Tracy Claeys looked comfortable when he started speaking to about 100 members of the C.O.R.E.S group earlier this month. The Gophers’ new defensive coordinator is 42, has wanted to be a football coach since middle school and was talking to an audience that included many former high school coaches, plus ex-officials, reporters, educators and other sports fans.
Claeys declined a microphone, preferring to move away from the podium and closer to the audience. He’s a big man. Husky they call a person like Claeys who looks like a former college football lineman but didn’t play at his alma mater Kansas State and began his coaching career as a student assistant at Kansas.
He enjoys being close to the audience when he speaks and explained his move toward the C.O.R.E.S crowd with humor: “It’s about the only exercise I get,” he said.
Claeys and most of head coach Jerry Kill’s staff from Northern Illinois are settling in now to begin work on transforming Gophers football into something better than its current status as a Big Ten Conference bottom feeder. Claeys said it’s been a “dream” for him to have a Big Ten opportunity.
“We will do everything we can to get this on the right path,” he told his audience. Later in his talk he said: “I don’t know how long it will take us to win. We just gotta get better every day.”
How will it all happen? Claeys said vital elements are discipline, hard work and recruiting.
He didn’t say it in a mean or threatening way, but predicted players are in for “hell” the next couple months. The process of acclimating to the new culture began earlier this month with a coaches-players meeting where copies of the personal handbook were reviewed. The 100 or so page document describes what’s expected of the players.
The message from the coaches in the handbook and in the days ahead is this: “You’re going to become one of us. We’re not becoming one of you.”
Claeys said “problems won’t be swept under the rug” and there can’t be any doubt about a player’s commitment to the program. The coaches expect to see commitment week after week, starting right now, leading up to spring practice and throughout the 2011 season. Kill, Claeys said, will tell recruits to make sure they want to play for the Gophers before signing on to come here.