Mark Saltveit - The Tao of Chip Kelly: Lessons from Americas Most Innovative Coach

Win the Day!

The Vision: Fast. Play Hard. Finish

We Focus on What We Can Control

Feed the Tuna Mayonnaise

The Best of Our Abilities is Dependability

Science Over Tradition

Were Very, Very Focused on the Process

Our Programs Founded on Competition

A Quarterback is Like a Tea Bag

Big People Beat Up Little People

Players, Not Positions

Next Man In

We Have Sixteen Squad Leaders

We Celebrate as a Team

The Only Proven Shortcut to Success is Hard Work

Youve Got to Practice in It if Youre Going to Play in It

If You Accept It, Expect It

Teach to the Fastest Learner

Water the Bamboo

We Dont Run Some Magical Offense or Defense

Everything You Do Has To Be Personnel-Driven

Take What the Defense Gives You

The Faceless Opponent

Just Tell Me the Rules of the Game and I Will Play By Them

Dont Over-Coach It. Let Em Go Play

Every Game is the Super Bowl

Its Not a Sin to Get Knocked Down. Its a Sin to Stay Down

Pressure is What You Feel When You Dont Know What Youre Doing

Play With Emotion, Dont Let Emotion Play With You

Play From a Desire to Excel, Not a Fear of Failure

Big Balls Chip

Sometimes I Can Be Sarcastic. I Dont Know If People Realize That

The Tao of Chip Kelly

The Philadelphia Story

Genius?

Chip Kellys plays and schemes will change now that he has moved from the University of Oregon to the Philadelphia Eagles. Theyll probably change from game to game, and quarter to quarter.

But underneath the winning strategies that baffle his opponents, there is a remarkably consistent and surprisingly profound philosophya philosophy that will work for any leader or manager. Kellys biggest innovations dont involve football tactics at all. They are ways to clarify and communicate a vision for your team, an understanding of the prime importance of executing your plans, and a system for building a powerful humility into the structure of your organization.

By a lucky coincidence, these innovations also produce exciting football teams that destroy opponents.

Certainly Kellys record of success is astonishing by any measure. As offensive coordinator at the University of New Hampshire, his teams consistently set offensive records and attracted attention from coaching geeks around the country.

Before Kelly was hired as head coach, Oregon had last won a Rose Bowl in 1917, and to this day the Ducks cant compete with the big football powers in recruiting top talent. Yet Kellys teams went 46-7 over four years, with a BCS Bowl game every year and top-5 national rankings his last three years.

Only one other teamthree-time national champion Alabama, at 49-5has been as consistent during that time, and the SEC powerhouses tremendous recruiting advantage makes Nick Sabans achievement less impressive.

Others have written about Chip Kellys strategy and results in great detail. This book aims to sketch the outlines of Chip Kellys philosophy, using his own words from interviews and press conferences wherever possible. It also relies on the only three things he has publishedhis lectures at Nikes Coach of the Year workshop in 2009, 2011, and 2012.1 These are essential reading for any students of Chipism.

Coach Kelly has not structured his philosophy into any organized framework. He teaches with parables and mottoes, so I have built this book around those.

Im not sure he has systematically laid out his philosophy even in his own mind, and that is part of his strength. He is relentlessly focused on what works, as tested again and again by real world results. As soon as you paint a big picture by connecting all these little truths, you run the risk of drifting away from those results into words and ideas that are perfectly logical and orderlybut may not reflect the messy realities of life. Thats a mistake that Kelly never makes.

However, most of us dont have twenty years of sixteen-hour days to devote to developing a fiercely reality-based and innovative system. So Im taking the risk of oversimplifying Kellys insights in order to highlight the innovations of one of Americas most successful and underappreciated managers.

The unique achievement of Chip Kelly is that he is able to combine innovative strategy with a compelling underlying philosophy and a ruthless commitment to testing both against real world results. He has the humility to adjust his philosophy and strategy without attachment to his own ideas, no matter how successful theyve been in the past.

All coachesChip includedhave good seasons and disappointing ones, upsets and miracles. The best poker players lose a lot, too. But they win a little more on good hands and lose a little less with bad ones. Sometimes they scheme their way to victory when they have no business hoping to win. They cant control what happens, but they have learned to nudge the odds in their favor.

That is what Kelly does on the football field. He is not a genius, guru, or wizard, as much as the media likes to push that angle (and then turn around and shoot it down).

More than anything, he is an innovative manager who has learned to thrive at the highest levels of footballs controlled chaos, and his insights are useful to anyone interested in building an elite organization.

He also has fun with his teams, and as a result, they are fun to watch. That may ultimately be the most important lesson of his success.

Portland, Oregon

December 2013