Arizona State University President Dr. Michael Crow
“Hello, everybody. It's a very exciting day to have the opportunity to appoint Coach Dillingham to the head coach position at Arizona State University. I want to put all of that into perspective. We're in the process of building a one of a kind, world class research university that is also simultaneously connected to as many people as we can be connected to helping them move their lives forward. A part of all of that is having a fantastic football program that is innovative, competitive, works at every level and is able to compete against the competition that we have in the conference country. We don't want to be built around the notion of looking backwards and only the notion of looking forward.
This is our process. Our process moving forward here is to find the mix of talent of our coaches, our athletic department staff, and our team to find a way to move to the highest level of competition while remaining true to what college sports is all about. College sports is about producing young men as potential leaders, young men as more rounded, established individuals and young men and women throughout all of our sports.
Coach Dillingham is committed to the pursuit of that process, the process of finding young men ,advancing young men and advancing our program to the highest level of competition. We're very, very excited to be in a position where… it's kind of funny reading what some of you guys in the back sometimes occasionally say or write. It has little to do with the reality of the process by which one actually moves forward to find a competitive combination of talent, commitment and resources. You're sitting right here in a fabulously new renovated stadium. We have fantastic practice and training facilities. We have a fantastic university that has evolved to support this institution. Now we need a football program which is consistently competing to be the Pac-12 champion, consistently competing to be in the Rose Bowl, consistently competing to be in the new football championship series and so on. So there's a lot up in the air, a lot of a lot that's happening.
I want to thank Ray Anderson, who has done a fantastic job as athletic director here building our overall athletic programs, expanding our commitment to academic excellence from our teams, expanding our championship programs and then being committed to making football work, even with very, very difficult and very, very hard decisions. None of this is easy. And so I'd like to turn it over to Vice President Ray Anderson, Chief of University Athletics.”
On what needs to be done structurally outside of Football for the department…
"What I'll say to that is I think that Coach Dillingham is getting it right. For lots of complicated reasons, the football program at ASU isn't the central focus of football thinkers in The Valley and in the state; and it needs to be. We've got to go back and connect and reconnect and newly connect and make this an unbelievably exciting place to see unbelievable college athletes play fantastic high speed, highly innovative, high scoring football. It's got to be exciting. And that's what we're after. And that's what Coach Dillingham does that he creates the environment in which those things happen. But I mean, deeper than that is this notion of as the coach just said, connecting to this place. So in the past, we've been less connected for lots of different reasons than we needed to be. Now we need to connect and build from that connection forward and out. So that's what we're looking for here. And this notion of us going through processes to figure this out … you guys don't cover the people that were the deans and aren't the deans now … you don't cover all the other things going on in the university. This is a constant process trying to find the right leader, the right talent, the right mechanism, the right way to move forward while building all of the other component parts like this stadium, like the rest of the athletic department, like the other things that we have, the resources that we have available, and so forth and so on. So it's about returning the spirit of college football to The Valley, with a leadership team under the coach, with the support group under Vice President Anderson and making these things happen. That's what we're really trying to do. So that's a very good question.”
Ray Anderson, Vice President for University Athletics following up: “I don't want to be corny, but I’ll paraphrase something from a philosopher and it goes something along these lines; "When it's obvious that you can't obtain your goals, you do not change your goals, you change your action steps. That's Confucius, by the way. So when it became obvious that the way we were doing it, although we believed that we had a chance to do it more successfully than we did, our goals remained the same. We want to be top three in the conference, we want to top 15 in the country and we want to win championships. To do that, we have to change our action steps starting with this new head coach and the staff that he will bring in. The things that we will do to try is to re-ignite and re-engage our community. We are changing our action steps so that this opportunity is not wasted.”
Arizona State University Vice President for University Athletics Ray Anderson
“Thank you, Dr. Crow. And thanks, everyone for coming out on short notice. Indeed, our excitement today to introduce Kenny is our new head coach. It's extraordinary. It's extraordinary. And I'm gonna take a little more time to talk about the process in where we are. Because it's important to understand that it's comprehensive. It's a changing, evolving landscape that college football is in and as an institution we have changed so dramatically in those short four years. We are in a new era of college football. And we expect changes to continue. It is going to evolve, but for the foreseeable future, it will continue to change.
The future is NIL. A lot of talk about NIL. The future is about the transfer portal, conference realignment and media rights that continue to create disparities between the haves and the have nots. You have the NCAA governance, student-athlete mental health and wellness, college football expansion, social media influences, social justice, awareness and activities for student-athletes, among other things. And so it is in our view, the new era head coach must be prepared to deal and embrace all of these challenges and the opportunities presented by this changing world. We at Arizona State are a unique and special place. It will take a head coach like Kenny Dillingham to get us there. So I want to share with you a little bit about the process.
There's been a lot of speculation about the process, the search, the interview and the selection process. So let me take you through it a little bit. This just didn't start three or four weeks ago. This process in terms of looking ahead started months ago. Along the way we were able to get our friends at Korn Ferry, Jed Hughes and Garrick of Korn Ferry, one of the leading search firms in this industry, to be on call, knowing that we would be needing them. We go a long way back with those guys. Dr. Crow has known them for years, I have known them for years. So they did an excellent job in helping us to vet through and really looking at an extensive list of candidates.
We had an internal group that's been working on this for some time, not in a vacuum. Don Bocchi, one of our senior admins, is very well versed in football, Jean Boyd, our Deputy Athletic Director, Marcus Williams, Associate Athletic Director and Ken Lanfear, Senior Associate Athletic Director. So we had an internal group for weeks thinking about this process, and vetting through and talking about potential candidates. This was a coast to coast, extensive search, we looked at multiple candidates at various points in their career of all varieties. There’s been a lot of speculation about those folks. We will not mention names because of privacy. A lot of the folks and a lot of their agents who would be happy to be sitting up here this morning. I don’t want that out there because it could compromise their own current situations as that's not fair to them. So for those who speculate, if you want to know those names, and how many, reach out to them or their agents. And maybe they'll share that with you. But we will not because we respect privacy. And I hope you can understand that. What we did is at the suggestion and recommendation of President Crow, we put together a group of folks who know this institution, love this institution and have been part of this institution to advise us.
We had a donor alumni group, got their input, thoughts, and the feel of the community included in this process. We were delighted that Regent Greg Brewster, who was also a director in our ASU Alumni Club and Brian Swette, one Dr. Crow's confidants and a real philanthropist who loves this university, were involved. And we were thrilled that Chris Michaels, or Sun Devil Club President and one of the founding members of our Sun Angel collective joined us in those conversations. We were delighted that Stein Koss, Juan Roque and Brock Osweiler sat with us and went over the list of finalists, gave their input, opinions and recommendations.
Then we went to the selection, the recommendation after intensive scrutiny and a bunch of very qualified candidates who were interviewed and spoken to directly and indirectly. We came to a very, frankly, unanimous and exciting decision that we had our man and Kenny Dillingham. So what was the process? The first thing we did is say, ‘let's figure out what the new head coach in this new era looks like’. And it started with one very simple thing. This new head coach had to be in tune with and relatable to the new era student-athlete. He had to be energetic, flexible, adaptable, collaborative, innovative, a great partner, have a great personality, be a great listener, have great experiences winning and learning from others, have strong and passionate play, be someone who knows marketing and promotion and knows business.
As young as he is at age 32, the multitude of accomplishments and experiences and successes that Kenny Dillingham brought to the table was undeniable. This is a place where you need someone who loves this community, loves this university and loves this state.I believe that when you get a chance to bring them home, you bring them home. There's something deliberate about that. Because if you look at some of our head coaches, some of whom are in the room today, there's a lot of homegrown talent here. Zeke Jones in Wrestling, Greg Powers in hockey. Missy Farr-Kaye in Women's Golf, Willie Bloomquist in Baseball, Petra Pardi, in water polo. Today, we bring home someone who was deeply involved in the program here to lead us. We actually got a two-for-one because Mrs. Dillingham was a varsity dance member cheerleader here in her days at ASU. And so, the old saying is a factor. Home is where the heart is. We have it in Kenny Dillingham. And then when you learn that eight generations are born and raised here in Arizona, we didn't even know that, we were like, ‘wow, all those things matter.’ I wanted you to understand and share with you the fact that this was a deep, involved process. It's been going on a long time. We won't tell you how long because that's nobody's business but ours. But it wasn't willy-nilly. It wasn't that we started late. It was done in a comprehensive, efficient manner with the right people involved. And so for us, Kenny Dillingham is all of those things that we were looking for when we did our profile, and more. I'm delighted to introduce Kenny Dillingham as the new head coach of Arizona State football.”
Arizona State University Head Football Coach Kenny Dillingham
Opening Statement
“I'm home. First thing I want to say is I want to thank Dr. Crow, Ray Anderson, Jean Boyd and Marcus Williams. I mean, this is literally home home. So I say that, because this place is special. The state is special. The people in this room are special. I got guys that were in my wedding right there. sorry. pretty emotional. Right? It's just who I am. That’s one thing you're going to get from me. Okay? I am who I am. I am who I am and I’m the same person every single day. I’m fired up to be here, fired up to be a Sun Devil. This place, what this place needs to be successful. It's already been successful. We've seen it. The leadership from top to bottom is in line. It's why I'm here right now. The leadership from top to bottom is in line.
We need this entire valley to come together. You want to win at the highest level? You want to maximize this place? We need everybody in this room. Positive things, positive things we need everybody in this room to get involved. If you don't know how to get involved, how do you get involved? This is one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the country. It's growing at a rapid rate. We need The Valley behind us. We need the state behind us, we need butts in seats. We need everything that this valley has because I am all in, right? That's my family right there, up front. Pretty cool? I got guys I played literally with right back there. Didn't know they were going to be here. There’s guys I used to go to their mentoring dinners on Thursday nights in the back. I didn't know they were gonna be here. Right? When you talk about a person and a family that's rooted here, that's me. Right? My whole family is up here. My wife, Bree, mom, dad, sister, brother, brother-in-law and coaches from high school here. My little son. My father, Father-in-law, Mother-law. I’m emotional; this is special. This place can be special, it is special. We're going to hire people who believe in it. We're going to put our hearts into it, right? We’re going to maximize every drop that we can get out of it.
This is my dream job. That’s all I got.”
On his thoughts being home…
“Immediately, I thought this is a chance for me to go home. But at the same time, this profession is about winning. It's about believing in people. The Oregon football team, those were my players, and I was all in. I did everything we could to win as many games and score as many points as possible. I knew the best way to get this dream opportunity was to be the very best I could be every day. And that's just who I am. You wake up every day with a smile on your face and you try to be the very best version of yourself every single day.”
On having support from the ASU Boosters…
"I mean, that goes back to Ray Anderson and what he said before is the college landscape is changing. This isn't about me, or our staff. This isn't about just our players. This is about The Valley. We need The Valley. I'm gonna say that over and over again. We Need the Valley. It's why I'm here because I'm born and raised here. And I say that because we need you. So if you want to be involved, find a way."
On what needs to be done at ASU with its resources…
“Activate the Valley. Time, relationships. When you really think about anything in life, it comes down to time, and your time decides the matter of importance. If you put your time in one thing more than you put your time in another, that's the level of importance that means to you. I’m going to spend time building relationships with people in The Valley. I already have a lot of them, but I'm going to spend time, I'm going to work and our staff is going to be people who will build relationships in this valley because they love this valley. They love the Phoenix-Metropolitan area. They love this state. And they're gonna do everything they can to make this place one of the best schools in college football.”
Jean Boyd, Deputy Athletic Director: "One thing I would add is can you talk about Shaun Augano staying on board, Shaun took us through a very challenging moment and was a really understanding and transformative leader of the program for those months. As someone who continues to be a leader in the program, how you manage 18 to 22 year olds, in this modern time period, all those things that we're talking about were critical. He’s also made some inroads. This will be a recurring thing that, he's also made some inroads with some individuals who are newly interested in being involved and being connected in ways that will grow this. I mean, Kenny's going say it over and over again, activating this valley, activating this state, and anyone who's a Sun Devil for life, and there's thousands upon thousands upon thousands of them out there that want to get back involved in so many different ways. I just thought I'd throw that in there. Thank you."
On preparing for this position and has it sunk in…
“Yeah, I mean, just like I said, being genuine. I think being genuine is the most important thing. Whether people like you or not. I think you just got to be who you are. Every single day. You know, I joke around. I'm brutally honest with people, whether they like it or not, but I'm going give you the truth and then just go into work. I always talk to our players about falling in love with the process of growth like, ‘do you have a passion to get better? Do you fall in love with the process of it? If you turn your foot in just a quarter of an inch, it's going to impact the game.
You play wide receiver? Do you watch the tape? Do you fall in love with the process? Do you get excited about that? Because if you don't, then you worry about the wrong things, you better get excited about the details, excited about the little things, because if you are, you're just gonna get better and better and better and better. And that's just what I did every single day. I just got excited, talking a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better. Then all of a sudden, I hit bamboo and the bamboo started to grow and then we are here we are today.”
On the plane ride from Oregon to get here…
"Yeah, I mean, those guys are unbelievable guys there [points at family]. I mean, anybody who knows me knows I'm all about the players. And this is a profession, but you're still dealing with 18 to 22 year old men, you know, young men. We're going to be focused on the little things. We're going to have an intensity about ourselves. We're going to be focused on family and we're going to be educated. When a kid leaves here, he's going to be a Sun Devil for life. And He's going to know how to respond to adversity. He's going to know what success looks like. I asked everybody in this room, what success looks like, they're all going to give a different answer. Everybody in here, success for you is completely different. We're going to define it as one way in this program; that just being the very best at you can be at whatever task you're doing. So when I say that, that's what that's what we're going to be about, about life. Our kids are going to leave here understanding what it's gonna take to be successful in life. They're gonna be lifers, and there'll be Sun Devils for life."
On growing up in the valley and recruiting…
[Reporter turned over microphone] “Hold on, ask me if we are going to retain Shaun Aguano.”
“Are you retaining Shaun Agauno?”
“We are retaining Shaun Aguano. So that's step one, Shaun's done an absolutely remarkable job here. As a person everybody in this valley respects him. Anybody who's ever met him, respects him and I couldn't be happier. One of the first people I saw when I got here was Coach Aguano. He brings a joy to you when you see him in the room. There’s not many people who can do that. In terms of growing up in the Valley, I mean, the Jake Plummer era, I would go and sit in those seats. We'd go and tailgate out in the parking lot. There used to be motorhomes and they used to pull up right in front of the baseball area for people who remember. I was one of those little kids at the motorhome throwing the football trying not to get hit by a car after the game. That's a memory I had; almost getting hit by a car throwing a football, right? I remember as a graduate assistant here, the Jael Mary. All those times you look at this place, there's a lot of special moments and we want to create a lot more special moments.”
On the timeline for building the coaching staff…
“I mean, I think some guys will [come back], fairly quick. And then other guys, we're going to do our due diligence, making sure we hire the best candidate for the job. The one thing I know is I have a plan for what I want. And sometimes with those plans, the best thing you can do is be patient. So we're gonna have to be a little patient on some hands. But other guys, you know, we're gonna move quicker on.”
On what is first on his agenda…
“Players. Meet our players. This is all about the people. Meet the players and meet the people associated with the program. This place is home for me. But every place is about the people, the people in the building from the janitors, to the secretaries, to the players, to the other coaches. I mean, we talked to them like what other games are there this week? I want to go to as many games as I can go to. I was mad I missed the hockey game last night. So for me, it's get around people, and the people, the people, the people, and that's what matters.”
On how leaving the Pac-12 impacted his career and being able to recruit nationwide…
“Yeah, I think it was a great experience for me to get to different regions, because every place is different. I think what I truly learned was, you have to recruit to the place, because kids still have to live where they go to school. I think so much in recruiting, when you're recruiting a kid at some of these places, you try to distract them from the reality of living there. In reality, this is one of the greatest places to live in the country. The best schools and the best teams have the best players. And all people have to do is say, ‘hey, we're the best players, and we want to live in arguably one of the best cities.’ Then guess what, you're going to have one of the best teams. It's really that simple. For us, make it okay to be a champion here. And we're about to.”
On telling his family he got the job…
“I was fired up. My family are all sports people. We were all Arizona State people. Arizona State grad, Arizona State grad, Arizona State grad, Arizona State grad. So it was just super exciting. I mean, big hugs. The emotions were real. This is a dream that not just I had but everybody had and here we are.”
On being fit for the job…
“I mean, I was an offensive coordinator at 21, Dealing with parents who are worth millions of dollars. I've been an offensive coordinator at Memphis. I've led men at Auburn at 27, led men at Florida State at 29. I've been leading men at Oregon. It's all about leading people. That's all it's about. I think, today more than ever, people say kids are changing, kids are changing, kids are changing. I completely disagree. I think people are just allowing kids to change and people are scared to tell kids the truth. That's the one thing that I can stand on, is if I tell you something's going to happen, it will happen and I think that's a big reason why I'm sitting here today. I've never been scared of tough conversations.”
On being able to build relationships with local recruits and keeping them here…
“Yeah, I think Coach Aguano was one piece of that. I mean, he's a guy who's extremely, extremely rooted in The Valley, extremely respected. And I think any parent, a loved one who could ever meet them, you would want to drop your son off for college for him. The staff we're going to produce right is built with good people. And that's the number one thing I will not budge on, is we're going to have people who want to help kids grow into men and be successful in life. And I think for us already already being here that a lot of our staff, you know, we're gonna be rooted in Arizona, we're gonna hire a staff that has roots here that has connections, And how do you sign kids? How do you build a roster? Relationships. What does a relationship take? Time. build genuine relationships? And you can't just hop in and recruit a kid when he's a junior, right? Are we going out to Pop Warner games? That's the reality. Are we building relationships in the community? Are we hosting youth clinics? Everything it takes a village is the saying, right? This is just the fourth biggest village in the country. We need this village. That's what it's going to take to keep these kids home. We've shown from multiple places, multiple schools, that this is a system for playmakers. And if you want to score points, get the football, go up and down the field, have your play on SportsCenter, this a great place for you. On the defensive side of the ball, we're going to attack. We're going to attack. if you like sacks, if you like TFL’s, playing man-to-man coverage to put on tape for NFL teams, this is a great place for you. You're going to want to come here, because that's what we're going to do. Everything about this program is going to be attacking. And how do you recruit to that? Put the film on.”
On dealing with the transfer portal…
"No question. Yeah, I am a firm believer in the transfer portal. I am the number one advocate for it. Because what happens in recruiting is you have a whole bunch of people tell kids what they want to hear for two, three years. In the past, those kids were told what they wanted to hear, and they'd get stuck. Now, you better be the person you say you were and come through with those promises.
I am a firm believer in the transfer portal for that reason is it gives the power to the kids and that's who needs the power in this deal. That's what this is all about, It's about the players. It's about the kids. For me, we're going to attack the transfer portal, attack it, attack it with everything we have. There’s going to be balance.Hopefully in the future, we can attack it a little bit less and a little bit less and a little bit less. There’s a lot of kids throughout this country who want to live in Phoenix, Arizona. I believe 48% of our student body are transfers as a whole university, something along those lines. Because guess what? People want to live here.
NFL players move here when they retire. So if you're a player, if you're a prospect and you're looking at where you want to be in 20 years when you make these decisions, the network you can build here, you want to go to school in the place you're going to live, because you're going to build all those relationships. Everybody that knows life knows it's about relationships. That's why I'm sitting here today. So, if you want to build the relationships that are going to help you in life, go to a school where you want to live. And this is one of the greatest places to live, in my opinion, the greatest place to live in the country. So that's my challenge to everybody out there is: Right there. Come on.”
I'm going to keep going back to this word ‘relationships’. You have to build relationships with guys. I know it's a boring answer. But there's two choices; you can lie to a kid or you can be honest with the kid, I'm going to choose that, I'm gonna choose to be honest with the kid. Right now, I firmly believe if you're honest, if you're genuine, you're going to reap the benefits. So how do you do that? How do you build a roster? You can be honest with people, you show them your true colors, show them who you are. And then you show them that this is going to be an offensive system built for playmakers, that's explosive."
On how ready ASU is in the NIL race…
"We're ready. We need everybody. It can't be ‘oh, thank you. Okay, that's good. We just got a million dollars. That's unbelievable, right there. Well, where else is it coming from? But like we just said, he did that to inspire everybody else. What are you doing? You may just buy season tickets. You may just buy season tickets to hockey or baseball, you may show up to wrestling. Whatever that is. What can you do for this program? Not just football. What can you do for this university? Because this is the flagship. This is the flagship. So from that standpoint, it's getting The Valley all in. If we get the valley all in, then sky's the limit."
On what young Kenny Dillingham would say to the now…
“I'd say don't mess it up. This is what you wanted. I mean, I know it's funny, but it's the truth. I mean, when people told me from when I first started coaching, ‘you know what's your dream job?’ I always said this. You can ask him, ‘was this was it?’ This is my dream job. So what would he tell me? Don't change who you are.”
On telling a recruit why AZ is a great place to be…
“Just wait ‘till you move out. You'll move back. I mean, there's a reason it's one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country. There's a reason for that, it’s not by accident. You have great weather. If you're a quarterback, why would you not want to play where there's no elements, right? That's just the reality of it. You don't play in elements. If you're a skill position guy, why would you want to go play in snow? If you run track here, why would you want to run track in the cold? You have unbelievable weather for all skilled players to always play without elements. That's a competitive advantage on its own. So for us, not just the living here, but the actual natural geographic advantages we have here should actually attract skilled players to the university.”
On who his coaching mentors are…
“Yeah, one of those guys, my high school coach Charlie Ragle, for sure, just an elite competitor and elite leader. I mean, when you talk about a guy who can inspire, he can inspire and be an elite teacher. At the end of the day, coaching is teaching. That’s all it is; come with a lesson plan, teach it, and motivate. Another guy is Mike Norvell. That's a guy that is near and dear to me, right. He's given me a lot of opportunities. He's the guy I've learned a lot from, you know, he's a guy who took over a program as a young offensive coordinator. I've been blessed to do that twice and learned how to navigate it. I learned a lot from him in terms of how to navigate that transition. Then, a guy from a personal level, is a guy named Gus Esposito who is a great youth coach.”
On what PT42 values Kenny Dillingham will implement…
“I think student-athlete is the number one thing when I think of Pat Tillman. As a dedicated student-athlete, you know, whatever he believed in, he went all in on it. He was dedicated. He had the utmost belief and everything, but at the same time, he was the utmost student-athlete. So I think for us, it's just his dedication, his belief, his passion. I mean, there's not just one, you could go on and on about Pat Tillman. For us, the most important thing is that he embodied this program. He embodied everything about this program. It’s just a blessing to be able to represent him.”
Reading text on jersey presented by Ray Anderson, Jean Boyd and Dr. Michael Crow
“Somewhere inside, we hear a voice. It leads us into the direction of the person we wish to become. But it's up to us whether or not to follow.”