not to, people kind of just gravitated towards him. That was just him. Without him both as a player first and as a young coach, without him I really didn't have any other ins into this business and this business is hard to get into. I look back on it now and think, 'Man, like had Dave not taken a vested interest in some no-name walk-on coming in there, I probably wouldn't be here right now.' So myself, my family, we really owe everything to the guy."
Was it an immediate thought to hire him here once you got the job?
"Absolutely. He was a guy, anytime I thought about staff members, whether it was an OC because we were able to hire him and work together at East Carolina a few years ago as well, he was always a guy I wanted to work with. He worked well together, complemented each other, so yeah. And with his experience on the west coast, when we decided to take this job at 'SC, I knew from second one that I was going to try to hire him. He's just one of those guys in the business that knew our stuff inside and out and you could just trust him. You could trust him so much as a coach. He was always going to get his job done. He was always going to put the team first. He was always going to get along with every single person in the staff building. He just was the epitome of a great coach and a great person."
Are there any lessons from those early days at TT that stand out to you know?
"I would say, Dave was so driven, our paths were very different. I got really fortunate when I was at Texas Tech and kind of worked my way up to being a GA. I was a GA one year and then got hired as the receivers coach. My shot came early to get on the field. Dave was a way better coach than I was at that age, probably still is, and he had to fight his way through. He came on, he played at Tech and did the student assistant thing for multiple years. He went to Cisco Junio College and was an assistant there, I think he made like $10,000 a year. I remember him telling me, they painted the lines on the field, they would paint the locker room, they did repairs, they were academic counselors, they did everything. It's a hard job. And then came back to Texas Tech, GA again for three years; on to Baylor, GA again; on to Arizona, GA again. I mean, he had a long road to get his first assistant job with Mike Stoops at Arizona, and Mike was smart enough to hire him. So yeah, I think just his perseverance through, when I think a lot of people would have given up because those are hard years when you're a GA. You're not making no money, you're doing all kinds of different job and all kinds of different hours. And he knew what he wanted to do, and he told me the other day as we were talking that if he had it all over, he'd do it exactly the same way. So that was just kind of the perseverance and pushing through it, willing to do anything within your power to do what you want to do in this life."
Is there anything specific you plan to do to honor him?
"It's still too early, but we've got a couple of thoughts and we'll certainly make those available to you guys, obviously announce those as they become reality."
How hard has it been for the staff to process emotionally while holding a practice today?
"Yeah, yesterday was tough. I think everybody was just in a little bit of like a fog, like a haze yesterday, man. It just really didn't seem real. So really tough, just emotional day. You put on your game face and work, but it was tough. I think today, it was good to get back on the field. That's where Dave loved to be, he loved the field as much as anybody, so probably for us, you take some peace in that that you're out there doing what he loved to do. And then also, I think in some ways probably for us you probably get away from it for a little bit when you get busy. Everybody's been through tough times in their life and sometimes getting busy and trying to get locked in on other tasks is a good medicine. Personally speaking, that's been helpful for me."
Then there was a couple unrelated questions ...
How do you go about identifying, building leadership in the room, bringing in a guy like Tim Kight to talk to the team, etc?
There’s a lot to it. As far as identifying and maybe arming these leaders to be what this program and this team needs them to be, I think first it’s educating these guys. They have to know the culture and where we’re headed just as much as the staff does. They’re going to help you set direction. The player-led teams a lot of times become your best teams, the strongest teams, your championship teams. So we’ve been able to identify a group of guys within the team that we’ve met with often and even within that, there’s a little bit smaller group of guys that have really become the alphas, really become guys that are fully invested and have a voice on this football team and aren’t afraid to use it, to push guys, to challenge guys, to encourage guys. So I like what I've seen up to this point of it.
We did bring in Tim. He’s not really a speaker. He’s somebody we’ve worked with a lot and are going to work with a lot. Gonna really become a part of us. He’s been phenomenal in helping me, helping the staff, helping the players be able to define and execute this culture that we’re trying to build at USC. It’s made me better. It’s pushing us all out of our comfort zone, which is what we all need. We’re in this with the players. We’re asking them to get better, we better be doing the same things ourselves. That’s been the goal. Obviously, it’s early on. We just got done with our third practice. But this team, there’s a good vibe about this team eight now. They really like working. They’ve really taken the things we’ve put in front of them and have really improved quickly. You get a real sense that they’re putting a real effort into fully buying in. That’s been good to see. We keep doing that, and we’ll improve quickly. A big part of that will be the leaders that emerge and how good of a job we do building them up, teaching them, coaching them. That’s the direction we’re trying to head right now. A lot of really positive signs.
How did you meet Tim Kight?
"He did a little work with us on more of an occasional basis at OU. Kind of known about him a little bit, but met him through Coach Grinch, who had been at Ohio State. He’d done long extensive work with Ohio State several years back. He resides in the Columbus area. He’s been awesome. This situation coming in here, the timing of Tim and kind of what we’re attempting to do right now here is very unique. It’s been a great match for him, this staff, and this program all coming together at this point."
"Good to see everybody this weekend, hopefully it's gone well. Obviously, we put out the statement yesterday regarding Coach Nichol. We were able to tell the team yesterday afternoon. As you can imagine, a lot of emotion with the guys and certainly a lot of staff members. Many of the staff members that we have were very close to Dave. A lot of the guys and people here worked with Dave at various other stops. So just a difficult day. I don't know how else to describe it, just a really, really difficult day. We'll really miss him more than you can imagine. Just a guy that really loved ball. I told the players the other day I'd go home at night here the last couple weeks when he wasn't feeling too good. He didn't want to talk about none of that. All he wanted to talk about was how are the guys doing, how is install going, how are walk throughs? He was Zooming in to everything we did. That just shows you kind of who he was, man. He loved ball, he loved 'SC. He loved this place, this was a dream for him being able to come here. So certainly thoughts and prayers as we said are with the Nichol family. He'll certainly be missed and definitely remembered. We'll certainly have a few things with our football program to honor Dave and his legacy and his memory as we go forward."
Can you expand on Nichol's influence early in your career?
"Honestly, there's a strong possibility I wouldn't be in college coaching without him in a lot of ways. He was really the one that kind of gave me my first shot to walk on at Texas Tech when he was an offensive assistant there. And then when I got into the coaching side of it, he was really the one when I was a student assistant and didn't know anything about anything, he was kind of the guy that guided me, kind of taught me how to become a coach. He taught me the offense really when I was a player. As a walk-on quarterback coming in, you're fighting, clawing, scrapping trying to learn everything you can and I probably bugged him to death those early years just trying to learn it all and he was great to me the whole time. That was kind of him. Like anybody that knew him, Dave was one of those people, he didn't care where you're from, he didn't care your rank in the organization. He treated the head coach the same way he treated some first-day walk-on. That was just him. He was just a really good person to all people and I certainly benefited from that early in our time. And we had a great relationship through the years. He was really funny, really witty, could impersonate anybody as good as anybody I've ever seen. His Mike Stoops impersonation is, we got some old video that I'm sure we'll be breaking out, but they're some of the funniest things you've ever seen in your life. It was just hard not to, people kind of just gravitated towards him. That was just him. Without him both as a player first and as a young coach, without him I really didn't have any other ins into this business and this business is hard to get into. I look back on it now and think, 'Man, like had Dave not taken a vested interest in some no-name walk-on coming in there, I probably wouldn't be here right now.' So myself, my family, we really owe everything to the guy."
Was it an immediate thought to hire him here once you got the job?
"Absolutely. He was a guy, anytime I thought about staff members, whether it was an OC because we were able to hire him and work together at East Carolina a few years ago as well, he was always a guy I wanted to work with. He worked well together, complemented each other, so yeah. And with his experience on the west coast, when we decided to take this job at 'SC, I knew from second one that I was going to try to hire him. He's just one of those guys in the business that knew our stuff inside and out and you could just trust him. You could trust him so much as a coach. He was always going to get his job done. He was always going to put the team first. He was always going to get along with every single person in the staff building. He just was the epitome of a great coach and a great person."
Are there any lessons from those early days at TT that stand out to you know?
"I would say, Dave was so driven, our paths were very different. I got really fortunate when I was at Texas Tech and kind of worked my way up to being a GA. I was a GA one year and then got hired as the receivers coach. My shot came early to get on the field. Dave was a way better coach than I was at that age, probably still is, and he had to fight his way through. He came on, he played at Tech and did the student assistant thing for multiple years. He went to Cisco Junio College and was an assistant there, I think he made like $10,000 a year. I remember him telling me, they painted the lines on the field, they would paint the locker room, they did repairs, they were academic counselors, they did everything. It's a hard job. And then came back to Texas Tech, GA again for three years; on to Baylor, GA again; on to Arizona, GA again. I mean, he had a long road to get his first assistant job with Mike Stoops at Arizona, and Mike was smart enough to hire him. So yeah, I think just his perseverance through, when I think a lot of people would have given up because those are hard years when you're a GA. You're not making no money, you're doing all kinds of different job and all kinds of different hours. And he knew what he wanted to do, and he told me the other day as we were talking that if he had it all over, he'd do it exactly the same way. So that was just kind of the perseverance and pushing through it, willing to do anything within your power to do what you want to do in this life."
Is there anything specific you plan to do to honor him?
"It's still too early, but we've got a couple of thoughts and we'll certainly make those available to you guys, obviously announce those as they become reality."
How hard has it been for the staff to process emotionally while holding a practice today?
"Yeah, yesterday was tough. I think everybody was just in a little bit of like a fog, like a haze yesterday, man. It just really didn't seem real. So really tough, just emotional day. You put on your game face and work, but it was tough. I think today, it was good to get back on the field. That's where Dave loved to be, he loved the field as much as anybody, so probably for us, you take some peace in that that you're out there doing what he loved to do. And then also, I think in some ways probably for us you probably get away from it for a little bit when you get busy. Everybody's been through tough times in their life and sometimes getting busy and trying to get locked in on other tasks is a good medicine. Personally speaking, that's been helpful for me."
Then there was a couple unrelated questions ...
How do you go about identifying, building leadership in the room, bringing in a guy like Tim Kight to talk to the team, etc?
There’s a lot to it. As far as identifying and maybe arming these leaders to be what this program and this team needs them to be, I think first it’s educating these guys. They have to know the culture and where we’re headed just as much as the staff does. They’re going to help you set direction. The player-led teams a lot of times become your best teams, the strongest teams, your championship teams. So we’ve been able to identify a group of guys within the team that we’ve met with often and even within that, there’s a little bit smaller group of guys that have really become the alphas, really become guys that are fully invested and have a voice on this football team and aren’t afraid to use it, to push guys, to challenge guys, to encourage guys. So I like what I've seen up to this point of it.
We did bring in Tim. He’s not really a speaker. He’s somebody we’ve worked with a lot and are going to work with a lot. Gonna really become a part of us. He’s been phenomenal in helping me, helping the staff, helping the players be able to define and execute this culture that we’re trying to build at USC. It’s made me better. It’s pushing us all out of our comfort zone, which is what we all need. We’re in this with the players. We’re asking them to get better, we better be doing the same things ourselves. That’s been the goal. Obviously, it’s early on. We just got done with our third practice. But this team, there’s a good vibe about this team eight now. They really like working. They’ve really taken the things we’ve put in front of them and have really improved quickly. You get a real sense that they’re putting a real effort into fully buying in. That’s been good to see. We keep doing that, and we’ll improve quickly. A big part of that will be the leaders that emerge and how good of a job we do building them up, teaching them, coaching them. That’s the direction we’re trying to head right now. A lot of really positive signs.
How did you meet Tim Kight?
"He did a little work with us on more of an occasional basis at OU. Kind of known about him a little bit, but met him through Coach Grinch, who had been at Ohio State. He’d done long extensive work with Ohio State several years back. He resides in the Columbus area. He’s been awesome. This situation coming in here, the timing of Tim and kind of what we’re attempting to do right now here is very unique. It’s been a great match for him, this staff, and this program all coming together at this point."
