Big Ideas TXST episode 43 transcript
Dan Seed (00:00):
Hello and welcome to Big Ideas, a podcast from Texas State University. I'm your host Dan Seed from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. This month we're joined by a legend in Southwest Texas State and Texas state football history, David Bailiff. Coach Bailiff is a Texas State Hall of Honor Inductee who played for the Bobcats from 1977 to 1980 and returned his head coach from 2004 to 2006. Of course, during his tenure as head coach, he guided the Bobcats to the Division I-AA—which is now FCS—National Semifinals, before moving on to Rice where he led the Owls as head coach. From 2007 to 2017, he returned to the family, so to speak in March as a special assistant to new head football coach G.J. Kinney. We're pleased to welcome coach David Bailiff. Coach, thank you so much for being here.
David Bailiff (00:54):
Hey, I'm excited to be here, excited to be home. This is where it all began and it's unbelievable that this is where I can end this great journey I've been on. This is where my friends are, the people in this town are the people I love, and so it's been heartwarming to come home to an incredible reception everywhere I go. I came to Southwest Texas in 1976. I was young and dumb and now I'm coming back old and wise.
Dan Seed (01:21):
And so coach, what is it about Texas State that holds a special place in your heart? Obviously as a student athlete and a coach, but just the place in general, what is it that makes it feel like home and family to you?
David Bailiff (01:34):
What's really crazy is I was a student here obviously, and then I went to New Braunfels High School and I was a football coach at New Braunfels High School and a history teacher and then you come back and you're a graduate assistant here, so John O'Hara hired me, so I got a year of John O'Hara and then Dennis Francione came aboard and we went to the University of New Mexico and then I came back as the defensive coordinator. I wanted my kids— We were expecting twin boys and it was important for me to have them born in the great state of Texas. So I left the University of New Mexico, moved back to San Marcos. My twins were born in Austin, left went to where'd I go? I went to TCU as a defensive coordinator, then I came back as the head coach. So I think professionally I've been here 16 years and as a student, so the greater part of my life almost has been in San Marcus.
(02:31):
So I have friends from my college days through my defensive coordinator days, through my head coaching days and this is where you want to end up. And like I said, when G.J. called me, I told him I'm in the three-point stance. Tell me set, hut, I'm on the way to San Marcos. To be totally transparent, I really was thinking about retiring and then my wife said, you haven't been home in 35 years of marriage. You follow me around the house, you drive me crazy, you better find something to do or we may get divorced. So I thought, man, I better find something to do. And fortunately the next day coach Kinne called, who had nothing but respect for, I really like him when I was the head coach of rice, he was the starting quarterback at Tulsa and at the end of every football season, I write a personal note to the player that I think exemplifies that everything's right in college football.
(03:26):
And so I wrote Coach Kinne a note, tell him what a class act he was and how bright his future was going to be. And from that note, he goes on to the NFL, but every summer he'd bring his brother back to my quarterback camps. So that's where the relationship started to grow and was impressed with him as a player in the NFL and in college impressed with him as a young coach. And if you look, everybody that was hiring him, he used to either play for or coach for. So that says a whole lot about the quality of young man that he is.
Dan Seed (03:57):
So I was reading about that tradition that you had of writing a letter to one player, one opposing player every season. How did that come about? That's a really interesting thing because you don't hear about things like that a lot if ever, and especially in the big world of college athletics now it feels very corporate, but yet here's a very human connection. How did that come about for you? What made you want to do that to a player?
David Bailiff (04:25):
I have no idea. It was just something I felt compelled to do to let the great competitors know that it was observed. They weren't only great competitors, they were great men and they were going to make this world better and I really did. I felt compelled to write a note and let 'em know what I thought about 'em. That was one of the things as a head coach too, I'd have my freshmen write their favorite teacher. I'd have 'em write their favorite coach, their favorite guardian or parent that got 'em here and teach 'em how to format envelopes. Just a little add-ons you try to do and life skills to help 'em along the way.
Dan Seed (05:00):
And that's something too that's interesting. Again, big time college athletics. Now we see these stories of coaches with these huge contracts and the money and endorsements and whatnot, but at the end of the day, coaching is about teaching flat out.
David Bailiff (05:17):
If you're not a teacher, if you don't love them, these young men, we get to coach or somebody's treasure my children, the Bailiff children are my family treasures, and so that's part of a coach. I think that's what G.J. does so well at. He's so authentic and humble and concerned about these players that he helped. He's going to help 'em grow as men and be great husbands and great leaders, and I personally think that's what it's about. And I love winning. Okay, don't get me wrong, but now at my age, I love when I get a wedding invitation because that means I had an impact in somebody's life. Those are the big wins when you get those things.
Dan Seed (05:55):
Do you remember what you told Coach Kinne in that letter back in the day? Does anything stand out about?
David Bailiff (06:02):
I don't, but I know I would've told him how bright his future was going to be because you also get to go to the media events and watch him interact with the press and interact with people. So there's just the clues out there that if he'd have gone into finance, he'd have been at Goldman Sachs. He's just that kind of guy, whatever he does, and he chose coaching. He checked ever box to be a head coach. There's a couple other guys on this staff that he's hired. I love this staff he's put together here. He's got guys that check ever box. They're going to be head coaches one day here.
Dan Seed (06:35):
And not only did you have a relationship, I suppose in the sense that you faced him when he was a player, but the same thing happened last year, last season. You’re A&M Commerce team faced his UIW team. When you were across the field, obviously you're dealing with your own team, the game, all that, but what did you see in him going up against him as an opposing coach this time that really impressed you and made you think when this opportunity came around, this is a guy, yeah, I want to be there and I want to be with him.
David Bailiff (07:06):
Well, they ultimately, they beat us. They were unbelievable. Howard offense now, and I think the score was 35 to 14 at halftime, I believe it was tied and there was no panic in him. You could just see the self-belief. A lot of young guys panic. There was nothing in him. He was just like he was before the game started. We had a great visit before the coin flip and I was proud of him. His dad's a high school football coach, so he's grown up in this game. So he's a great high school player, a great college player, played in the NFL. There's nothing he hasn't seen, so he's a very young coach, but he's got old man wisdom because he's been in a locker room his entire life.
Dan Seed (07:50):
Texas State fans and those of us that have graduated from the university and now work there, we've had this optimism for a long time with every head coach that has come in over the last 10 years or so, for the most part that this is the guide, but that optimism has quickly been dimmed. Things have felt different though since Coach Kinne arrived. What does he bring to the table that gives you an alumnus, a former coach, a big time college coach, that optimism that says, this guy can make a difference. Take us behind the curtain a little
David Bailiff (08:25):
First off, I wouldn't have done this for everybody. I do this because I want to help coach Kinne be the first coach to go to a bowl game. He's got big dreams and I want to help him achieve them. Here's how it works in the great state of Texas and it's such, it's crazy, okay, and a lot of, if you're not from this great state, you don't understand it. When did UTSA get so good when they got a former high school coach that went to college? When did Baylor get so good? When they had high school coach art? When did Tech with Spike Dykes? So he's from Texas, Sonny's from Texas, and so the high school coaches are going to try to help somebody they consider their own, and that's just how it works. You can bring in Bear Bryant here and G.J.’s going to do a better job because he's from Texas, that's just Texas and Texas high school coaches, there's 13,000 of them and they want to see one of their own succeed and they're going to look at Coach Kinne as one of their own.
(09:21):
If you look at the decades, Baylor was bad and they brought in NFL coaches and they brought in and all of a sudden they hire a guy named Art who's a Texas high school coach, and he gets it rolling. It's just, I don't make the rules, but those are the rules of Texas. And G.J’s already been out to the Texas High School Coaches Association and sat down and visited with their president, Joe Martin and gone out there and met with 32 of the power brokers around the state. So he's making all the right moves with the Texas high school coaches and I think one, they appreciate that. They know that they just came off the road. We were all over Texas in the high schools. My phone was blowing up with guys excited to see Texas State in their high school again, and that's how it works. And it also helps you go in there, you build relationships and all of a sudden there's a great player from Lake Travis that's hitting in the portal. Well then Hank's going to try to help us because we've been in that school and we've developed a great relationship with him.
Dan Seed (10:22):
And so this role that you're taking on special assistant to the head coach, we've seen this role grow in popularity in recent years across college football. What exactly is it for you here and how are you going to be contributing to the program? This is an off the field role, correct?
David Bailiff (10:38):
That's correct. Yeah, that's correct. Right now, what I'm mostly getting out this community and trying to rebuild a lot of bridges that aren't there right now and to let 'em know Coach Kinne's real and we believe in him, believe in his staff, and I think the good times are on the way. If I didn't believe in him so much, like I said, I wouldn't do this. My role evolves all the time. My kid when I got here that I'm America's oldest GA, whatever coach Kinne asked me to do, that's what I'm going to do. If he asked me to go try to secure a car, if he asked me to go and because he knows I still know most of the people in this town, I appreciate him bringing me back. And so we meet daily, we just went over my next task he wants me to work on and I'm trying to get him to the hospital gala.
(11:30):
I tried to get him to the Heritage Foundation. I'm trying to get him all over town to introduce him at these functions where I can get him and his wife's summer. She's got a great wife too, two little boys that are out of this world and I'm trying to get them to all the different venues I can so that the city of San Marcos, see he lives in San Marcos. He wants to be part of this community. He's not living in New Braunfels or South Austin. He's living in San Marcos and he wants to be a part of this community. And that's one of the things we talk about turning this into, again, as a university, we have to have the support of the city for us to be the best that we can be and in return, we have to support the city. We're all in this great little town together and the more relationships we can build, the better we're all going to be for it. The better the times when these guys graduate that they're going to come back and give back and keep this university star on the rise.
Dan Seed (12:25):
You mentioned, and I think it's a great description, that as you said, you're the oldest GA in the country and of course people that don't follow football aren't aware probably that a lot of coaches in order to get into coaching, they start in these graduate assistant roles. So this kind of takes you back 40 years or so. What has that been like? I mean, is it exhilarating to get your hands in the dirt like that again and be that guy?
David Bailiff (12:51):
I love it. I would also like to say I'm probably America's highest paid GA. I'm not making $300 a month, but that's what I enjoy. I enjoy people. I enjoy getting out. I went and spoke to a group of realtors yesterday with Patrick Rose. We had the groundbreaking yesterday on the renovations that are going on around here. I try to hit every public event there is, and I try to get G.J. to as many of 'em as I can, and he's busy. They went so deep in the playoffs at Incarnate Word—Texas State let him finish that out. And so we have to play catch up now. He didn't get to have a meet and greet. He hit the road here and he went recruiting. They've just done a masterful job in the portal. We have some great players coming to town, so it's a fun time to be here.
(13:42):
It's the first time I've ever been the oldest on the staff. I think I may be the only baby boomer in the whole athletic department thinking about dying my hair. Actually, I told 'em at the front office, I said, if they walk up here, if they're gray, bald or got a belly, just get 'em to my office before they forget who they came to see. And it's pretty much held true. It's almost comical because one of the GA's came up and said, coach, you're right: Everybody comes to see you is gray, bald or got a belly. I said, that's correct.
Dan Seed (14:11):
Oh boy. Well, it sounds like you're relish in the role and we're joined by David Bailiff, a special assistant to the head coach of Texas State Football. You mentioned the portal, right? And of course that's something that's relatively new in college football As a coach, what is that dynamic like to be able to strike that balance between building relationships with the high schools and that bread and butter of the recruiting pipeline, but also having to look in that other and that free agency aspect basically. How has that changed the way that coaches approach recruiting and developing a team?
David Bailiff (14:49):
Well, the portal is you look to most of the guys we're taking, they're from Texas, they want to come home. A lot of guys get wrapped up in those 48 hour trips and think they want to go a long way out of state and then realize, I want mom and dad in the stands every week. So they're looking for a home. And then the high school, you balance it out. You take about half portal, about half high school and develop those kids. And it's really, it's hard anymore. When I was at Rice, we won the conference. I redshirted my entire freshman class of 23, and then five years later we won the conference. Well, that formula's gone. You can't say I'm going to red shirt everybody anymore, and then in five years we're going to be wonderful. Now if you develop 'em and they're not happy, they just hit that portal and they're gone. So one, it's still a relationship game. You got to make them where they see you're developing them and they're getting happy and they can see their future here. A lot of kids get in that portal too and never play football again.
Dan Seed (15:49):
I was going to say, you see so many guys enter and it's like, oh, they're gone and they're looking for that big thing and then you just never hear from 'em again.
David Bailiff (15:56):
Right? And they're not offered, especially those young men that jump in there with no game film and they think they're going to go to Power Five, they just never play football again. Or they go down to D-II or D-III to try to find an opportunity. There's a downside to that portal too. Like I said, a lot of 'em remain unsigned.
Dan Seed (16:15):
So when you're recruiting high school guys, looking through the portal, what's the kind of player that you're looking for? Obviously physical attributes, ability, but the type of person or the type of player that you guys are really trying to hone in on to rebuild this thing and get it moving?
David Bailiff (16:32):
Well, first off, life is too short to coach turds. This is a turd-free environment. We're going to coach high character kids that go to class and represent us the way we want to be represented. That's what Coach Kinne stands for and I love it. You don't win football games where if they won't do the little things, you're going to have a hard time winning football games if they don't go to class. And you got to force 'em to, that's the environment, the culture we want over here. These kids that we're taking are highly vetted. We're calling coaches that coached them or where they are now. They're just not coming in here with us, not doing a pretty thorough background check on 'em as good as we can do. We look at all their Twitter accounts to see if there's any warning signs that you don't want 'em. A lot of kids lose scholarship because the student stuff they put on Twitter, we're looking at everything. When you're going to make an investment in a young man, you want to know everything about him,
Dan Seed (17:23):
And it's a big investment with scholarship money and education and whatnot. And the face of the program athletics always viewed as the front door to a university and football primarily, especially in Texas. So when you look at Texas State football, we've had so much success in other sports. Baseball for example, has been really successful. The basketball team has had some really big runs over the last few years. What needs to happen from where you are sitting to get the football program to be that front door, that face of the university athletically, which then of course helps everybody. It puts the university on a higher level or a higher standing. I guess for perspective students, faculty, athletes or people that aren't playing sports, what needs to happen here to get that ball rolling?
David Bailiff (18:15):
Well, I think that's already happened with hiring coach Kinne. He's well respected and it's going to be all of us trying to get with the students and get with the citizens of San Marcos to win. It's got to be all in. That's one of the things. We'll get him around to the students and to the fraternities and sororities and get the support because a winner, and it's not, like I said, if I didn't so believe in him, I would not be here. I believe he's the right guy. The energy and when you see him, how authentic he is with people, he's amazing. His entire story of went from Canton to Gilbert and like I said, I think you hire an exciting Texan with the accolades that he has and recruits are going to be around that. You look at what we're attracting and a lot of that's of the accolades he has from being in the NFL, from being a great player at Tulsa.
(19:13):
So I think it's an exciting time. I've sat in on everybody's meetings. I've quit doing that now, but there's not a coach here that I wouldn't hired. I mean, he has put together a great staff and they are hardworking. I mean, they recruit 24/7. And so I've been impressed with the work ethic. And I think the team too, if you watch his practice as how hard these guys practice for him, they want to please, they want to win. Losing’s a disease and so is winning, and we'll catch that disease of winning around here and he's the right guy as the head coach.
Dan Seed (19:47):
We'd certainly all like that to have October, November roll around and have that disease of winning, be here and have a program where you're in the thick of things as the season winds down. I want to get back real quickly to the high school recruiting in terms of the way that you've built or rebuilt relationships with the high schools, the previous staff focused a lot on the portal, A lot of those relationships withered with the high schools. Where do you feel Texas State is now with the high schools in comparison to before Coach Kinne came or even when you came on board?
David Bailiff (20:26):
Well, I know he is done a great job of getting into the high schools. Even though I didn't work here, I still got all the calls no matter where I was, what the problems were. You try to explain to 'em, I'm not there anymore. I can't help where they recruit. It's his program now. And so I've always, even then I didn't try to always knew what was going on around here. Somebody was calling me either telling me something good or we got to get these guys in high schools and you got to help us. And I said, I can't do that. That's his program now. But also know by the phone calls I was getting then from the high school coaches to the phone calls I'm getting now that we've made a major step in the right direction of repairing a lot of those relationships.
(21:07):
And that's good news. Like I said, there's a lot of Bobcats that are high school football coaches and they all have my cell number. I used to change it every year. Then I quit doing that because I couldn't remember it. So I still get a ton of phone calls when things are going good or when people are not happy, which just floors me because there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. But for some reason they thought I had a direct line to the president or something. But like I said, now, like I said, he's already been out at the Texas High School Coach Association. He's already met with the 32 power brokers from the high school, and Joe Martin has took the whole staff to a barbecue. So we're making great strides and it's not going to be done overnight, but we will get it there. And I think you know how cool it would be to have a bowl ring from the first bowl ring in FBS with my conference championship ring back at 1980. That would be nice to have one of those to the collection.
Dan Seed (22:02):
That wouldn't be bad, right? I mean, that'd be a pretty sweet cap.
David Bailiff (22:05):
Pretty full circle. Yeah. Yeah.
Dan Seed (22:07):
So you mentioned people calling, thinking that he had a direct line to the president. You've been here since March, surely you've interacted with our new president, Dr. Damphousse. He's a huge sports fan, big into sports. What is he like in terms of really pushing this thing forward?
David Bailiff (22:25):
He is AMAZING. And that's all with capital letters. I can't say that boldly enough of what all he represents, but he's just not athletics. He's everywhere. You go to Fight Night, there he is. You go to every event I go to, there he is. The coaches actually think there's twins. I saw that there's and A.M. president and a P.M. president is what the guys told me. We think there's two of them. He sits with the students at baseball games. He takes the time to meet. I heard the Strutters talking great things about him at a baseball game. So he is a strong advocate, but I believe he's that way all over campus. This is for the first time in my how I look at it, there's not a fuse missing from the head coach to the athletic director to the president. I think everything's in line there for the winning to start.
Dan Seed (23:19):
And alignment is huge. We hear that all the time in the big programs. That alignment between administration coaches is vital and key. And so when you look at your life at Texas State, going back to when you were 18 years old and then you come back as a head coach in the early 2000s and now you're here, what to you is most amazing about the transformation of the university with regard to athletics, academics, the whole nine yards?
David Bailiff (23:49):
Well, I think optically the name changed at Texas State, although it was hard on some guys. It was even a little hard on me for a little bit, but I think that's really elevated our level. I think Texas State, if you think about it, it's been 20 years now we've been called Texas State. So the freshmen come in here, don't even know what Southwest Texas is, which is pretty amazing. You see these facilities now in the athletic programs, they're still about to get better. I went up on campus the other day and was, I didn't even know what all those new buildings were. I'm going to have to take a tour and somebody's going to have to tell me what all this new construction is. I recognize Old Main and Jowers Center. Everything else is about new. But I think all of that, students are a lot more sophisticated now than we were.
(24:36):
They want to see nice things. We were in dorms without air conditioned halls or heated halls, and now students, if you're going to attract them, you've got to give them nicer things. And I think the president's done that. This president continued to do it. Our trajectory really is still continuing up. Oh, I see it. You look at the number of applicants and the freshmen class that have enrolled, I think he said it was 42,000 high school seniors that submitted applications. Texas state's still growing. I made a mistake, got on springs at five my first day here. Well, that was a mistake that used to be the easiest way to 35. So you got to learn when to drive around here again. The river's still packed. I told my kids, my boys, I said, y'all don't really need to think about moving here with me. They said, why?
(25:24):
I said, because of the river. You ought to see all the people on that river right now having fun. So I think it still offers a little small town feel, but it's still such great people here that are here for the students. You talk to this faculty and they're here for the students. They understand their role is, I mean this president, I'm with him at Fight Night and he's talking to an incoming freshman and he gives her his business card with his cell number and says, if you have any problems, I'm your first call. Now what president does that? I mean, he is absolutely so here for the students, and I think that's the way it should be. You shouldn't hide in your office. And that's what the Strutters were saying, that they never saw the former president. And so like I said, I really enjoy watching him work and the work crowd, and I think he'd have been a great football coach if he wasn't a college president. He dangs, you're a good recruiter.
Dan Seed (26:17):
I was just going to say that because he is truly everywhere. I see him all across campus, all weird times a day, different places. He's at all the games, no matter the sport. And so it is a nice thing to see and to have somebody that really is passionate, outwardly passionate about the university. You mentioned facility upgrades. That's something that's coming down the pike. What exactly is coming down the pike with that and how is that going to help with recruitment and the building of this program?
David Bailiff (26:47):
Yeah. Well first off, our weight room is way undersized. When I walked in this building, I was stunned that nothing had changed, but some pictures on the wall from when I was here 16 years ago. I was complaining about the weight room size when I was here. Makes a strength coach stay there at all day because you can't fit your people in there. So they're going to double the size of the weight room. They're going to put on a party deck on top of the weight room for a better game day experience for fans. Recruits are like your wife. They want to see nice houses. The nicer you can show 'em, the better it is. It's just, it's how today, it's how it is today. It's no longer just about the scholarship being a student athlete, it's about having nice things around you while you're training. You can get stronger in a closet, but you can't recruit to a closet. So you better have all the bells and whistles to let 'em know you're going to develop in a weight room. They all have dreams of going on. Everybody's got to have that dream if they make it or not. But the dream's important.
Dan Seed (27:43):
So this fall coming up in your new role, will it take an adjustment for you to not be on the sideline headset managing the game versus what you're doing now? How do you think that's going to play out for you? What's your expectation?
David Bailiff (27:59):
What's funny, as I told coach Kinne, yes, I almost feel lazy after you've coached for 40 years and all of a sudden I had some weekends off that I'd never had. So it's an adjustment. But I tell you what makes it easier is the people I'm around. I think, I don't know that I could have done this at any other school because I see so many friends that I came to school with. I didn't get to see anybody for all those years. I was always working on Saturdays. And so it's been nice to see some of my former teammates and young men that I coached and people around town that I was really close to. I didn't make a lot of friends in Houston. I didn't make a lot of friends in commerce. So all my really inner circle friends have always been in San Marcos, and that makes this very doable for me and just it's fulfilling to know I'm helping my university and helping coach Kinne get on a path to success.
Dan Seed (28:54):
Now, last question before we let you go, and thank you for your time in doing this interview. But when we look at this team coming up for the fall, not asking for a record prediction or anything like that, but what do you think we can expect as fans for when the season kicks off and throughout the year in terms of the quality of the team, the competitiveness or just stuff that maybe we haven't seen over the last few years with the football program?
David Bailiff (29:22):
Well, I know the offense is going to operate at a very high tempo, so it's really an exciting offense to watch. There's a lot of play action misdirection. G.J. likes to throw that ball down the field. Now, if he could throw a deep ball ever play, I believe he would. So I think you're going to see some points. I think we're going to have a team that's very competitive. We start out tough with Baylor and UTSA and that'll be a pretty good yardstick of what we need, where we are and what we need to do to get into the Sunbelt and compete. Jim Wacker, he'd always tell us people that's talk about the future, he said he noticed everybody's predicting future lived in crappy houses. So he would never predict what he thought was going to happen. They'd always ask, and that was always the stock answer.
Dan Seed (30:10):
And that's pretty wise for a coach too, right? Let's not put things out that’s going to come back on me later.
David Bailiff (30:17):
Anyway. I think I really do. I think obviously the best is yet to come. We've got an exciting new head coach, exciting staff and players that are really believing in what he's doing. And I like being home. I like having a small role and helping have fun. I mean, I have no bad days. That's one thing Coach Wacker wouldn't let us have as a bad day. I love what I do. I love being around these young men and I love being around this coaching staff and we'll have a lot of fun getting this thing going where it needs to go. But we need y'all to be all in. We need you to help. Have y'all bought your season tickets yet?
Dan Seed (30:51):
Not yet.
David Bailiff (30:54):
We need you to buy your season tickets.
Dan Seed (30:57):
Coach. You may have convinced me because your passion, your enthusiasm. You know what? Put me down.
David Bailiff (31:05):
Alright, here's the ticket office. I'm kidding you. Call, get your season tickets. Get it out there. Hey, I did get bored one day and I went over there and I went over, there're selling season tickets. And I told Donny, I said, I'm just going to go over there and make some phone calls. And so I'd go over there and I'd say, “This is Coach David Bailiff. I need you to buy your season tickets or renew 'em.” They'd go, “They got you selling season tickets?” I said, “No, I just volunteered. I was a little bored over at the office.” So I have fun here every day and I'm around great people and it's so good to be home. And thank you for the honor of appearing on your podcast. It's been special.
Dan Seed (31:41):
Thank you again for your time and thank you all for the privilege of your time and listening. We'll be back next month with a new guest and a new episode. Until then, stay well and stay informed.