You put a tremendous amount of energy, your whole body and soul into something, and you need to win once in a while. Otherwise, it becomes too hard.
— Mike Holmgren
I took a leave of absence for a year to coach at San Francisco State under Vic Rowen, fully intending to go back to high school.
I'm a football coach. It seems the league is cyclical and hiring young guys... but experience in the NFL still means a heck of a lot.
People ask me often, 'Why did you leave Green Bay? You had the best quarterback, you were going good and all that.' But I've always been one for challenges. Try to build something up, try something new, challenge myself.
I left Green Bay for Seattle in 1999. I wonder what would have happened had I stayed in Green Bay, where I've got one of the best quarterbacks of all time in his prime.
I was a business major in college, so I knew economics.
I think I'm a pretty good coach, but there are a lot of good coaches, a lot of young coaches.
After being on the field for so long and feeling like you have some control over the outcome or what's happening out there, now I'm upstairs, and I have no control over anything. I'm working through that.
I still love Colt McCoy, but I will always try and do what I think we have to do to make the team better and to improve ourselves.
The teams that are successful from ownership to management to coaching - there is a singleness of purpose. There's enough credit for everyone. No one gets territorial. It's just good - and it shows on the field.
The fans are very, very important in the team's success. Instead of acting up, you're cheering for the team.
My football do-over is when I went to Seattle and had both jobs as coach and general manager.
Everyone has to understand what the role is - what the role of the player is, the role of the coach is. You're hired to do something. You're paid to do something.
If you keep working at something and stay with it, eventually good things will happen to you.
I never had anything planned, like, 'When I'm 40 I'll be coaching here.' A number of people in our profession have done that, but my thing was always, wherever I was coaching, to work hard, do the best you can, and if it happens, it happens.
I always could go into restaurants in Chicago, and nobody would throw anything at me. There are people there who might not like me, but I think they respect me.
I'm very proud of the fact that we dispelled the myth about black athletes not being able to survive in Green Bay.
It doesn't matter what you know if you can't teach it.
When you walk in the door at Green Bay and see the murals of all the football players you knew as a fan, it can get to you. I grew up being Bart Starr and Paul Hornung on the playground.
I probably won't coach again. I really know what it takes to coach... the time necessary, the emotion... to do it correctly. Unless I was 100 percent sure I wanted to commit, I don't think you're being fair to anybody.
We still have our home in Seattle. The kids are there. The grandkids are there.
When I was coaching, I was out there, and you're doing press conferences, and the fans see a lot more of the head coach than they do either the general manager or the president.
The important thing, I think, going into any organization, is that all of the principles, all of the decision-makers are pointed in the same direction, with the same motives, the same desires, and then you have a chance.
I'm a high school history teacher who got lucky.
I think one of my strengths is kind of knowing people and getting a good read and a feel for what that person's strengths might be.
I had a rule - I didn't have a lot of rules - and one of them was we're going to operate from a mutual respect. I won't embarrass you, and I don't expect you to be embarrass me.
Coaches who want to coach in the NFL usually don't go to the high school level for 10 years. They know where they want to go early.
I had to see how I'd feel about not working, and what I've learned about myself is I miss it.
I've always wanted to buy a bookstore. You know, sell some of those muffins and a little coffee. I don't care if we make any money. I don't want to lose a lot of money, but we could visit with people and get books.
It's special for me to coach the team Lombardi coached.
I was teaching history and coaching both tennis and track along with football. I felt like I had the best of both worlds. I was pretty comfortable. I thought I would be doing what I was doing for the rest of my life.
If I hire a coach, he's the coach and will run what he knows and is comfortable with. Will it be part of the process? Absolutely. But I am not going to interfere that way as the president.
Every organization is looking for... a guy who can be the coach for the next 10, 15 years. That's what they want. I get that.
The mentor thing is overblown to me. I'm going to coach the player. I'm not going to have another player coach the player. They can be friends but when it comes to what I want him to do on the football field, that's my call, not another player's call.
You've got to find the quarterback. Once you find the quarterback, you can fix the other things.
As an organization, I think you owe it to the vast majority of people who go to the game and want to watch the game and enjoy the game and feel good about bringing their kids or their wife or their grandma to the game.
I was raised, right or wrong, you make a decision and you don't quit. You fight your way through it; that's what you did.
I get the job with the 49ers, and I'm four years removed from my high school coaching days, and I'm going to be coaching Joe Montana, and I'm going, 'How do I approach this? How am I going to do this?'
