Football Leadership Book, by Luke Fickell

 

Luke Fickell doesn't eat anything.  I'm sitting across from Wisconsin football coach Luke Fickell at "Well I Can Eat," one of Madison's trendiest new restaurants and I'm trying to figure out what to do.  I got in the habit of meeting sports people at restaurants when I was profiling them for magazines because it made a great lede: "Marv Albert digs his spoon into the chicken a la king;" "Jeff Van Gundy orders an entire Thanksgiving meal off-menu;" "Buddy Ryan eats a steak with his bare hands;" but if I was profiling Fickell, I'd be at a loss.  He doesn't order anything, not even a glass of water. He is staring at me like he's trying to see through my skin.  "Jeff Van Gundy told me this place has incredible cranberry sauce," I say.  "No thanks," he says.

I wasn't here to profile Fickell.  My magazine writing days hit a speed bump when Man's Man: A Magazine for Men got purchased by thirteen different companies in two years, got spun off into a series of branded bar and grills and a show on the short-lived streaming network "THIS," and then finally got liquidated with the back issues sold to paper magnate Glen Masted, the Pulp King of Michigan City.  After a brief plagiarism scandal (I lifted a chapter from Rick Reilly's Who's Your Caddy* because of a bad reaction to gout treatment) and the recent resurfacing of some profiles of women from the early 2000s I wrote that had these censorious outrage-mavens desperate for an apology even though I have a mother and a step-niece, I was looking for work.  That's how I ended up traveling around the country trying to pitch coaches on leadership books.  They certainly did not exist in the higher literary plane I had lived in when I wrote things like "What's Eating Gordon Ramsay?" and "Rick Fox is Ready for His Closeup" but they were fast and easy and tended to sell well if the person was famous enough.  With enough traction, I could even go around giving lectures in hotel ballrooms.  But I had been having a tough time finding collaborators.  I had already been turned down by Quin Snyder, Dawn Staley, Ben McAdoo, Jim Boylen, and Jim Boylan.   

"So," I say to Fickell.  "If we were to start working on this book, what do you think you'd want to focus on?  "Leadership," Fickell says.  "What elements of leadership? You know you were really thrown into the crucible there with Ohio State, with,  you know the whole Tressell thing."  Fickell got his first head coaching job unexpectedly when his the famed NCAA Investigator Buck Duckett caught numerous Buckeyes players in the grip of a notorious midwestern pants-trafficking ring.  The NCAA moved in to punish Ohio State coach Jim Tressell for the infractions. Tressell wouldn't go quietly-- the result was a thirteen hour siege of the Woody Hayes Athletic Center. They took Tressell to a maximum security NCAA facility for three years where he had no access to football or pants.  While locked up, he penned Tressellball: The Art of Integrity- In Conversation with Chad Crad that topped the New York Times bestseller list for 49 consecutive weeks.  In the midst of all of the chaos, Fickell, then serving as the defensive coordinator, got promoted into leading the powerhouse program.  "I don't want to talk about that," Fickell says to me. "That's personal."

Perhaps, I suggest, he could talk about his second stint as defensive coordinator.  After his one season in charge of Ohio State, the university fired him as head coach and brought in the former Florida coach who had retired for health reasons to a TV job but suddenly found himself invigorated by the Ohio State offer.  Fickell stayed on as defensive coordinator under Meyer, which is certainly an unorthodox move in college football coaching. "Maybe you can talk about what you learned about leadership under Urban Meyer." "No," Fickell says. 

(Fair enough.  Last year, I pitched an exposé detailing Meyer's time with the Jacksonville Jaguars as an A Told To with Josh Lambo called Who Kicks The Kicker? He declined.)

"OK, maybe we leave your own personal history out of this and approach things a little more philosophically.  How do you personally prepare a team to win?" I ask, starting to panic a little.  "Winning mentality.  Winning mindset," Fickell says.  "That's perfect," I say.  "How do you instill this winning mindset?"  Fickell's brow wrinkles.  "Winning mindset.  You have to be about winning."  "OK. But how do you become about winning?" I ask.  "Because you want to win. Either you do or you lose," Fickell says, looking as close to incredulous as I can see a person look who does not have facial expressions.  "OK," I say.

I try one last move.  "Look, we can talk about what's in the book later on, but these things really move with good titles.  I was thinking 'A Fickell Twit of Fate.' Or, how about 'Football: Not For The Fickell?'" "No," Fickell said.  "No Fickell puns."  The man had no idea how literature works.  I could have sold a profile on a football coach called "Luke's Not Fickell" to Man's Man sight unseen even though my main sports editor Victor Flugge would have no idea who Luke Fickell is.  He did not even know the basic rules of football and only watched an illegal, combat-oriented version of Jai Alai called "Montserrat."  

"OK then, thanks for your time, Coach," I say.  I pay for my bloody mary that was mainly three full sized sausages and a quirt of tomato juice and start to head for the door.  Thinking I was out of earshot I mutter to myself "Puke Sickell" but I guess I am not.  I don't hear him move.  I don't hear the chair and I don't hear footsteps from anyone coming near me, but before I reach the doorknob someone grabs me.  It is more like being enveloped. My right arm feels like it is being torn from its socket and my left shin seems like it is somehow being thrust upward to stab my own knee.  Fickell, a high school wrestling champion, has me in his legendary trebuchet hold that he had used to subdue 195 consecutive opponents from 1990 to 1992.  Somehow, instead of just screaming out "aaaaahhh and my shin" I manage to blurt out "aaaaaaggghhh trebuchet trebuchet" and Fickell releases me.  

"I see you've done your research," he says.  He's not smiling but he's no longer scowling.  "You know, I like you.  I think we can work together."  He gestures towards the table.  I limp back over there and order another sausage mary.  "It's called Football Leadership Book," he says.