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Gold and Black: How big of a challenge will it be for you to get the coaching staff to come together as a unit? Hazell: ���That���ll be the challenge probably the first week (of spring practice) to find out what my expectation from the coaches are, how we handle practice because some of those guys haven���t coached before together. So we���ll work through that and make sure they understand we don���t have time to go back and run a play again. We���ll coach it off film. We want a serious tempo while we���re out there on the field.��� Gold and Black: In an assistant coach, what do you look for? Hazell: ���In the hiring process, I want to determine their coaching demeanor on the field and how do they teach? Are they out there screaming just for the sake of screaming or are they getting their point across because they are great teachers and they can articulate it while they are out there? That is one of the biggest things. They are all smart guys. There are a lot of great football coaches out there, but I need someone who fits my style on the field. I don���t want to be out there cringing because they are screaming and using foul language, especially when I want to have kids out on the practice field being able to watch those things.��� Gold and Black: One of the things that a lot of the former players of your assistant coaches have said is that they still talk to those guys, even 10 years later, and they really became father figures. That is something that has become really important to you in this process as well, right? Hazell: ���Well, that is the best thing about this profession, having those guys that have played for you for so long that always reach back to you and try to strike up a conversation and re-visit things that have happened 20 years ago, which is always fun.��� Gold and Black: Do you wait until spring ball to find out the personality of this team? Hazell: ���We���re starting our 6 a.m. workouts on Feb. 18, and we���re going to find out a lot about our football team in those three weeks. We���ll go nine sessions of 6 to 7 a.m. workouts and we���ll put them through the paces and find out where we need to go from there.��� Gold and Black: Looking at spring ball, what is your philosophy? How do you like your spring game to unfold? Hazell: ���I want it to play like a game. Obviously the biggest thing is to come out of it healthy, but I want it to be an exchange of kicks, because that is such a big part of the game. I want us to play hard and you are so thin, in terms of numbers, because you are dividing the team up and you don���t always get the true picture or how good or where the improvement needs to be, because we will have a draft. ���We will draft the team and have the seniors do the draft, but it is hard to get a gauge of where you are coming out of spring. You want to make sure you can get as many plays as you can, but it will be fun.��� Gold and Black: I read the program sold about 1,000 new season tickets on the very first day they went on sale. What do you need to continue to do to keep the enthusiasm? Hazell: ���I think it is important that we do get people in the stadium. I think the passionate Purdue people that want to see us succeed, we need them in the stadium and I am going to continue to drive (that) home (at) the fraternity houses and the sororities and get on campus to visit those people and to make them understand that we need you. Like I said in my initial press conference, it is about all of us. It isn���t about the staff or the team; it is about the whole Purdue community. ��� Gold and Black: Who was your coaching mentor? Hazell: ���I don���t think it was one person. There have been so many good people that I have been around in last 27 years that really helped developed me as a person as well as a coach and you go back to the head coaches that I worked for, there have also been assistants, but Jim Tressel and Al Bagnoli and Al Molde and Bob Sutton and all of those people. They all are brilliant guys that can see things from different perspectives and allow you to keep your mind open and not be so narrow-minded.��� ���I like the challenge of taking a school that���s been in the middle for so long to the top. That���s what drives me.��� Darrell Hazell Gold and Black: What characteristics does he bring to the table that was your main take away from a guy like Tressel? Hazell: ���The one thing that stood out to me about him is that on the sideline, when things where at that critical moment, he would always come up with a great decision at that particular time.��� Gold and Black: How do you clone that? Is that a function of being prepared enough? Hazell: ���I think it is because all of the film work he watched through out the course of the week, and it was funny; I like to study film by formations. I study all the offensive formations and I build tendencies in my mind. He never liked to do that. He used to study the game film as it happened. He liked to see how the whole game played out as opposed to I would watch all the formations, so I���d know when we get that formation, the percentage of this coverage or this front was here, which allowed me to say, ���OK, this is what we should do.��� He wanted to see the whole game how it played out.��� Gold and Black: As a head coach, do you have to really know what decisions the guy across the field is going to make in certain situations or can you afford to spend that much time on that? Hazell: ���Here���s the one thing I���m going to tell you about coaches ��� when things aren���t going right, they usually revert back to what���s gone right in the past. So if you study them long enough, you���ll figure out, ���We���re in a tight ballgame, this is what���s going to happen.��� Most 12 ��� Gold & Black IllustrateD ��� volume 23, issue 4 of the time that happens.��� Gold and Black: When you set your goals for the upcoming season, do you set them high, like winning titles, or do focus more on moderate goals? Hazell: ���You have to convey the message to the team, here are our objectives. If it���s Big Ten championships and Rose Bowl, I don���t think you can be afraid to talk about those things. But through the process, you have to work on all those other little things.��� Gold and Black: What is your approach to former players and their involvement in the program? Hazell: ���I think they are all excited about the program right now and they want to see this thing take off. I welcome all those guys back. We can���t get those guys back enough around our players. Those guys have experienced the success and I want those guys to come back in the summer, I want them to train with us, get around our guys, and let them know that Purdue football is going to be pretty special. ��� Gold and Black: At Kent State, you awarded guys with small logo stickers to put on their helmets. Are you going to do helmet stickers here? Hazell: ���We are.��� Gold and Black: Will they be hammers? Hazell: ���We won���t tell you yet.��� Gold and Black: What does Darrell Hazell do on his down time? If you weren���t a football coach, what would you do? Hazell: ���I���d be a hostage negotiator. I (also) really enjoy playing chess. Matter of fact, I went to Austin Logan���s school and we���re walking around and he���s introducing me to everybody. He���s a phenomenal kid, love that kid. We go over to his house and he���s saying in school, ���Can you play chess?��� We ended up playing chess at his house on the home visit. It was a pretty good game.��� Gold and Black: Can we ask who won? Hazell: ���You can ask.��� Gold and Black: Who won? Hazell: ���Let���s just say it was a good game.��� Gold and Black: Have you been playing chess since you were little? Hazell: ���My sister taught me when I was 5 or 6 years old. I love it. I really do. I like the three or four moves ahead thinking process and philosophy. It���s fun.��� Gold and Black: What is your favorite part of game day? Hazell: ���The national anthem. After 9/11, and maybe it shouldn���t have been that way, but that day changed the way I feel about them playing the national anthem. It���s a very emotional time. It���s special.��� Gold and Black: Anything that you have seen at Purdue that you say, ���I would like to build on this tradition, outside of quarterbacks?��� Hazell: ���We���re going to study those traditions. We have a book in our A player���s manual that has a tradition section.��� Gold and Black: What���s next for you? Hazell: ���... The biggest thing is we���ve got to get around our current players. I just don���t feel like we���ve been around those guys enough and get a chance to know those guys and what they���re all about.��� j GBIprint.com GoldandBlack.com