An Inside View of Pete Carroll's Leadership at USC Football
Jared Sandler joined me on The Highest Level Podcast (Episode 18) to discuss his first broadcasting job with USC athletics, including calling games and being around the Pete Carroll-led Trojans football team for the final three years of Carroll’s time in southern California. This gave Jared a unique point of view that media members, and in particular broadcasting teams, have into being around these teams and seeing how they operate on a daily basis.
Here are some highlights from when I asked him about what stood out about how Pete Carroll’s leadership and the chemistry within the team at the height of their run atop the college football landscape.
Pete Carroll Defining his Own Core Principles Before Heading to USC
Pete Carroll Studied the Success of UCLA Basketball Under Coaching Legend John Wooden
After getting fired as head coach of the NFL’s New England Patriots, Pete Carroll spent a year out of football studying John Wooden and his success as UCLA basketball’s coach. Carroll learned that John Wooden had clearly defined philosophies and principles that drove his coaching and how he approached every day and every situation.
Success as a Head Coach is about Philosophies and Values, not X’s and O’s
And what Carroll soon realized was that he lacked this solid foundation to drive his own coaching. As Carroll stated on the Flying Coach podcast:
“So much that I loved and admired about John Wooden, that he was so unique, he was his own guy and his own way. But it was more about figuring out that you needed to know how you were going to coach your team. Not X's +O's. It was about knowing who you are.”
This is a common mistake that most coaches make that their knowledge of the game or their offensive or defensive strategies will cause them to be successful.
It’s interesting that Carroll had been hired as a head coach in the NFL twice(!) before making this realization that he needed a core philosophy and coaching principles to drive his day-to-day approach to leading his team. By the time he had been hired at USC, he had built and developed this foundation, and was clearly living it out in everything he was doing, as Jared remembered from his time around Pete Carroll.
“What's clear is if you were to really take a step back and deconstruct it, Pete Carroll had his core beliefs, his core philosophies and he didn't project them on you by simply standing up and saying ‘we're going to compete’, ‘we're going to do this.’ No. He puts you in positions constantly to carry those out.”
The USC Football Team Culture under the Leadership of Pete Carroll
Everything Was By Design with USC Football Under Pete Carroll
In the organizations that have built championship cultures and win consistently, nothing happens by chance. Everything the players see, feel, and experience is designed to reinforce the core values, philosophies, and beliefs of the leader and the culture he/she is trying to build. Even details as seemingly insignificant as the pictures that are hung on a wall reinforce a message.
I worked with a coach who was on Pete Carroll’s coaching staff at USC who told me that they would not hang pictures from games on the wall in the meeting rooms or facility unless the technique depicted in the picture was the way it was being taught by USC coaches. In other words, there are no accidents. This is just one small example of how everything you see is on purpose and by design to reinforce the culture of the program and the way things are supposed to be done.
Projecting Confidence as a Team
Jared Sandler highlights the result of this design when talking about what it was like to travel with the USC football team while Pete Carroll was leading the program.
“The football team would go somewhere and it was like, ‘Wow. That's the USC football team’ and in the way that they carried themselves and that wasn't a mistake. It was by design. Pete Carroll projected that confidence and bordering on arrogance that helped USC win games before the ball was even kicked off.”
Carroll’s Dynamic and Energetic Personality Created Buy-In from his Players
Jared also highlights how Coach Carroll’s dynamic and engaging personality got his players to want to play for him. This is a common key trait you see in almost every great leader.
Leaders do not need to be best friends with those they lead, but there is no doubt that Pete Carroll’s energy and positive approach to life and football helped garner a tremendous amount of support in the locker room, and a relentless belief that they would win.
“I just think the thing for me though with Pete was how dynamic he was, how energetic, how engaging - He got his guys to want to play for him. Pete instilled that belief in every single one of his players and that's something that i don't know that I've seen to this day accomplish as effectively as I was able to witness Pete do while at USC.”
Relationships and Team Chemistry Made USC Football Special
Pete Carroll ensured that team chemistry was being built at every possible juncture with the USC Football team. To build team chemistry, a leader needs to get everyone in alignment toward a common goal and the daily approach to achieve those goals. Oftentimes, this goes back to the people in the room who are responsible for the ultimate outcome of the team.
The Importance of the Players Developing Strong Relationships with Each Other
“Pete definitely cared about the players developing relationships with one another…They'd go bowling. They'd go go-karting. They'd have a theater rented out for this new movie that's premiering that everyone's been talking about. That was never lost on Pete”
[Getting players] “outside of that competitive arena and making sure that those relationships are established and that was something that I think was a big identifier underneath the surface of some of those USC teams and why they were as special as they were.”
Using Team Activities to Strengthen Relationships on the Team
Jared noted how Carroll would do a team activity, such as bowling, just to get the players away from the football field in an effort to build and further strengthen the personal relationships of the players on the team.
Building these relationships allow the people in your organization to have compassion for one another, help each other reach common goals, and become the best teammates possible. Even if everyone was not best friends, Pete Carroll still valued these relationships and spent a tremendous amount of time and energy to ensure that the players were given opportunities to build them and knew how important the relationships in the locker room were to the ultimate success of the team.
Former USC Football Broadcaster Jared Sandler on The Highest Level Podcast
Check out more of this interview with Jared Sandler and his broadcasting career on Apple, Spotify, or at https://www.coachevanburk.com/show-notes/18-jared-sandler
