General Manager, Indianapolis Colts
I’ll never forget my first day as a member of the University of Wisconsin football team. August 8, 1988. 8/8/88.
I was reporting to camp at Holy Name Seminary, the facility west of Madison that the UW Football team used to get ready for the upcoming season. I was a freshman who had traveled over 1,100 miles from where I grew up in Texas City, Texas. I was eighteen and hadn’t spent much time away from my family. Texas City had a population of just over forty thousand people at that time, about the size of the university I’d be attending. I was a long way from home, and I didn’t know a soul.
But I was right where I’d pictured myself for years: starting my career as a college football player at a great university. And all I wanted to do was turn around and go home.
In addition to that homesickness was the unfortunate reality that the Wisconsin Badger football team was one of the worst in the country. The program was in bad shape. What I didn’t know—nor did anyone else—was that we were about to embark on one of the most dramatic and long-lasting turnarounds in college football, and that the impact of the leadership I witnessed would influence my entire career. I thought I was at Wisconsin to play football and get an undergraduate degree. But our team was about to receive a PhD in leadership as well. To say I’m glad I stayed at Wisconsin is an understatement.
Our teachers came from all levels of the university, most notably Donna Shalala, our Chancellor; Pat Richter, the Athletic Director; and Barry Alvarez, our Head Football Coach.
Coach Alvarez had the biggest influence, as he was a master at leading people to win. He came to Wisconsin in 1990 with a long resume of winning, having learned from his own set of legendary teachers. He had begun his career in athletics as a defensive lineman with Hall of Fame Coach Bob Devaney at the University of Nebraska. He spent some of his early coaching days as Head Football Coach at Lexington High School in Nebraska and then Mason City High School in Iowa, where he won a State Championship.
He moved on to be an Assistant Coach under Hayden Fry at the University of Iowa, where they converted a losing program into a Big Ten Championship team. And before coming to Wisconsin, he was the Defensive Coordinator under legendary Coach Lou Holtz at Notre Dame, where they won the 1988 National Championship.
Coach Alvarez knew exactly how to build a winning culture and team. He had learned powerful lessons from his teachers which he honed into his own personal style. He developed a special knack for understanding what others needed to be successful.
As players, we were all students of his leadership, learning about motivation, commitment, priorities, goal setting, discipline, consistency, and trust.
Rich Thompson and I came in together as freshmen. He was as homesick as I was, but he handled it in a very different way. Rich jumped into the new experience with both feet; by the end of the first week of training camp, he’d made friends with just about everyone on the team. You hear about people having “IT.” Call it what you want: charisma, charm, personality—Rich had it. He was—and is—authentic and engaging in all his interactions with people, and that’s why people are drawn to him.
He was also a very talented kicker.
For our team, especially in those early years when we had a tough time crossing the goal line, we knew that we could count on Rich to get us points.
We always like to give kickers a hard time, but the reality is that the game-winning moment is often put on their shoulders. There is a mental toughness that is an integral part of being a kicker. Being fully present and taking ownership of a moment intime can be the narrow difference between being winners and losers. The other part of the equation is the ability to not dwell on a missed kick and focus on your next move.
As a kicker, Rich’s PhD in leadership included some extra practice of the lessons we all learned: he had special training in focus, accountability, dependability, and resilience.
By the time Rich left Wisconsin, he had garnered many records and awards. He was a four-year starter and five-year letter winner. He was a First Team All–Big Ten Kicker and Honorable Mention UPI All-American and Semi-Finalist for the Lou Groza award. More than thirty years later, Rich still holds Wisconsin’s record for the most field goals in a season. Upon graduation, he signed free agent contracts two years in a row with the Green Bay Packers.
But that was just the beginning of his winning.
He took his lessons in leadership and turned them into a career that developed other leaders, built careers, and developed world-class training for people in more than sixty countries. He is one of the most intuitive leaders I know, with a deep understanding of the fundamentals of leadership. And he knows how to share those skills to create new leaders.
I was honored that Rich asked me to write the foreword for his book, Relentless. The book echoes those lessons we learned as teammates and provides new insights based on his own experience in the corporate world and his special ability to develop relationships. A lot of people write books on leadership, but few have Rich’s real-life experiences to share along the way. And even fewer can simplify the facets of leadership into a process that is transferable to others.
When I was named the General Manager of the Indianapolis Colts in January 2017, I knew I had a big task ahead of me, But I also knew I had gained valuable experience on how to build a successful football program, a lot of which came from my time at the University of Wisconsin and the examples of leadership around me.
My job as a General Manager in the NFL is to find the best people with the most talent and make sure they have what they need to succeed. It is not an easy task, especially when the unexpected happens, and I am always looking for better ways to lead. My job today not only involves being a good leader, but also recognizing that ability to lead in others. If I were going to describe what I look for in a coach or a player, it would be the qualities Rich writes about. Courage. Connection. Communication. The ability to coach and expect the best from themselves and others every day, consistently.
Rich gets it. And if you’re reading this book, you will get it, too. These lessons will serve you well, as they have for me. They will help you demonstrate and build character and leadership throughout your team. And relentlessly pursue the qualities that make your team winners.
About the Author:
Rich Thompson, author of the book; RELENTLESS: Leading Through Performance, Relationships, and the Lessons of Sports, is an expert on staffing, human resources, training, and leadership development. He is also a former All-Big Ten football player for the University of Wisconsin. XPG Recruit provides recruiting for staffing companies. The XPG Recruit Athlete division places former athletes into business careers and works closely with universities through its sister company, PodiumX.