January 4, 2016

Larry Slade Welcome Press Conference

The following is a written transcript from Larry Slade's introduction press conference as Carson-Newman football's new defensive coordinator.

Larry Slade Press Conference

1-4-15

Opening Statements (SPARKS): Larry [Slade] and I go back a long way. We have known each other for years. I have always admired his work and especially when dealing with people. I think it was exciting for me to have the opportunity to bring him on board. He doesn't know what he is getting into [laughs] but we are very grateful that we get to team up with him. I don't think there is any question about his quality as a football coach. As you know, my number one excited is his quality as a man of God and how he is going to touch lives. Touching for football is one thing, but touching for live is a whole lot better. I am excited about what he will be able bring in that realm and that's the one that matters. I think we agree about fundamentals and that football is still about blocking and tackling. Doing the basics and taking care of the football- taking the football away. We agree that you have to be sound in alignment and that you have to be good in your stance. You have to be able to do the fundamental things in order to win football games and to max out the football part. We are in agreement also about presenting the truth about life through football. Football is a lavatory of learning—that's all it is. It's not an end in itself. It is a learning opportunity for us to be able to use football together to teach kids about how to win life and even eternal life. How does it get any better than that? That's what we are all about and that's what we have always been about, so I'm excited about Larry leading our defense and getting us to a point to where we can continue to be great commission coaches. Coaches who can go and make a difference.

I'd now like to introduce coach Larry Slade, the new defensive coordinator for Carson-Newman University.

SLADE: Well guys, I am really excited about being here. What a great opportunity. Ken [Sparks] came to me and I could hardly keep my joy back. I've known Ken for a long time. You look around and see, when you sow the right seeds and you see the quality of the young men that come from this program—the ability to win championship, but the ability to lead men to Christ and to develop themselves as men—it's unbelievable. To have this opportunity to do it, I am not ashamed at all, I am excited about being here and to build on that.

Q1: You were at Knox Central last year. Did that kind of rejuvenate you and get you ready for this, too?

SLADE: Yes. Sometimes we take different turns in life. My last year coaching at the University of Louisville, I thought we had an outstanding year. We touched the young guys, had guys graduating and had two guys that were All-Conference. I was asked to leave the field and to work in the community. I worked to develop our guys as people and I got really excited about that. When it first happened, I though wow, my routine and everything felt different, but now instead of just impacting my guys in my position area, I had a chance to work with the whole team and also to get in the community to work with more people. That brings us to Central. With the passion of empowering people to write their own great and stories and to write their own great stories in life, it just gave me some experience to do that. And to helping those young guys to develop into men, that's what it is all about. When its third and five, you would like to have a group of guys out there that will find a way to get it done.

Q2: what do you want the hallmark of your defense to be?

SLADE: What it will be, our guys are going to play with great fundamentals and with great technique. But more than anything, they are going to play with unbelievable effort.

Q3: How do you coach that?

SLADE: It's a mindset and a think to when you coach it, we are going to be very aggressive. You will see coaches running to the football. You will see coaches chasing guys to the football. There are going to be some things to where you will buy into it to play and that's going to be one of those things that we are not going to compromise. Habits, it's a think of creating habits by doing it over and over again. We are who we are and what we do over and over again. We will not compromise on it.

Q4: Do you remember when you and Ken [Sparks] first met?

SLADE: hmmm. I'm thinking a convention or maybe an FCA conference. Were you at Black Mountain [N.C.] Ken? Maybe that's where we first met.

SPARKS: I don't remember. We have had a running conversation for years. I interviewed Larry once for a job right before he left Tennessee to go to Louisville. Something about three or four hundred thousand dollars that separated us. [lots of laughs] We have always been on the same track as far as knowing how we want to coach. We each have eternal purpose and that makes us brothers. We have talked about those things for years. When he was at Tennessee, I admired some of his drills. You even came to our clinic, didn't you [directed towards Slade] We love him because of his fundamentals.

Q5: What challenges to do you see from the South Atlantic Conference, a conference that shows the spread, as well as the option?

SLADE: Well I think it is again the ability to adjust to all different things. Different formations and different plays—skill sets—just different stuff like that. When you have been around for a long time, you get to see it all. It's looking at things and understanding how to stop those things. Again, it comes down to personal. A big challenge for us is to find the best 11 guys that can go and execute whatever scheme there is, but to execute it with outstanding effort.

Q6: For the last 30 plus years, this has been known as an offensive team. What are you going to do to make sure there's a little more defense in the coming year?

SLADE: I'm certain that the thing is all about team. The team comes first. We are going to play great defense and I'm sure we are going to continue to play great offense and great special teams—it takes all three. In this era of modern football, it takes all three.

Q7: how have things changed in how you coach defensively from when you started out with Richmond and Howard?

SLADE: They are the same. Things tend to go around and they call it different things, but the fundamentals like what Kern said, blocking and tackling, that hasn't changed. The better you do that and the better you are at fundamentals, you can play any scheme you want. But at the same time, you have to know how to get off of blocks, how to shed people off of you and you have to know how to tackle. You have to know how to go out and make big plays and learn how to stop big plays. Those things have not changed. We won the national championship in 1991 at the University of Washington with the same concepts. We stopped the big play. You go back there and we stopped the big play. We had very few missed tackles. The same things apply. We were very good at getting off blocks. The same principles apply today.

-CN-