KRIEGER: Words of CU's Hawkins carry weight

By Dave Krieger, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Barry Gutierrez / The Rocky/2007

"I always tell our guys that excellence is doing a common thing in an uncommon way," CU football coach Dan Hawkins said.

This just in: Winning is not the only thing, even in football.

Dan Hawkins wants to win, of course. In fact, he's fond of promising a national championship at CU before he's through, as he did Wednesday in front of about 950 people at the John Lynch Foundation annual shindig at the former Mile High Stadium parking lot.

I imagine that line brings down the house at CU booster events. It drew polite applause at the Lynchfest.

This was an audience of young achievers, their parents and teachers. Among the award winners this year were a developmentally disabled high school student and a physically disabled middle school student. No one had to tell these people that there is more to life than winning football games.

But then, Hawkins is not your typical football coach. His message may not be one you associate with major college football, which is every bit as fixated on winning as the NFL these days.

"One of my heroes is Nelson Mandela. He has a word, it's called ubuntu. And ubuntu kind of embodies the whole mentality that we're all in this thing together," Hawkins told the group.

"I've always said my goal in coaching is to make a difference. And I think when I start getting into that mode and getting out of the wins and losses, I think our kids have a lot more fun. I think it's a lot more meaningful and I think they have a lot more success. Really, at the end of the day, that's what it's about."

Since the legend of Knute Rockne, and possibly before, football coaches have been presumed to need a certain level of oratorical ability to do their jobs. The movies help reinforce this impression. Al Pacino and Denzel Washington delivered some fantastic locker-room speeches.

Sadly, actual football coaches rarely measure up to these oratorical standards. If you have listened to a Mike Shanahan press conference, for example, you know that, for Shanahan, sentence structure is as much the enemy as the Raiders.

Hawkins is that rare combination preacher/ coach with an extrovert's gift of gab and substantive things to say on subjects other than football. This is not that common at the major college level, where obsession seems to be required, not to point out Nick Saban again.

"I always tell our guys that excellence is doing a common thing in an uncommon way, and I didn't make that up," Hawkins said. "I don't understand why sometimes, players, they want to win the Big 12, they want to date the best looking girl on campus, they want to get drafted in the National Football League, but they're OK getting a 'D' in biology. I don't get that.

"We have a saying: There's two types of class, there's first and there's no. And I really believe that. You're either trying to be the best or you're trying to be the worst. I don't get how you try to go out and be happily mediocre."

Aiming high? Oh, he has examples. The 101-year-old Englishman, Buster Martin, training for the London Marathon. The four-woman crew that rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, from Africa to Antigua, in just under 52 days. His message is as much about going for greatness as getting there.

"Misery loves company, and I tell our guys, 'The gutter always recruits. The gutter always needs reinforcements.' But sometimes the people that are getting up and getting on in life, they're not doing the same recruiting.

"I would encourage the young people in this room to recruit others to do the right thing, to set the bar high, to shoot for something excellent, to shoot for something magical. . . .

"It takes all the people in this room, that we all support each other in this thing. As Nelson Mandela says, it's about ubuntu, that we're all in this together."

Somehow, of course, this holistic philosophy does end up winning football games. CU wouldn't have hired Hawkins if it didn't. Little Willamette University ends up in the 1997 NAIA championship game. Boise State ends up on the map.

"Our goal is to win a national championship at Colorado," Hawkins said, veering into his booster speech. "They laugh at that now, but you won't be laughing because we'll do it, at some point. I promise you that."

Just to show he's practicing what he's preaching, don't you know. But he emphasized the going for as much as the greatness.

"It's not necessarily about winning the national championship," he said. "It's about conducting yourself in a national championship fashion. And doing things in a first-class manner."

And, oh, yes, a little child-rearing philosophy for the parents in the crowd:

"Sometimes you've got to be a potter. You've got your hands on the clay, softly, gently molding. And then other times you've got to be a blacksmith and put 'em in the fire and heat 'em up and pound on 'em."

I didn't say it was all approved by the Parent-Teacher Association. But the man does have something to say.