Oregon Ducks Coach Dan Lanning Reveals Who Inspires Him

Transcript

00:00I was kind of thinking to myself what the word coach means, and I think I've always said that

00:08coach means teacher, right? You want to be a great teacher, and I think about what coaches mean to

00:13me and my opportunity to be able to stand here, and I think back to my seventh grade PE teacher,

00:17Ken Simmons. I think back to my high school football coach, Greg Bowers, and what they

00:23meant to me and how much of an influence they had on me, and I heard Dabo say a second ago,

00:27you want to raise not just great championship players, but championship fathers, championship

00:32husbands, and that's what those people did for me. I still remember playing Oak Grove High School,

00:37and Coach Bowers wasn't one to throw out compliments, but I think I had a couple touchdown catches. It

00:43was a good game, and he walked up to me and said, great catch, nice touchdown. I remember that,

00:47but I also remember playing Carrollton High School. My buddy's back. He's the punt returner. This is

00:52back, Coach Brown, it's back when you, you know, peel back block, and I was ready. My buddy just

00:57caught the punt, Logan, and I peel back. I'm going to knock the snot out of this dude. Next thing I

01:03know, Logan's running at me, and I'm running at him, and I'm on his team, and he droops right,

01:08and I droop right, and he droops left, and I droop left. Bam! Tackle! And then the announcer says,

01:14Dan Lanning on the tackle. We're playing at Carrollton, and I remember walking off the field.

01:19Coach Bowers comes up to me, and he goes, that was a great tackle, son.

01:22The power of the coach's words means so much. They meant so much to me. I remember moments like

01:29that, and those are the moments that I'm really excited to share, you know, with our team.

01:33You can have a plan, and this one is totally different for me. You can dress me like this