BY ANDY BAGGOT
UWBadgers.com Insider
MADISON, Wis. — To appreciate the basic nature of Wisconsin football coach Paul Chryst, it helps to listen closely.
After a recent practice, Chryst gathered his players in the middle of the McClain Center and delivered a line that sounded perfectly normal, but seemed unconventional given the setting and the audience.
"Thank you," he said evenly, his eyes sweeping the group. "Good work today."
Coaches are known for exhorting, lecturing and commanding their charges, but expressing gratitude for simple focus and exertion? It seemed odd. From the fringe of the audience, first-year secondary coach Jim Leonhard heard what Chryst said and smiled inside.
After a decorated four-year career with the Badgers in which he played for Hall of Fame coach Barry Alvarez, Leonhard spent 10 seasons in the NFL with six teams. He had seven different head coaches and six different defensive coordinators between 2005 and '14.
In short, Leonhard has heard a lot of coaches speak in good times and in bad. Asked if such a statement of gratitude like Chryst's was unusual, he thought for a moment before saying it was.
"Pretty cool," he said.
Chryst is big on being thankful. When he's not pledging his appreciation for his players and staff — in the postgame locker room or a press conference setting — he's imploring them to be grateful for one another and for the opportunities they've been given.
Chryst is also big on being calm, consistent, diligent, selfless and thorough. Those are traits he's honed over the course of a diverse coaching career that began in 1989, a year after he graduated from UW, and taken him across two countries and seven states.
Those are characteristics that can be seen in abundance within the sixth-ranked Badgers (10-2 overall) as they head into the Big Ten Football Championship Game against eighth-rated Penn State (10-2) on Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
They were mixed together to create a sense of resilience and poise that enabled UW to prevail in four of six games against top-10 opponents, execute three fourth-quarter comebacks and become just the sixth outfit in program history to win 10 games during the regular season.
It would seem Wisconsin players have taken on the personality of their coach, a massive compliment seeing how Chryst was voted Big Ten Coach of the Year by his peers.
"I think we're a little bit more exciting than Coach Chryst," joked UW senior tailback and co-captain Dare Ogunbowale. "But I'd definitely say we've taken on his personality in the sense that every little thing matters to us."
It's a critical element to one of the most fulfilling, unexpected seasons in the modern era of Wisconsin football. Yet it didn't happen overnight, nor will it ever be truly complete. It's a process that must be nurtured every moment of every day.
Chryst is a personable, even-keeled, ultra-competitive, mega-prepared grinder who loves everything about football. He got that mentality from his late father, George, who also played and served as an assistant coach at UW.
That personality aligns perfectly with the vibe in the Wisconsin locker room, which is where the seeds of a Big Ten title and College Football Playoff contender were planted soon after Chryst took over the program roughly 24 months ago.
"I just really value him as my coach and I'm really glad he is my coach. Coaches like that make you want to put it out there on the line."
Quarterback Bart Houston is one of seven fifth-year seniors whose UW careers have spanned three head coaches — Bret Bielema, Gary Andersen and now Chryst — and whose time with Chryst has brought a sense of awakening.
"This team is very cohesive," said Houston, from Dublin, California. "We had to work at it coming off the old regime just because there was a change in attitude. This year's the first time that's really shone on the field. It's really shone in the locker room, which means it can only get better in the future."
Tight end Eric Steffes, another fifth-year senior and three-coach survivor from Mount Calvary, Wisconsin, was asked to explain the chemistry that currently exists across all facets of the Badgers roster.
"Every year a team is different and I just feel that this year guys have come together," he said.
"In the offseason we kind of made it a point to get rid of cliques within the team. We're all brothers here and we've really embodied that.
"Everybody's got each other's backs and there's really no rifts on the team at all. We're in this together and it's a great thing to have."
Chryst began creating this culture — defined by hard work, preparation and a genuine passion for the game — as soon as he was hired away from Pittsburgh in December of 2014.
He put together a mostly UW-centric staff that currently features 13 former Badgers players, including full-time hires in Leonhard, associate head coach/offensive coordinator/offensive line coach Joe Rudolph, tight ends coach Mickey Turner and strength and conditioning coach Ross Kolodziej.
The next step for Chryst, 51, was to begin creating relationships with his players. It might be his greatest strength.
"That's one of the things I thought was really cool about him," said UW safety D'Cota Dixon, a junior from Oak Hill, Florida. "He set up meetings with everyone on the team trying to get to know each player and each player as a person. I thought it was really cool and really different.
"I just really value him as my coach and I'm really glad he is my coach. Coaches like that make you want to put it out there on the line." To appreciate the basic nature of Chryst, it helps to watch closely.
Jon Budmayr has had a front-row seat for the get-acquainted process. His office is right next to Chryst's on the eighth floor of the UW football complex at Camp Randall Stadium.
"The first thing he did when he got here was talk about an open-door policy," Budmayr said. "It doesn't just mean his door is open. It means come in and talk. He gets to know guys.
"He takes the time out of his day to get to know who you are, where you've been and where you want to go. And with that line of communication, it's unbelievable. Guys respond to that.
"That feeds into the team and it brings guys closer together. If your leader is willing to do that and willing to make the time to do that, it invites the team to do the same thing."
Chryst recruited Budmayr to Madison in 2009 — Chryst was the UW offensive coordinator from 2005 to '11 — and the two have been mostly inseparable ever since.
Budmayr, his college quarterbacking career derailed by injuries, worked for Chryst as an offensive graduate assistant for a year when Chryst was the head coach at Pittsburgh.
Upon returning to Wisconsin, Chryst brought Budmayr in a quality control position for the offense, a role that primarily involves breaking down game video and planning practices.
When Chryst is in his office at 11 p.m. scripting a game plan for the next opponent, Budmayr is there, too.
At all hours of the work day Budmayr has seen players casually drop by to see Chryst. Some stay for a few minutes. Some stay longer.
"He may have a guy in to talk about a couple things in practice. Then he may have a guy in to talk about family, about life outside of football," Budmayr said. "The variety is so great and that's who he is. He has such a good feel for what a person needs and when they need it.
"As soon as a guy comes in, he has such a good feel for how they walk in and what they say. Before you know it, they're sitting there talking for a half-hour.
"Because of the type of person he is, because preparation is so important to him, he will take that half-hour to talk and bump back his night a half-hour still preparing."
Relationships are a two-way street. The vehicle that drives them is trust.
How did Chryst gain the trust of his players, many of whom were recruited by other staffs?
Junior wide receiver Jazz Peavy, from Kenosha, said his belief in Chryst was almost instantaneous. Peavy said that as soon as Andersen left for Oregon State following the Big Ten title game in 2014 and Chryst was reported to be the replacement, veteran players who knew of Chryst gave him strong endorsements.
"They told me all these good things, that he's this and he's that," Peavy said. "When he got here, he was exactly this and that. Everything they were telling me he was going to be, he was.
"Everything he told me always stayed true."
Houston said Chryst earned his trust during the recruiting process back in 2011. Houston, regarded as one of the top 10 quarterback prospects in the nation, said Chryst refused to offer him a scholarship until Houston visited the campus and was sure he would be comfortable so far away from home.
"He's an honest man," Houston said of Chryst. "That's what I really saw in him."
Ogunbowale, from Milwaukee, said his trust in Chryst has grown in part because of the way Chryst responds to the needs of his players.
Ogunbowale said he's heard stories of teammates in distress who reached out to Chryst. He's dropped everything and taken the player for a private, soul-cleansing ride to hash things out.
"That's the big thing for me and a lot of teammates is that we're all able to trust him," Ogunbowale said. "Whether that's on the field because of his football mind, but even off the field, he has our best interests in mind at all times. That's real important for every player."
That's not an easy task.
"It's got to be tough, but it's something special that he does," Peavy said of Chryst. "He gives everyone that attention whether the guy's playing 100 snaps a game or the guy's on the scout team.
"For someone to be able to do that and not overlook anybody on this team, I feel it's something special and not every coach may do it."
That translates to trust throughout the program, the kind that helps facilitate a potentially awkward two-man rotation at quarterback or allows for two injured players — linebackers Chris Orr and Jack Cichy — to make trips and help coach their peers on the sideline.
"In any relationship, if trust is the foundation of it, you've got a chance for it to be successful," Budmayr said.
"It's not buying in. It's trusting and respecting the process. There's a big difference.
"If you're buying into something, you may believe it or you may not believe it. You're not fully on board.
"If you truly respect and appreciate the process — trust it — it makes it more real because it's applicable to each guy. What is my role within this process?
"Each guy has done that. They've done an awesome job and it starts from the top."
Houston said the conversational give-and-take with Chryst is rooted in genuineness.
"The one thing that's standard is if you go in to talk to him, he'll tell you exactly what's going on," Houston said. "He's not going to sugar-coat anything. He's not going to make anything look worse if you're in that situation. No matter what it is, he's going to tell it to you straight and he expects us to be honest with him."
To appreciate the basic nature of Chryst, it helps to listen closely to others.
First-year UW men's hockey coach Tony Granato is in the midst of finishing his degree work in human development and family studies. Some of his classmates play for Chryst.
"Just listening to the players," Granato said, "there's a tremendous amount of respect for Paul on how he treats the players. He appreciates them more than just being a football player.
"The respect they have for them and the environment they're allowed to have as a team. They feel comfortable going to the locker room every day. They feel like they're part of a group, that they're together as one."
Granato and Chryst were UW student-athletes in the late 1980s but became close friends when Granato was an NHL assistant coach with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Chryst was the head coach at Pittsburgh from 2012 to '14.
Granato marvels at the way Chryst is able to have a genuine, organized rapport with 100-plus players as well as a coaching staff and vital support personnel.
"I can't imagine how difficult it must be to make that group feel like that," Granato said, noting his roster is so much smaller at 27. "If they all feel as one, that's a pretty remarkable accomplishment. It's way more difficult than you might imagine."
Granato recently brought his players to UW football practice to get a feel for its people and rhythm.
"I think he's a phenomenal human being who is very humble and understands what it takes to bring a group together," Granato said of Chryst. "He respects the players. He respects the program. He finds a way to maximize what he has.
"He's always told me, 'I've got the best coaches. The people I have around me are the people I want. They understand me. They understand the program. We're all on the same page.'
"It's a very impressive operation over there. That's his leadership putting everything into place."
LeAnn Bird has a unique place within the UW football structure. She's a learning specialist who currently works with 24 student-athletes on the team. She not only interacts with them, she's one of those making impromptu visits to Chryst's office.
"In my job," she said, "I have to have care for these kids in a way that gives them a home and gives them a safe place to learn. I feel that Paul does that.
"He wants them to be the best males they can be — not just football players, but in academics and life and student development."
Chryst has instructed Bird to keep him apprised of any issues — academics or personal — that may come to light behind the scenes with his players.
"One of the things I noticed about Coach Chryst was he wasn't just about making you a better football player, but I think good men. I just really respect him as a man first before my coach. It allows me to really want to play for him as a coach."
Bird previously worked with the football programs at Florida State and West Virginia, as well as at the high school level in North Carolina. She said Chryst is the best coach she's dealt with.
"He does something that I haven't seen in a lot of places: He talks to all of his players and he'll ask them questions," Bird said. "For me that's awesome. It shows that he cares more about who the players are as people versus athletes.
"He wants the student to be successful and he's going to do whatever he can to help me help them.
"A lot of coaches bring these star athletes in and expect everybody to take care of them and they don't want to visit with you about them." Not Chryst.
"We've had some great conversations about the football players on this team, how deep they are and how driven they are outside of football," Bird said.
How do the players feel about Chryst?
"They love him," Bird said.
Why?
"Because he cares about them," Bird said.
To appreciate the basic nature of Chryst, it helps to listen to him speak.
He doesn't like to talk about himself, but his overview of things is critical.
"I want myself, I want my coaches, to be impactful," he said. "I want (the players) to know that it was better because we helped them somehow be better."
Chryst, 20-5 in his first two seasons at Wisconsin, was asked if he wants to be liked by his players.
"I don't think that's the original goal," he said. "It's to do what you say you're going to do to help them maximize this experience."
Chryst said victories and trophies and awards pale in comparison to what comes out of his interactions with his players.
"I value those relationships certainly more than I do wins and whatevers," he said.
Peavy referred to Chryst as a father figure. Dixon likened Chryst to a "good dad."
"He'll listen to you talk," Dixon said. "If you get out of line, he's also firm. He's a loving, genuine coach and an embraceable person. You can talk to him about whatever issues you've got going on, whether it be classes or girl problems or parent problems. Whatever it is, he's like a parent away from home."
Chryst said he has no issue being called a father figure.
"It's better than being called a lot of other things," he said with a laugh.
Dixon, whose father died in 2010, said he's had multiple talks with Chryst about non-football matters.
"One of the things I noticed about Coach Chryst was he wasn't just about making you a better football player, but I think good men," Dixon said.
"I just really respect him as a man first before my coach. It allows me to really want to play for him as a coach."
Yes, the Badgers have taken on the personality of their coach. That's a good thing.
"He's not the kind of coach who panics or gets mad at you," Dixon said of Chryst. "If you want to be a leader, you model yourself after him.
"He doesn't say too much, but when he speaks, you know it's real and from the heart.
"I think our team does take that into account. We play for each other as football players on the field, but we also play for our coaches."
One in particular.
"You aspire to be a man like that," Dixon said.
