West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez is known for his unique coaching style and philosophy and he learned that style not by coaching, but by playing.
Long before his coaching days at WVU, Rodriguez was a player under Don Nehlen, the winningest coach in WVU football history, but he was sure to learn lessons from Nehlen.
"I think everybody's got to be their own personality and I played for Coach Nehlen, and then I was a volunteer assistant with Coach. What I remember, he had a great passion for the game, you can tell that with how much work he put into it. And also I think he had a really unique ability for the whole staff to feel really important. He made every coach, no matter what role you had, felt really important [with] what your role was. And that's probably the biggest take I took from Coach," Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez said his coaching style differs from Nehlen's, including how he ran practices, but that he was still able to develop through him.
"We have different personalities. Coach would get on somebody. I can remember he'd get on somebody once in a while... That part I remember, but we're probably polar opposite personality-wise in how we run practices and stuff like that," Rodriguez said.
One coach whose style was more similar to was his position coach at WVU, Bill McConnell. Rodriguez was supposed to be a walk-on wide receiver, but most of the coaching staff didn't even know his name or the side of the ball he played on.
"I was called Gonzalez for the first three months, and then I was too afraid to correct it there. I came here as a walk-on, I thought I was going to be a walk-on receiver. They moved me the first day, I was too scared to say anything different. I'm like, hey, at least I got a shot," Rodriguez said.
"So they moved me to safety and I was fifth team, only because there were five guys. If there were six guys, I'd have been sixth team. But Coach, Coach was so hard on them and he was a great coach. Coach McConnell was so hard on guys, people were quitting in front of me. So next thing you know, I went from fifth team, the fourth team, the third team, and I'm like, am I hanging on? Hey, I'm going to be starting here pretty soon. So as fate would have it, I got to be second team and after my first year, and then wind up playing and having a little fun."
Rodriguez would develop as a player under McConnell, but so would his future coaching habits. Things such as urgency, conditioning, and pace, all things Rodriguez values now, were non-negotiables then for McConnell.
He was maybe the best position coach I had seen or had seen in a long, long time. He wasn't good, he was great. And you talk about being in shape — my gosh, we were in shape. So I learned a lot from Bill McConnell, a whole lot about whatever it is, hard edge and mental toughness and working hard and practice habits. And so that was probably my biggest take here was winning with Coach McConnell," Rodriguez said.
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