[teejers1]

I happened to work with the wife of a young defensive assistant at Stanford until last year.  Her reports of the intensity of coaching under Shaw surprised me, because like you, I had assumed Shaw was running a kinder, gentler, “maintenance-mode” environment (despite my respect for him).  She told me about the heat and pressure that was being applied at mid-season after a couple losses. I even bounced off her the idea that Shaw seemed to be a calmer, lower-pressure leader, and she furrowed her brow and shook her head.  Of course, she was young enough not to have been around other coaching staffs, so she and her husband might have perceived “level 5” coaching intensity as “level 10”, but it still struck me how hard they were working and how intensely Shaw cared about winning. She also spoke of 100-hour work weeks and the fact that she barely ever saw her husband during the season (and even for much of the off-season). After those occasional conversations by the coffee machine, I gained a different perspective of Shaw than the one I had inferred from his calm and sometimes low-energy demeanor.

I happened to have dinner with an Assistant Coach at Stanford who worked on the same staff as David Shaw.  Suffice it to say he was not particularly effusive in his "praise" of Shaw.  This person also predicted (correctly, I believe) that Shaw would never hire strong-willed, opinionated, and outspoken assistant coaches because Shaw would feel threatened by them.  After that interaction, I had a different perspective of Shaw than the one I had previously, and I admit that it put me on heightened alert - and was one of the reasons I was so adamant in believing that Shaw should hire a real, proven OC, delegate, and get the heck out of the way.  I wanted Shaw to prove this guy wrong . . .

[teejers1]

I happened to work with the wife of a young defensive assistant at Stanford until last year.  Her reports of the intensity of coaching under Shaw surprised me, because like you, I had assumed Shaw was running a kinder, gentler, “maintenance-mode” environment (despite my respect for him).  She told me about the heat and pressure that was being applied at mid-season after a couple losses. I even bounced off her the idea that Shaw seemed to be a calmer, lower-pressure leader, and she furrowed her brow and shook her head.  Of course, she was young enough not to have been around other coaching staffs, so she and her husband might have perceived “level 5” coaching intensity as “level 10”, but it still struck me how hard they were working and how intensely Shaw cared about winning. She also spoke of 100-hour work weeks and the fact that she barely ever saw her husband during the season (and even for much of the off-season). After those occasional conversations by the coffee machine, I gained a different perspective of Shaw than the one I had inferred from his calm and sometimes low-energy demeanor.

I happened to have dinner with an Assistant Coach at Stanford who worked on the same staff as David Shaw.  Suffice it to say he was not particularly effusive in his "praise" of Shaw.  This person also predicted (correctly, I believe) that Shaw would never hire strong-willed, opinionated, and outspoken assistant coaches because Shaw would feel threatened by them.  After that interaction, I had a different perspective of Shaw than the one I had previously, and I admit that it put me on heightened alert - and was one of the reasons I was so adamant in believing that Shaw should hire a real, proven OC, delegate, and get the heck out of the way.  I wanted Shaw to prove this guy wrong . . .