THE STORY OF BRENT VENABLES - Part II
What do you know about Brent Venables?
Like, what do you really know about Brent Venables?
The surface-level persona is engrossing and enchanting enough.
The love of Clemson and its surroundings, the ability to grasp just how good he and his family have it at the top of the college football mountain even if his name is not at the top of the organizational chart.
The all-consuming focus and fire that is evident not just on game days, but also when he is fully immersed in preparation and concentration on a challenging opponent.
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The utter joy he shows after a challenge aced, the pride for and in his players who have given him everything they've had not just physically but mentally.
The appreciation for the head coach's mandate to luxuriate in the fun that must come with the winning.
ALSO SEE: The Story Of Brent Venables - Part 3 | The Story Of Brent Venables - Part 4
The common sight of him losing himself in the moment so thoroughly that there is a get-back coach charged with keeping him from incurring penalties for venturing off the sidelines.
He looks and acts the part of a maniac, and since he's at Clemson you love him because he's your maniac.
A litany of opposing fans are substantially less enthused to see that guy on the opposing sidelines, gesturing wildly and pumping his fists and yelling as meticulous study of an offense's tendencies culminates in the now-common sight of his players seemingly knowing exactly what's coming.
So the average fan looks at the 48-year-old Thomas Brent Venables and is thoroughly satisfied by the story that has been told thus far, a story of great defenses year after year after year and a story of a man at the top of his profession even if he doesn't occupy the top office in his program.
Venables appears so consummately fueled by his job that it would be logical to conclude he is defined by his job.
But there is so much more to him and his life than that.
In October of 2008, Dabo Swinney sat down with Tigerillustrated.com and told his tumultuous, heartbreaking, heartwarming life story.
Venables recently agreed to open up about his own dysfunctional upbringing, and how he dealt with tragedy that struck when he was well into a successful coaching career.
Some of the details he is sharing for the first time and aren't yet known to most people, including his own boss.
Rather than composing our own take on Venables' story, injecting our own voice and interpretations, we opted to get out of the way and let him tell it all himself.
Here is Part 2 of Brent Venables' life, in his own words:
My mom would always preach to us about going to college and chasing our dreams. She just always believed in me and my two brothers. She was never surprised when we did well academically. My brothers and I all did really well early on, especially myself and my oldest brother Kirk. We always had super, super grades.
My brother Ken veered off course at one point in the middle of high school and started hanging with the wrong crowd. He ended up getting his GED and then went on to the Navy.
My brother Kirk, man he was so talented. He was probably the most talented of the three of us in whatever sport. Basketball, football, track -- man, he was like a god to me and Ken. Everything just came so easy for him. Just a brilliant student.
Kirk was kind of mean, though. I remember growing up, he was tough but he was mean. I think that's because early on he felt like he had to be the man of the house, and there were all these male figures coming through the house who didn't love and nurture him and were not positive role models.
So I just think emotionally he was really affected by all the dysfunction and abuse. I remember as he got older, he didn't want to be around his little brothers. We weren't cool enough or big enough, so he'd be out with his buddies. He had a little wild side to him too, socially.
Kirk ended up going to a junior college to play football in-state, and then after that he joined the Navy. So he and Ken both ended up in the Navy. Kirk did very well in the Navy. He served for four years as a search-and-rescue swimmer, and he did a lot of growing up during that time. While he was in the Navy he decided he was going to finish up college when he got out. So he ended up going to Kansas State, and he did awesome there. So when I was at Kansas State I was able to be with him for a couple of years. And then after he got his undergraduate degree from Kansas State he went to the University of Colorado and earned his master's degree. He did an amazing job. He graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Kinesiology. He worked at a few different jobs thereafter, but his last job was at an energy-conservation company called E Source.
Kirk's full name was Arthur Kirkpatrick Venables. He got the name Arthur from my mom's dad. My grandfather was a major figure in forestry conservation. There were three main forestry-conservation experts in the United States, and my grandfather was one of them. His name was Arthur Ferber. In our eyes, grandfather was always the big stick. He was the man. He was stability, he was wisdom. But he was a grandpa. He was quite old, so he wasn't into the sports and all that kind of stuff. Everybody was kind of afraid of him.
When Kirk was in the Navy, he started having everyone call him Arthur. It was a combination of a new beginning for him, and also him honoring our grandfather. So after the Navy and into his new job, everybody knew Kirk as Arthur.
Basically, Kirk's job at E Source was going around to Fortune 500 companies across the country and selling their products and their systems for helping these companies cut emissions and be more energy-efficient, and at the same time save money while saving the environment and all those types of things. So he would travel everywhere from Boston to L.A. to Atlanta, and they would host different individuals from these businesses.
The routine consisted of a lot of networking and schmoozing, so they would go out to eat and drink and have a good time. That's just how it works in the corporate world and how people sell their products. You sell yourself and show you can relate to the customers, and then you get down to business.
Kirk was an easy guy to like, especially in social settings. He was a functioning alcoholic. I think there was a lot of resentment with Kirk toward my mom because growing up there was always some sort of drama between him and my mom and whatever stepdad was with us. He would show up to our summer Colorado gatherings and there would always be some blowup about something. It never ended well. It was always so stressful because I was just worried about what was going to happen.
So when Kirk was working for E Source, he had an episode in Boston. He blacked out and fell through a glass table in a hotel lobby. That's when the people he worked with realized they needed to get him some help. And I guess I was a little naive up to that point. It was only then when I realized drinking was an everyday occurrence for him. He could manage it. He would get up early and work, and then he'd come home and get into the same drinking routine every night.
Ken got his life straightened out in the Navy, and then he moved to Denver and then later Salt Lake City for eight to 10 years. He was a lobbyist for the Utah Wilderness Coalition. He did that for a long time. And then he worked for the state of Utah for a long time, had a good job and a stable situation.
Going back to the end of my high school days, I had a lot of good, positive influences at school with my coaches and teachers and whatnot. I ended up going to Garden City Community College on a football scholarship. I came close to walking on at Kansas State out of high school, but I decided to go to Garden City. While I was still in high school, I remember a coach named Bob Stoops showing up. He was at Kansas State under Bill Snyder, and I went there on an official visit. I went to Kansas on an official visit as well. But neither of them offered me a scholarship, just preferred walk-on spots.
But I remember meeting Bob Stoops for the first time, and man he was just so electric. He just had an amazing presence to him. He was really positive. He was young. He was confident. I just really liked Coach Stoops so much. So even though I went to Garden City, my focus was on getting back to Kansas State and joining Coach Stoops and Coach Snyder and being a part of that turnaround.
Coming out of Garden City, I had a couple of scholarship offers from Division I-AA schools. My coaches at Garden City were telling me that's what I needed to do, take the money and take advantage of those opportunities.
But in my mind, I was going to earn a scholarship at Kansas State. I was determined to do that, and my mom was very supportive of me chasing that dream. So I was eventually going to earn a scholarship, and there was no doubt in my mind. But in the meantime, some folks told me about Pell Grants and financial aid that I could qualify for to get some money when I walked on. With that, plus student loans, I was like, "Shoot. I'm going to Manhattan."
So after a semester of playing for Coach Stoops and Coach Jim Leavitt, my linebackers coach, I went on scholarship. That was a great experience in itself, a sense of accomplishment and a feeling that I proved a lot of people wrong. We went 7-4 that first year, but we also had two wins over I-AA teams so we weren't able to go to a bowl game.
I just loved the experience at Kansas State, the relationships with the coaches. It just really taught me what it's like to hone in on a goal, a dream. The work ethic and commitment that it took, the leadership, how to handle yourself -- I just had so many positive mentors starting with Coach Stoops, Coach Snyder and Coach Leavitt. Mike Stoops was also on that staff, and Mark Mangino. We just had a lot of really good family men on that staff. Not just really good coaches, but an incredible experience for me to be able to be under so many good men and father figures. Those years were so formative for me in creating a lot of belief in myself.
So after my football eligibility expired, I had one more semester at Kansas State to finish up school and I really thought I was going to get into politics. I was a political science major, so I was going to go into either politics or sports law of some sort, or just a general-practice lawyer. So I was planning to take the LSAT and was looking into possible law schools to attend, and the coaches asked me if I was interested in being a student assistant for football that last semester. I said absolutely, and so I got a little taste of coaching. I really didn't have a lot of responsibility, but I was at every practice and went to the games. And man, I just thought it was a great experience. Because finishing up school and thinking about life after football -- life without football -- I was afraid.
You have to understand how important the PAW Journey is nowadays to these kids. We didn't have anything like that then, none of the many resources that can provide kids who are having to confront the reality of life after the cheering stops and they're having to look for jobs.
I just remember thinking, "Now what?" In reality, all of the great people and the structure and the stability that I had always really wanted and craved were with a football program. And now I had to walk away and figure things out, to figure out what was going to define me from that point. And I really just wasn't ready for that. I wasn't ready to confront the unknown and to go out on my own and start a life that didn't include football.
So then one day Coach Stoops asked me if I wanted to stay on as a graduate assistant when I was done with school. He laid out a plan whereby I could take some more time figuring out what I wanted to do, and in doing so I could get my master's. So I became a GA and started pursuing my master's in public administration.
Man, I just loved everything about being a GA on that staff. I loved the strategy. I loved the family. I loved the camaraderie. I loved competing. I loved helping and serving players. I loved creating the same impact on players that coaches had on me when I was playing in high school and college, giving them a positive source of stability and encouragement and motivation and competitiveness.
I always loved the recruiting part of it. I loved bringing energy to work every single day, and motivating our guys. Also, I still had some buddies on the team.
Two years after I started, Coach Leavitt was offered the opportunity to start up the football program at South Florida. Coach Leavitt took the job, and he told me that he thought Coach Snyder should hire me as his replacement as the linebackers coach at Kansas State. But he told me: "If he doesn't, I've got a job for you at South Florida." He told me he couldn't pay me, but he'd put me in the dorm and give me a little money for food. I said, "Man, I'm there!" But the job at Kansas State was going to be a much better situation if I could get it. That was far from a certainty, though.
This was just before our bowl game that year, the Holiday Bowl. The previous year we'd gone to our first bowl game, the Copper Bowl. So we're out in San Diego for the Holiday Bowl, and that was Coach Leavitt's last game. Coach Snyder told me then that I was definitely one of the people he was considering for the job.
This went on for months. I was kind of in limbo as Coach Snyder tried to figure out what he wanted to do. It seemed like a few years, honestly. About every two days, I'd go down to Coach Snyder's office and knock on his door. He'd tell me he had a bunch of applicants and a lot of people he was talking to, and he still hadn't made up his mind. Coach Snyder did things on Coach Snyder time. He probably didn't ask many people what they thought about it. He just told me to be patient.
Finally, one day he told me I'd gotten the job. But he told me it was on an interim basis. He told me I had one year to prove to him I was ready. He told me to cut the social ties to my friends on the team, that I was a coach now. He told me I was their leader now and told me what that was supposed to look like. He told me he would start paying me in the fall, and this was maybe March when he told me I had the interim linebackers job.
Despite all those caveats to the job, despite not getting paid for the rest of the spring and summer, I was just elated. I worked all spring ball, spring recruiting, worked all summer, and I was still getting paid as a GA. Then come fall I was on salary, at $33,100 that first year. I was 25 years old.
What a great experience for me as a young coach. I remember just the thoroughness and the detail and the consistency. Coach Snyder always worked off of a list, and there was never any stone left unturned. I remember just being in awe of how organized he was, and how he thought about things and the depth of the things he thought about. He was always looking at ways to get better, trying to find any way possible to improve, never making excuses.
Around the same time I got the job, Coach Stoops left for Florida to be Steve Spurrier's defensive coordinator. So Mike Stoops and I ran the defense after he left. Coach Snyder had hired another coach to replace Coach Stoops. His name was Bob Cope, and had coached under Coach Snyder before but was at Baylor when Snyder brought him back to Manhattan in 1996. Coach Cope was a longtime, legendary coach.
Late that summer, Coach Cope got brain cancer. I remember that season, the first year of the Big 12, Coach Cope suffering these terrible headaches. I remember going to Coach Snyder and telling him: "Listen, coach. Coach Cope is as tough as they come and he's having these horrible headaches that make him double over to the ground."
Coach Cope wasn't really doing anything to address it, not going to see anyone, and we're in the middle of our fall camp installation and he was saying some of the craziest things I had never heard him say. He was making calls that we didn't even have in our defense. So he finally went in for some brain scans and they found some huge tumors. It was terrible.
We coached my first year in 1996 with just three coaches on defense while he was fighting his battle in the hospital. He later died. Man, he was one of the all-time best. I learned so much from him strategy-wise and about the game as a first-year coach prior to all this happening.
Coach Snyder coached coaches as well as anybody I've ever been around. If you had a weakness as a coach, he could identify it and help you work on it. He was never degrading, always matter-of-fact and positive to a certain degree. But he was relentless about doing all the little things right and demanding your best, and not allowing you to make excuses.
It was always a very tight-knit family at Kansas State. I remember everybody in that building -- coaches, players, support staff, secretaries, custodians, everybody -- knew the message and was pulling the rope in the same direction. We had our backs against the wall, and it was always an us-against-the-world mentality. Every single day. That's just who we were at Kansas State. Nobody believed in us but us. That was our view. What an awesome environment for me to grow up in as a young coach trying to get his start in the profession -- just very, very thorough and detailed in everything.
Some people say it's hard working for Coach Snyder, but for me it was easy. I was young and I wasn't married yet. I didn't have a family. He was just very demanding of your time year-round. There was never any downtime. You had two weeks in the summer and that was about it.
Coach Snyder had notorious hours. Sundays you worked until 1 AM. Monday, you worked until 1 AM. Tuesday and Wednesday, you worked until noon. And then Thursday you'd go home after practice.
As assistant coaches, you'd be all done with whatever you had to do but nobody wanted to be the first one to leave. Late at night, we'd be trying to figure out if Coach Snyder was still there or not. We'd be poking our heads out of our offices into the hallway looking for him.
He was notorious, on those two late nights of the week, in walking down the hallway saying "You guys get out of here early." And it's like 12:50 AM. For me it wasn't that big a deal. It was actually kind of funny. But I just didn't know any better as far as family and all that.
So it was always a grind, and he got more out of less probably better than anyone in the history of the game. I'll always be indebted to him for believing in me and giving me that opportunity. I know that wouldn't have happened without Coach Stoops and Coach Leavitt saying, "We believe in Brent too." I know that was a big part of Coach Snyder's decision to hire me.
So after that first year, I got a big bump and a run-game coordinator title. Then the next year, same thing with another big bump and additional responsibilities. He believed in me because of I guess what I had done as a player and as a GA. He gave me a ton of responsibility. And I remember just never wanting to let him down, or my players.
We had some great years there, and some defining moments. We spent so much time just trying to find a way against some of the higher-powered teams in college football during that time. Just finding a way, strategy-wise, to give yourself a chance to get one more point on the board. Because Coach Snyder always made you believe you could do it.
I remember the advent of the quarterback run game with a pro-style offense under Coach Snyder. That first year, we signed a bunch of junior-college players with some really good high school talent as well.
In my three years as a GA we went 9-2-1 in 1993, 9-3 in 1994, and 10-2 in 1995. Then in 1996, my first year as linebackers coach, we were 9-3 and went to the Cotton Bowl.
Also in 1996, I was dating Julie. We had started talking a little bit in 1994. I had met her in 1992 when I was in college and she was a freshman and I was a junior. She was just getting into college then and was just having fun and wasn't interested in dating anybody. But we kept in touch and always knew each other. We had some mutual friends. She had come from the Overland Park area of Kansas City. So in 1994, going into 1995, we started dating. And then in 1996 we became engaged. We got married in 1997. She got her degree in nursing from Kansas State, and she was working at the hospital right across the street from the football stadium. Both of us were working weird hours. She'd get off at midnight and I'd come in a little later.
We did that for a few years and it was awesome. We loved Manhattan. Our first home was a condo, right on the corner as you're leaving Manhattan. The street name was Little Kitten Avenue. I remember it like it was yesterday.
In 1997, we were 11-1 and played Syracuse in the Fiesta Bowl. They had Donovan McNabb, and we won that one 35-18.
In 1998, we had something like 19 starters coming back. And we knew we had a great team. That was probably one of the two most talented teams I've ever been on as a coach. And this was just a few years after the Kansas State administration considered shutting down the football program.
We had finally beaten Nebraska, beaten everyone else. We were favored by a couple of touchdowns over Texas A&M going into the Big 12 championship game, and if we won the game we were going to play for the national championship. We were ranked No. 1 in the coaches' poll, but Tennessee and UCLA were also undefeated. So we needed some help for sure. This was the first year of the BCS. I remember Miami and UCLA were playing that day, and Miami gave us exactly the help we needed by beating the Bruins.
The Big 12 championship was in St. Louis, and we were up 17-3 on Texas A&M in the second quarter. That's when the public-address announcer told the crowd that UCLA lost. We were well on our way to playing for the national championship. At Kansas State, a program that had gone 1-27-1 from 1987 to 1989.
After three quarters, we were up 27-12. But A&M scored 15 points in the fourth quarter to force overtime, and then we lost 36-33 in double overtime. It was easily the toughest loss I've ever been a part of. Nothing else is even close.
About five days before that game, Bob Stoops called. He was going to leave his job as Florida's defensive coordinator to be Oklahoma's head coach.