Call them James Franklin’s Starting Eleven.
Leading up to his first head coaching job at Vanderbilt, Franklin had played for or coached under 11 different head football coaches.
The list dates back to 1988-89, when Franklin was the starting quarterback at Neshaminy High School for head coach John Chaump and took Neshaminy to its first-ever Pennsylvania state play-offs.
And it includes a stint as a dual-threat, record-setting starting quarterback at East Stroudsburg University for head coach Denny Douds.
As an assistant coach, Franklin worked for 10 head coaches – one of whom was Douds — in seven states and in two countries, at seven universities and for two professional teams over 16 football seasons. (And that doesn’t include minority coaching fellowships with the NFL’s Dolphins, Eagles and Vikings sandwiched in-between, either.)
Combined, they helped make him The Man he is today.
“I’ve been fortunate that I’ve worked for some really good people with a wide variety of talents and skills and backgrounds,” Franklin said last week. “… It’s all those different experiences I’ve been able to use.”
THE FRANKLIN TREE
After playing for Chaump and Douds, Franklin coached under – in chronological order — Al Leonzi (Kutztown), Douds, John Lawson (Roskilde Kings of the Danish American Football Federation), Alex Wood (James Madison), Mike Price (Washington State), Larry Lewis (Idaho State), Ron Vanderlinden (Maryland), Ralph Friedgen (Maryland, twice), Mike Sherman (Green Bay Packers) and Ron Prince (Kansas State).
(Actually, Franklin also played for Lawson. As the offensive coordinator/QB, Franklin led Roskilde to the 1996 Mermaid Bowl, beating the Copenhagen Towers, 62-48.)
It’s as if Franklin’s career path was out of a Dr. Seuss book or an Armour hot dog commercial. There were coaches both young and old, black and white, one-year wonders and seven-year bosses, like Friedgen. “Some guys I still talk with regularly, like Denny Douds,” Franklin said. “Some guys I don’t.”
Franklin has learned a lot of lessons along the way, but most of all he’s learned to be himself.
“What I always did from early on – I don’t know if it’s because of my background, the diversity in my background or what – but I never really felt that there was one person who served as my mentor, who was my guy, that I felt could go to this one person for everything.” Franklin said.
“So by having that wide variety I was able to kind of pluck and choose different characteristics that I thought made them special. But the important thing was that it had to complement me. I think young leaders make a mistake of trying to grab a trait that they like from someone else and add it to their repertoire – but it doesn’t fit their personality or their leadership style and then it doesn’t come off as genuine.”
As a young assistant, for Franklin it wasn’t about learning the right or wrong way to do things. It was about coming to the realization of which way would eventually fit him best whenever he became a head coach.
“It wasn’t learning about what people did wrong, it was about learning which things that I would do differently,” he said. “Here’s a situation that was handled one way and I would probably handle it differently. Here’s a philosophy they had and I would possibly do things differently. Not only did I take mental notes, but I kept pretty serious actual written notes in my head coach manual of things I liked.”
THE HEAD COACH MANUAL
That book Franklin kept on the literal road to becoming a head coach is well-documented. And the documents are all about what Franklin would do when he became a head coach – because he was certain that day would come. The best description of it came in a profile of Franklin early his tenure at Vanderbilt, in an excellent piece by Jerome Boettcher of The CityPaper in Nashville. In it, Boettcher writes:
In his spacious office at the McGugin Center, Franklin has a closet filled with more than 50 binders. They are chock-full of game-planning materials and numerous studies from his days at Maryland and when he was a wide receivers coach for the Green Bay Packers in 2005. There is also “My Blueprint for Success: Head Coaching Manual.” During the summers as a young coach, he spent a couple hours each day, developing a coaching philosophy.
“Basically, it is anything I thought that would be an issue or that I would have to deal with in my career,” Franklin said. “It is not that I am actually using this book. It is more to make sure that I was organized and to make sure I had a plan for almost any situation that would come up.”
That edition has been revised over and over again, and the latest version is the Vanderbilt football bible. The materials in the thick three-ring binder are separated by numerous tabs, and the categories vary from head coaching philosophy, offensive and defensive philosophy, spring recruiting, potential staff members, official visits, team meetings, speaking engagements, scheduling information, summer jobs and internships and scholarship grid charts. Plus, there’s more on his computer, where he also keeps the many PowerPoint slides he uses for team and staff meetings. Though these might seem like small details, they have gone a long way in helping Franklin build a reputation.
For Franklin, it was more than just about his bosses, the head coaches. It was about the entire football program, the athletic department, the university. And it featured both the pros – like the Green Bay Packers, where he was the wide receiver coach for one 4-12 season under Sherman in 2005. And the cons – like coaching in Kutztown and Kansas State, in Pullman and Pocatello.
“The other thing was learning from the organizations,” Franklin said. “There are things I learned by being part of the Green Bay Packers – which you can make an argument that is one of the more-respected, well-run professional organizations from top to bottom.
“One of the things that hit me right away with them was when I accepted the job and the next day or day after, there was a knock on the door. A dozen roses were delivered to my wife, welcoming her to the (Packers) family, and there was a care package of gear for my wife and my only daughter at the time. That’s first class. That was something I knew I was going to do.”
PAST BOSSES, CURRENT FRIENDS
Franklin still keeps in touch with some of his ex-bosses, Douds and Sherman chief among them. After getting fired by Green Bay despite leading the Packers to three divisional titles, Sherman was head coach at Texas A&M from 2008-11 and also was an offensive coordinator for both Houston and Miami in the NFL.
“Mike Sherman has visited us twice and spent 3-4 days with us. He’s been great and a valuable resource,” Franklin said. “Those are the kind of people you trust, those are the people you have relationships with, who you can really ask questions and who you can get great feedback.”
Franklin is a big believer in best practices and benchmarking, to see both where his program is and where he is personally. His career as an assistant prepared him well for that, because while the college football community is a small one, it is also very tight-lipped.
“Coaches often go on trips to visit other programs, but we’re all paranoid,” he said. “And how much are you going to share with other people about what makes you special?
“So the guys you really have a close relationship with, who you think will really share those things – and guys who are retired or out of the business – they’re really valuable.”
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