Sitting Down with Manny Diaz, Duke's New Head Football Coach

Intro Thank you so much, Coach Diaz, for agreeing to  talk with me today. I'm so excited. As you know,   Scott Greenwood, I'm the interim chief engagement  officer here at Duke, and our alums are so excited   to get to know you a little bit better. So I'm  glad we can have a few minutes to talk today. I've   had a chance to spend a little time with you while  we've been on the road at different venues, and so   it's a real honor for me to be here to talk with  you. I'm going to start with the first question.  Making it easy From the moment you were named Duke's 23rd  football coach, you seem to be like all in.   You jumped right in from the very beginning.  We all remember the iconic moment of you and   Cameron and the – with the crazies. We remember you making that shot.  Just talk about was there something that  made it so easy for you to feel like   you'd been here forever? There was nothing  easy about making the shot, I'll tell you.  Well, you mentioned making it easy. The – the  people here make it easy. And even before I   was named head coach, just going through the  interview process and everyone I spoke to,   whether that was Nina King or President Price. And you start to realize you're going to get to   work with some really extraordinary people who  – and you can't help but feel their passion for   Duke. And then you get on the job and everyone  you made, you feel the same thing. And so,  you know, look, college football,  it's a – it's a difficult proposition,   especially right now. And you  you can't win on your own.  The best universities have alignment from  from top to bottom. And I and I felt that   early on which which, you know, gave me the  enthusiasm to attack the job full speed. Yeah,  I think that is really true about Duke. It's  one of the best things about this place is   that there's just a real sense that we're all  in this together, which is really awesome.  Family connection Speaking of all in together,  I noticed your family. Again,   I've seen your family at different events. Everybody is really into being at Duke. So   was this just a family decision as well that  people were pretty excited about the chance   to come here and maybe tell us a little  bit about family connection. Well, yeah,   it's remarkable. I mean, last summer, my  wife Stephanie and my younger son Manny  were here on campus, stayed at the WA Duke  and and took a tour as a prospective student.  And my son decided that Duke  was absolutely his top choice.  He loves to golf and was actually on the course  and about four holes and the skies open and just,   you know, he got poured on. But that didn't  deter him. You know he just – so to his credit,   you know, he went back to school in the  fall, did the work, all the applications.  So we had it in our mind that we were  kind of all in on Duke all fall anyway.  And then also, I was you know, there  were members of the staff the last   couple of years who I work with at Miami. And so  with all the success that the team was having,  we would have conversations. So in a  way, I was getting a little bit of the   inside story of what was what was going on here. So when the job did open, let's just say, yes,   it didn't it didn't feel like a coincidence.  And the family was very excited about the   potential to come here. Well we love that the  whole family is engaged. And I know you have   Building Community a son at another school, but I did see that  the last time I saw him, he was wearing more   Duke blue than anybody. That's right. So I think he he seems – he's pretty   much part of the family now as well. One of the things we talk about in   my work that we really are – talk about  building community for for Duke alumni,   I think you're in the community building as well. How do you think about building community around   the football program? Well, you want our  football players to feel the power of Duke.  Right. And where does that  come from? Is it the buildings?  Is it things that happened in the  past? I mean, it really is the people.  We have a chance when we go into a high school –  and our staff, we went to high schools for three   straight weeks in the month of January, and you  don't really know what you're selling until you   get around and the people who you're selling it to  and the realization that not only can we sell the   preeminent elite academic institution in power  five football, but what we can sell in terms of   life after football, we only make one promise to  everyone we recruit, is that someday someone will   tap you on the shoulder and say, no more football  for you. And where will you be that day? Now,   that might happen after college, might  happen after a short NFL career. Long,   but it's going to happen, right? And so where  are you going to be and to be a part of the Duke   community to be a part of that Duke alumni network  is something that no other school can offer.  So when you walk into a high school and you sit  down with the family and say you have a chance   to compete for championships on the field, but  if you want to live a long time on this planet,   you better think long term. And that's  where our community is second to none.  Yeah. Yeah. So we have a phrase we  say a lot in my office as well and   Forever Duke around with our alumni Forever Duke, which for us means that when you join   this community, as we're talking about,  it's not just for the four years of an   undergraduate degree or the 2 to 8 years for  a graduate degree, but it's, it's forever.  Is that sort of the mentality you're talking  about sort of this forever? What is forever,   Duke mean to you? And I'll give you the chance. That's exactly right. Well, when you're when   you're 17 years old, forever is when you're  turning 22. Exactly. You know what I mean?   You're 22 feels like you're old by that. But you want, you know, the parents,   they understand it. You know, because they,  you know, look – 17 year olds that are really   good at football. They think the world  is going to bend to them at all times.  You know, like, you know, who  would want to hire me? You know,   everything's worked out great so far. But I think the families, they really   get to be a part of something forever. Now,  it's not just words. When they come here   and they see how people come back, when  they see how, you know, everyone I meet,  oh yeah, I went to Duke, I met my wife and Duke, our kids went to Duke my uncle went to – I mean,   I mean, you see so much of that connection  that once once you're into this family,   it just it spreads because you realize how  transformative the experience here is. Yeah. Yeah.  One of the last time I saw you was was in  Birmingham at the end of the of the last season.  First Season And then it seemed like the new season started  immediately. We were just talking a little bit   about that football as a year round. So tell us  a little bit about what you've been doing since   since the end of the last season for Duke  and starting your first season here. Yeah,   you know, it's quite remarkable. I was hired  around December 9th, 10th, somewhere in there.  And to your point, the team is finishing a  bowl game and so you're there, but you're   still a little bit on the sidelines, right?  You're kind of in the periphery. You want to   respect the outgoing staff. They did a great  job. They did. Team finished the year the way   they all – and they won the bowl game. Well,  then everyone goes away on Christmas vacation.  Yeah. So from my standpoint,  you're hiring a staff,   you're putting the staff together. Certainly  we're making some additions in the transfer   portal. Some guys that came in in the midyear. But you really want to get around your football   team. You want to get around your guys. Well, school doesn't start here until the   second week in January, so you finally get back. It was 30 days between the first time I spoke to   the team and the second time I spoke to the team.  Wow. Which is remarkable. And then guess what   happens? Then, we all go on the road recruiting  for about it seems like another 30 days.  This week in February without recruiting being  open, we're we're – it's a dead period so we   have to be on campus – it's really been great  because I feel like it's the first time in   over two months that we've been able to get  around our current players. And that's where   I'm so thankful for a guy like David Feeley  in our strength and conditioning program.  He did such a great job the last two years.  He has provided the stability for our guys so   they can just go right back to work and all  the things that they believe made them great   the last couple of years, that's still in place.  So we got a chance to go into the – down into the   Future of Duke Football weight room and we could see all of the guys that  were coming in for optional workouts and they sign   in on the board. It was pretty impressive to see  how committed our players are to getting better   every day, which is really important. Can you share where you think, where   you – where you want to take Duke football  in the next few years? What do you see?  Yeah, there's – there is no reason why we should  not compete for championships. There's no reason.  The landscape of college football's changed. We  know that. It's going to continue to change. And   in my mind, the way it changes benefits Duke in  a couple of ways that are tangible. Number one,   with the transfer portal, which  everybody knows is here to stay,   the players who come to Duke, for the most  part, they understand the value of the Duke   degree. So there are not many schools in the  country that can say when a young man signs   to come to your institution that they're  committed to staying through graduation.  The ones we're going to get at Duke,  they're going to graduate from Duke.  So that gives us a chance to develop, that  gives us a chance to build a team and not   just be a team of independent contractors.  We can really build a team the right way.   And I know for a fact that that wins . And then we have a chance now through,   you know, programs like NIL, where we can make our  guys feel valued, our players should not have to   leave, and you know what, I've told our guys, our  players should leave Duke to go to the National   Football League. If they want – if they're going  to play football somewhere else other than Durham,   it's going to be the NFL. They don't have  to go into another college to feel like they   have to prove themselves in a different way.  And we can do all those things here at Duke.  Alumni Support That's awesome. Gets me excited.  I'm ready – I'm already going down   the tunnel onto the field. I was ready. I  was ready for game day to be here again.  So Duke alumni love to help one another out.  You've kind of mentioned that, that there's   a deep passion. It's part of the secret sauce of  this place. So with 200,000, almost 200,000 alumni   out there, what can alumni do to help support Duke  football and the players that will represent us?  Well, you said something a couple  minutes ago about just the idea of   of getting better. Right. The players coming  in for extra work to just get better. Yeah.  And that's what we tell – you know, it's an old  coaching adage: you're never staying the same.   You're getting better or you're getting worse.  So when you mentioned that number of Duke alumni,   how many people they are, right? Well, everybody – everyone's running   their own race, right? Everyone's in a  different place of their life, their age,   where they are in their professional career. So I  would challenge them the same thing that I would   challenge our players, which is everybody can plus one, right,   do one thing better than you did a year ago. If  you came to four games last year, come to five   this year, if you came to two, come to three. If didn't see us play on the road last year,   come see us play on the road. If you're able to give to the   to the program or to the university, give  something – whatever plus one is for you.  But I think that's what is important right  now. If we – if you look at the the landscape,   as I mentioned, football is very important  and to protect what – everyone will have   their own story of what Duke means to them. That's why this place is special. Yeah, but all   those stories will end up with the idea that Duke  is special. Well, to protect, really, what makes   Duke amazing, that we are the best of all worlds,  in this current landscape, football is very   important for that because we know some change is  a-coming. And so I think to rally around football   protects everything that Duke – it protects  the Duke Hospital, protects Duke basketball,   protects the business school, it protects all  aspects of Duke to keep us on the forefront of   what's going on right now in college athletics. That sounds pretty awesome. I love the plus one.   I'm going to use that myself now because I  think that's a pretty good mentality. Well,   Outro Coach Diaz, I really appreciate you  taking some time to talk with me today.  The one thing I can absolutely guarantee you, you  have the full support of the alumni engagement   office and I think I can speak for most of the  200,000 alums out there, they are so excited for   your team and so excited to see where you take  Duke football. So thank you so much. Appreciate   it. Well, thank you. We're excited to put a team  out in the field that makes our entire alumni   network proud to be a Duke Blue Devil. Excellent. Thank you, Coach Diaz. Thank you.