How Bob Chesney has completely turned around UCLA

LOS ANGELES — Just after 6 a.m. earlier than the solar is nothing however a slight orange glow breaking by the moonlit Westwood sky, Bob Chesney is already on, roaring to go.

He emerges from the elevator at UCLA‘s soccer facility wide-eyed, his voice already at decibels most individuals would reserve for daytime and heads to the campus tennis stadium close by. On Tuesday mornings, he reserves a sliver of time to run up and down the steep steps. Everything else, Chesney says, is soccer.

By 7 a.m., Chesney is again inside. He has traded his trainers for flip-flops. His hair is fastidiously coiffed, and as he stands behind a desk contained in the auditorium the place your complete staff meets at 7:15 a.m., he bobs his head to the rhythm of fifty Cent’s “Many Men (Wish Death)” as if he have been a DJ spinning his greatest combine.

On this specific Tuesday morning, the room is vibrating. Thirteen months after beginning final season 0-3 and firing DeShaun Foster as head coach, UCLA is 4-0 and ranked No. 21 within the nation beneath Chesney. The program is almost unrecognizable from its earlier iteration, flying excessive whereas the person standing on the entrance of the room seems to own the power required to levitate.

“The second half of this season starts right now, eight [weeks] are done,” Chesney says, his voice rising louder. “There’s eight more coming up here. Just like you committed on Day 1 of camp, this is about a recommitment today.”

The assembly is a tone-setter for the day, the week, the subsequent opponent, which, on this case, is Oregon — the hardest staff UCLA has confronted so far. The assembly can also be the place Chesney’s teaching model comes into view, a method that has produced a 136-52 total report and eight convention titles throughout 5 applications.

In this room, all the things feels as if it is being run at twice the pace, as if the hurry-up offense the Bruins would possibly make the most of on the sphere has relocated indoors. Players sit with notebooks scribbling whereas Chesney flips by slides on a display screen containing each broad mantras and hyper-specific game-plan duties. He calls out a place group and on cue, every respective coach begins his spiel — typically expletive-laden — that’s half data, half motivation for what that group must do within the upcoming recreation. On just a few events, Chesney interjects to hammer the purpose residence.

“You will do what you have to do to win the game. That’s done. That’s not a debate. That’s a f—ing fact,” he says. “I’m worried about how can you mentally take yourself to a different standard, hold yourself to that standard and never f—ing waver from it. That’s the question. How do I make that unbreakable? How do I bury my f—ing fracture point?”

Once the morning assembly concludes, gamers break off into place teams. Chesney hangs again with the particular groups group the place his longtime coach-in-crime Drew Canan, UCLA’s assistant coach who oversees particular groups and tight ends, rattles off assignments for gamers and evaluations recreation planning with the identical relentless cadence. The two have been working collectively since he joined Chesney’s 2014 workers at Assumption University in Massachusetts.

“I don’t think there’s a better person who can change a culture as he does,” Canan mentioned.

Canan remembers one Saturday apply throughout spring camp when the power and energy from begin to end was spectacular. Equally notable was the best way gamers weren’t simply in sync with Chesney’s imaginative and prescient, however having fun with being a part of it.

“It introduced me again to the early days at Holy Cross, it introduced me again to final 12 months at James Madison,” Canan mentioned. “It was the seventh or eighth practice we had [at UCLA] and I remember walking off the field and saying, ‘He did it again. We’ve got it.'”

TEN MINUTES AFTER the staff has break up into place conferences Tuesday morning, the temper contained in the operating backs room is one in every of quiet confidence.

“Don’t be surprised if we have success,” operating backs coach A.J. Steward tells the group. “They don’t play as hard and as physical as we do.”

This room specifically is as emblematic as any of the sort of recipe Chesney and his workers have concocted that’s working. Steward is without doubt one of the few holdovers from the earlier workers and now, beneath his purview, there is a former JMU operating again (Wayne Knight), a former Iowa State again (Dylan Lee) and two returning UCLA operating backs (Anthony Woods and Jaivian Thomas). Together, this assortment makes up the highest speeding assault within the nation in yards per carry (6.95) whereas Knight leads all of them with 445 yards and 9 touchdowns.

About 10 months in the past, after Chesney had taken the job and employed his workers, UCLA held a novel recruiting go to day. Every participant who arrived in Westwood that day was coming from JMU, together with Knight. After checking off their prime precedence of securing Nico Iamaleava‘s dedication, Chesney, alongside new basic Darrick Yray, shifted to the subsequent vital process: persuade a gaggle of JMU gamers who spent one season with Chesney that UCLA must be the subsequent cease of their faculty careers.

There was one subject. It was one of many handful of days in Los Angeles on which rain was within the forecast.

“These guys had been hearing all about how great L.A. was and the weather and they get this?” Yray mentioned with fun. The former Florida State GM with West Coast ties had already purchased into Chesney’s imaginative and prescient when he turned down a multiyear contract to remain in Tallahassee.

“I’d always kind of told myself if the right opportunity ever showed up to get back on the West Coast, I’m going to come running,” Yray mentioned. “The first time I got on the phone with Chesney, you start to hear him speak and it was like, ‘This dude is real.’ And you dive in and start understanding what was going to happen here. And I was like, ‘Oh, this thing has a chance to go.'”

That Chesney & Co. have been in a position to generate as a lot pleasure about this system and success early is inextricable from the truth that they have been in a position to mobilize the muse that they had at James Madison westward. All informed, 28 workers members and 11 gamers from JMU adopted Chesney.

“That’s a lot of people that are speaking the same language from day one. It allows you to catapult your success a lot quicker in theory,” mentioned Matt Transue, this system’s chief of workers by the use of JMU. “It has definitely helped, especially early on when we were resetting the culture here. Now everybody’s bought in.”

Signs of the Dukes’ affect and Chesney’s ethos from his first teaching job are in all places. The apply construction is actually the identical one he has used at earlier stops, together with JMU. Walk by the load room and you will see a commemorative JMU weight plate hanging in one of many power workers’s workplaces. The PowerLevel slide of “core principles” that Chesney used at Assumption, Holy Cross and JMU is similar one he used throughout his first staff conferences in January at UCLA.

“I think the awe factor for all of us that came from James Madison was, ‘How has this place not won at a high level?'” Transue mentioned. “The first day we got here, we were like, ‘Holy cow, this is unbelievable.’ I think that appreciation too is a lot of our coaches are from lower levels. They follow Chesney from Division III all the way through. So this is a big-time opportunity and they’ve already won with far less than what they have here now.”

Still, Chesney contends they’re constructing one thing new with acquainted items quite than attempting to recreate what that they had. It has been his strategy at each cease. But this time, he’s making an attempt to construct the identical basis on a bedrock of higher assets, sure, but additionally greater stress.

“I remember when they eventually were like, ‘Hey, we want you to be the head coach.’ I’m like, ‘Damn, you’re handing me that much?” Chesney mentioned of this system’s funds to go together with his five-year, $33.75 million contract. “I better get this s— right.'”

Despite the larger stakes, Chesney was assured within the information he was bringing with him a system that labored at earlier stops, even when they have been smaller, in addition to a trusted staffers whom he knew would deal with their enterprise the best way he wished. He additionally knew that the joy and momentum he wanted to create around this system in Year 1 needed to be engineered by him and centered, to an extent, on him too.

“I understood [UCLA fans, donors, media] are not going to know a lot of our players yet. They’re not going to know a lot of our coaches yet. And the only way to do this is to get myself out there,” Chesney mentioned. “It had to be me to get the culture set, to get the expectations spoken about, to get what we needed from the alums and the support that we expected and the energy that was going to go into everything we do. There was only one person that could do that.”

IT’S 9:15 A.M. WHEN Chesney takes the social gathering outdoors. The Bruins pour out onto the apply area, which on this scorching day in L.A., is punishing anybody who dares to step on its unforgiving turf with temperatures within the mid-90s. Much just like the assembly inside, UCLA’s apply has an virtually frenetic tempo the place no second feels unaccounted for. Chesney is a human rubber band, stretching himself in each course.

A second with the first-team offense which, throughout this week has put loud audio system simply behind their huddle to imitate the noise anticipated to be heard in Eugene on Saturday, one which the JMU contingent is sort of acquainted with from their CFP loss to Oregon final season. A check-in on the defensive backs, a fast Facetime with a recruit throughout stretching, a low-crouch in entrance of the defensive linemen to check their pass-rush method and all of the sudden a loud whistle adopted by an excellent louder yell.

“One up-down!”

The whole staff echoes Chesney’s comment in unison and drops to the bottom.

“Special!” he says, signaling a transition to particular groups. “You f—ing do that s—!”

Hang around the apply lengthy sufficient and also you begin to hear one other voice breaking by the music. It is older, however no much less menacing than Chesney’s.

“Knock him down! Put him on his ass!” Bob Sr., Chesney’s dad and a volunteer assistant for the Bruins, tells a lineman.

As the 2 orbit the apply area, one can seize simply how far the apple fell from the tree. The reply? Not far, but sufficient to the place 76-year-old Bob Sr. can acknowledge that his son — “Bobby” as he calls him — had one thing distinctive from an early age.

“Even as a kid, you could see that leadership quality in him. All the kids gravitated toward him, whatever game they played, he was in charge,” Bob Sr. mentioned.

And so the elder Chesney discovered himself gravitating to his son as nicely. When Chesney bought his first head teaching gig at Salve Regina, a Division III college in Newport, Rhode Island, Bob Sr. — a longtime highschool coach with just a few stints on the faculty stage — got here alongside for the experience. He has been at each cease since, roaming practices, serving to the remainder of the workers and maintaining a tally of his son’s rise.

“I think if you just look at the total person, Bobby, you look at his total package that he’s selling, it certainly would fit at every level. And so far you have seen it has fit at every level,” Bob Sr. mentioned. “He started at the lowest of lows, worked his way up telling the same story, improving it, spit-shining it a little bit as you move on. When you can afford a little more, the better polish, you can polish it a little bit better. And so right now the shoes are shining.”

There is an unmistakable power about Chesney that feels incongruous or not less than laborious to understand at first look when you think about that he landed in Los Angeles of all locations. Nothing about Chesney’s journey indicated Hollywood would match him. From rising up in Kulpmont, Pennsylvania, the place the city’s commerce of coal mining was his aspect gig at one level, to bartending in Baltimore, he finally bought his begin as a graduate assistant at Norwich University, a army faculty in Vermont. Yet maybe no transplant to this metropolis has discovered consolation and cohesiveness as shortly as he has.

“He has the L.A. look, he has the L.A. temperament. This is a perfect place for him,” Bob Sr. mentioned. “He’s not one of these coaches that just says two words. He’ll try to explain everything right or wrong. He’s not going to hide from any question. He’s just made for this type of atmosphere to thrive in this kind of environment.”

The small-town roots haven’t desiccated, however what has crystallized over 16 years of head teaching expertise from Salve Regina to Westwood is a capability to sew the identical magnetic thread by all of it.

“He’s very easy and charismatic and it’s natural to him. He’s very much involved in bringing people along,” Transue mentioned. “He did this at the last place, it was a small-town community and it was the same approach, because I think people just want to have interaction with the program. They want to have a little bit of a connection to it. He makes everyone feel connected to it.”

There is a calculus to all of it, after all. Chesney understands the equation he has to resolve for in a metropolis with loads of groups, actions and sights competing for individuals’s consideration. It’s why at UCLA he has discovered an ample runway to be himself, to be an “open book” these around this system mentioned, inviting anybody who’s to apply, impressing in meetups with donors and, from the start, discovering methods to indicate up at different UCLA athletics occasions.

“You want me to go talk to alums, I’m going to do it. You want me to go play golf with somebody? I’m going to do it,” Chesney mentioned. “On top of that, I’m going to make sure that we bring all these high school coaches by every practice we possibly can so they get a feel for who we are. I think that what they and the fans need to hear is that this time around it’s different.”

The push has paid off. Even earlier than this system began profitable, investments from donors have poured in. A $9.6 million donation from late alumnus Lawrence Layne in January plus a $10 million from Angelo Mazzone III in April. Before the season started, UCLA fired athletic director Martin Jarmond, who helped rent Chesney, and changed him with former NBA government Tim Harris to create “a new strategy to grow revenue through partnerships, licensing and other ventures,” in line with college chancellor Julio Frenk.

Beyond Chesney’s personal contract, the Bruins have grown their workers past earlier limitations, having the posh so as to add further items like former NFL quarterback Derek Carr as a volunteer particular adviser to Chesney whereas additionally with the ability to spend like a top-25 staff on their roster. Yray mentioned the Bruins have been virtually by no means providing the best quantity for a participant within the portal, however the mixture of being financially aggressive sufficient and getting them on a name or in a room with Chesney has typically made the distinction.

“I think there’s been a lot of like, ‘Wow, OK, this guy’s for real.’ And it’s not just talk,” Transue mentioned. “That allows people to buy in relatively quickly. And then you add success to it and now the sky’s the limit.”

BY ABOUT 1 P.M., the day has slowed down, but it surely hasn’t stopped. Players have left for sophistication, however they will go over tape later within the afternoon. While coaches huddle in a room and research extra movie, Chesney continues to maneuver. In between a radio interview and getting by calls to potential recruits, he steals a second to eat lunch.

“He’s definitely changed the mindset in there, just how you feel. I don’t know how to explain it,” Iamaleava mentioned earlier than the season. “When Ches walks into a room, he just brings that winning mentality.”

The pace at which the tradition has shifted at UCLA may be proved with the massive numbers — three wins in opposition to Power 4 opponents, a 2027 recruiting class that might be its highest ranked since 2016, a top-25 rating. It can be seen within the small particulars Chesney has zeroed in on. Whether that is placing up laminated sheets with the faces and names of the catering workers, upkeep workers, the tools college students and sports activities med college students so gamers and coaches know them or the best way that gamers have to take care of a clear locker room, all of it stands in stark distinction to what was occurring earlier than.

“The weight room you could not walk through, because it was like three strength coaches in a row that brought their own stuff in, but didn’t take anything out. It was actually dangerous there,” Chesney mentioned. “I’m looking out at a shed and there’s things pouring out of the shed. I’m like, ‘Let’s get a giant dumpster and let’s just start throwing s— away, because these kids can’t live this way. This ain’t fair.’ It was dirty. It was neglected is what it felt like.”

The shed is now cleaned up, the load room is organized, and everybody within the constructing is aware of that the man who cuts the grass they run on is Kirt Bakos. And although Chesney says this has at all times been his strategy, he could be mendacity if he did not acknowledge that being right here is each surreal and motivation to additional press into what bought him right here.

“If again then I bumped into or had an opportunity to see the top coach of UCLA or the top coach of Ohio State, I’d be like, ‘Holy s—, that is the top coach of …’ And for me, I’m like, ‘It’s simply me although.’ So I believe you see it otherwise,” Chesney mentioned. “I feel like I’m just the same guy that was making $5,000 a year not too long ago. Sometimes things fall in the line for you and you end up in a place like this. But I never sought it. I never really chased it.”

A conviction not beforehand seen or heard on this a part of city is what now programs by the halls in Westwood. To hear these closest to Chesney communicate, those that have been there at first or those that have jumped on the practice at completely different stops, there’s an unassailable perception within the system and the person behind it that success is talked about as a foregone conclusion.

“I know how the movie ends. The movie ends with us holding a trophy,” Canan mentioned. “The trophy was a little small trophy at Assumption. Then it got a little bit bigger at Holy Cross, a little bit bigger at James Madison. And I think in the near future at UCLA, we’ll be holding a bigger trophy, too.”