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The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/RiffRamBahZoo on 2024-08-31 03:35:25+00:00.
/r/CFB is all-access with the Hawai’i Rainbow Warriors this weekend ahead of Week 1 of the college football season. As part of the tour, /r/CFB sat down with Timmy Chang, the head coach of Hawai’i, for a “talk story” interview. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
First and foremost, Timmy, let’s start with just a big overarching question. You set a ton of NCAA records here as a quarterback, you got the call to come be the head coach at Hawai’i at 40 years old. What’s that initial call like for you to hear ‘Hey, we want you to come back to lead this program, not as a player, but as the head coach’?
Yeah, it’s pretty exciting. I mean, you know, I have mentors. June Jones is one of them; Dan Morrison, who sits in our quarterback room is another. Coaches like Harold Jackson at Jackson State, Curt Newsome at Emory & Henry College, Jay Norvell at Nevada, too.
Jay said something to me that, you know, guys like us don’t always get this type of opportunity. So no matter what it looks like, you take it. And he was right. He took me out of Emory & Henry. And when you come into this coaching profession, you just kind of go. You bet on yourself, put the chips down on yourself. You bet on what your value is, and you create value. And you know what it looks like. You know what the game is. You know what the guys are going through playing the game. So you just bank on all those things. And the opportunity came up, and it’s actually pretty much a dream come true for me.
I thought one day maybe I’d have an opportunity to become the head coach. I didn’t think it was this soon. But there’s no manual on how to get ready to take over a job, or the type of job that this thing required at the time. I was excited. But it didn’t just consist of me when I took the job. My family’s born and raised here, my mom stays here with my two sisters and their families, and I have a beautiful wife and five kids. We’ve made a commitment to each other on this journey. And so when you take a job and a high-profile job as being a head coach in college football, you’re involving all parties. And so I just wanted to make sure everybody was on board.
For me, it was a solid “Yes,” and I couldn’t wait to get to work, because there was a lot to be done. But it’s unbelievable. It’s pretty surreal. It’s full circle for me and and then even coming back, like I know I was born and raised here, stayed home to play here, I ended up going away for pretty much a good amount of time, both playing and and coaching and living and so coming back, there’s a little bit of differences, but the core foundation of what Hawai’i is, and Hawai’i has always been, is why we are who we are.
You said there’s no manual of how to immediately dive in as a head coach, and you came in in an unusual cycle following Todd Graham. What was your first initial challenge that you saw? What was the first thing you realized you needed to take care of?
The first thing I really wanted to try to do was try to save the roster. Hawai’i starts school pretty early. And so by the time I got the job, I was trying to save the roster. When one of the quarterbacks left, it kind of created a domino effect of a whole bunch of other guys leaving, and so trying to save the roster was important.
But the next, and probably most important thing, was community building and really getting the groundswell support of everybody, not only inside the program at the University of Hawai’i, but also the surrounding fans, the community, the businesses, the decision-makers trying to get their support and love back for our program.
Coming into year three now, you’ve already had Delaware State under your belt in Week 0. You’ve got UCLA next. When you look at year three, what is the number one goal that you have?
I think at this point is to win. You know, it’s just win. We had a stretch last year where we beat Nevada, beat Air Force, then lost to Wyoming. And that was kind of the first meaningful game that we’ve had here [at TC Ching Complex]. If we won that one, we would have played Colorado State, and my former coach, for a bowl game. But it was meaningful as a four-game stretch right there where we finished really solid.
October last year was horrible for us. But at this point, I think [the goal] is teaching these guys how to win. It’s believing in winning. It’s believing in the next guy. It’s believing in yourself. It’s getting the guys to understand that everything matters.
So if we’re going to get better at anything, it’s really how important every day is for the betterment of yourself and the value you bring to this damn team. That’s what matters. And so we can do that, we’re going to be okay. And then it’s going out there and executing on these 12 Saturdays.
And everybody in the country’s trying to do it. We’ve been very fortunate and lucky because Hawai’i players, they just fit well in football. You know, the culture of being selfless for the guy next to you.
And them being Polynesian helps. You know what I mean? Those big, bony guys that are physical and love to bang. We’ve been blessed here geographically, just for those things, and so, now, it’s just winning, getting them to do it Saturday. And that whole time that we’ve been practicing, everything that we’ve been doing, has been to perform on Saturday.
You’ve mentioned players that you can bring in super easy from Hawai’i. You were a Hawai’i guy yourself. When you’re looking at the state though, you’ve always got your high-end talent, like a Tua Tagovailoa or Manti Te’o, who will typically try to go to the mainland. What is your strategy of recruiting local guys?
It’s trying to get those guys to stay home, yeah? One of the best tackles in the game is Jonah Savaiinaea at Arizona. And [defensive tackle] Jordan Botelho at Notre Dame. You got [quarterback] Dillon Gabriel at Oregon. I mean, when you start to put those guys and keep them home, you really change your program, you know what I mean?
And it was the same thing with me. I was that top recruit that ended up staying home. And so for me, the picture’s the same. You stay home. You build this thing. And then it starts to look like that dynasty era when June Jones had it, because now the influx of recruits starts to pick up. You start to recruit the Colt Brennans, the Samson Sateles, the Davone Besses of the world. You start to get some really good, talented guys.
Isaac Suvaonga is still around from my time playing, so is Travis LaBoy and Pisa Tinoisamoa. When you start to build classes like that, your program starts to look different.
The one thing that I’m trying to build off of that is really that Hawai’i football is unique. We’re one degree away from the Governor, one degree away from senators, one degree away from banks. Some of the most developed businessmen, entrepreneurs, restaurant owners, you name it. And the influx of billionaires that live here and own homes here? You’re a degree away, in some cases, from these people.
For me now, building life after football is what matters. It’s not just that four-year process right there. You want to develop guys to get to the NFL, and you’ve got to bring in coaches to develop these guys. But at the end of the day when that is done, what are they falling back on? So now what I do is, within our programs, I create a developmental program, that allows them to, one, work on their degree, play some winning football out here, and then start to add value to themselves with life after football.
And I’ll be honest with you, the type of guys that we got in our locker room wouldn’t suit every program. We’re not recruiting just the best, talented, fastest kids. We want guys that are well-rounded, or they come in, and we develop them. They have a lot of those skill sets and size, and speed, what you’re looking for to win games, but you’re developing these guys to just be really, really good people and add value, not only to your team, but to life after football.
How would you say you change your strategy for trying to get someone from the mainland to come here? We talked to a lot of players that said the Braddahood aspect of the team appealed to them, and they were very excited about that. What is your strategy to get someone from, say, Texas, or California?
There’s a lot of football players out there, right? And we start with basically the guys that want to be here in Hawai’i. That’s where we start. That’s the bottom line for us. If you’re coming over that Pacific Ocean, you want to be here and play here.
With a kid from Texas, he’s there, we’re here, and it’s just this long-distance relationship that is hard to keep up. We have a kid right now committed to us from Texas. If the kid knows that he wants to be here, we’re gonna get the best version of that kid. Now, there’ll be some unfamiliar things that they’ll have to go through — culture changes, those type of things, like the weather: “What, it’s 70 again? Everyone’s wearing shorts and slippahs? It always looks the same? Are the people really that nice?” Yeah, they are, they don’t want anything from you, man, they’re that nice. (laughter)
But they’ll get over those things. And so when they start to go through that process, then it’s like, “Wow.” And you create a safe environ…
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