BleedGopher
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per Jon K:
Mere minutes before the Golden Gophers take the field, the sprawling locker room at TCF Bank Stadium is whisper quiet.
After some initial jockeying for position near the front of the line, 111 football players take a knee and wait.
A minute later, the doors swing open and coach P.J. Fleck struts into the room, leaving a vapor trail of confidence and purpose behind him as he approaches his players.
“It’s the P.J. walk,” says Gerrit Chernoff, Gophers general manager.
What is about to commence is one of the defining characteristics of Fleck’s bombastic coaching style. The players don’t know what Fleck is about to say. They just know it is going to be delivered at a volume designed to get the hairs on the backs of their necks standing up.
There may be props — a diamond, a bamboo tree, a golf ball — to help his players visualize his words. There may be quotations from movies. He may just drop any plans he has and freestyle if he thinks the message isn’t right for the moment.
The scene is Fleckian in every way. Outsiders who see snippets on social media roll their eyes. Old school coaches scoff at the theatrics. But the players in that locker room hang on his every word.
theathletic.com
Go Gophers!!
Mere minutes before the Golden Gophers take the field, the sprawling locker room at TCF Bank Stadium is whisper quiet.
After some initial jockeying for position near the front of the line, 111 football players take a knee and wait.
A minute later, the doors swing open and coach P.J. Fleck struts into the room, leaving a vapor trail of confidence and purpose behind him as he approaches his players.
“It’s the P.J. walk,” says Gerrit Chernoff, Gophers general manager.
What is about to commence is one of the defining characteristics of Fleck’s bombastic coaching style. The players don’t know what Fleck is about to say. They just know it is going to be delivered at a volume designed to get the hairs on the backs of their necks standing up.
There may be props — a diamond, a bamboo tree, a golf ball — to help his players visualize his words. There may be quotations from movies. He may just drop any plans he has and freestyle if he thinks the message isn’t right for the moment.
The scene is Fleckian in every way. Outsiders who see snippets on social media roll their eyes. Old school coaches scoff at the theatrics. But the players in that locker room hang on his every word.
‘Gimme your eyes’: Inside P.J. Fleck’s fiery rhetoric at the heart of the Gophers’ rise
Love his style or hate it, there's no denying the impact P.J. Fleck has made in 2019. That makes him our Minnesota Sportsperson of the Year.
theathletic.com
Go Gophers!!