Already we have seen how Chizik’s inconsistent behavior and lack of discipline underscored the ongoing saga of his final disastrous season in 2012.  To fully appreciate how specifically Chizik predicted his Auburn squad’s dismal performance due to his discipline failures we must return to a previously mentioned speech. Because he delivered this talk to a prominent quarterback club at the peak of his success in September of 2011 (see previous article “A coach retreats from success”), the importance of his statement cannot be overstressed.  At the time his team had barely won its first two games but still boasted the longest winning streak in the country.

He provides a rich story—as his unconscious super intelligence speaks—which we can only fully appreciate in retrospect.

‘Blue’ makes a mess
You won’t believe this story. In a memorable humorous anecdote he told his audience about his kids’ new puppy named Blue. Chizik described how the new dog was peeing and pooping everywhere and that he had announced to the family that he wasn’t going to clean up Blue’s mess.  Remember, these are his thoughts which originated from his own deeper mind quick-reading him in the blink of an eye.

Get the big picture—Chizik was not going to discipline some young family “member.” In other words, he could see deep down that he was not going to bother to discipline his team even when they had accidents and made tons of mistakes.

Indeed the team and its fans would soon be blue exactly like the color of their jerseys. As though to emphasize the point, Chizik unconsciously told a similar story in his book recently released at the time in which he described his kids bringing another family pet to a practice. This dog, too, ended up pooping on the football field.

Chizik was confessing that he would soil Auburn’s long tradition on its own field, that in a nutshell the next two seasons would be “one big accident” and he would unconsciously be dogging it. The story would truly be funny if it weren’t so sad.

You can readily see how the right-brain language of imagery creates the real power in a story versus the weaker literal version from the left brain. After it’s all over Chizik can say “I didn’t meet expectations” (left brain) or he can unconsciously paint the right-brain word picture in the story of the pet puppy, Blue.

How perfectly these two canine capers fit Chizik’s behavior over his last two seasons.  The former disciplinarian became progressively undisciplined himself and failed to discipline his players. Secretly Auburn had a new coach and didn’t know it. Indeed, the second Gene Chizik had appeared.

From that point in September 2011 following his story about Blue, Chizik’s record over the remaining two years would be 9 and 14. Increasingly fans and sportswriters and even his players could see his lack of discipline. Everyone could see it except for Chizik who had a huge blind spot around the messes he continually created.

Secret passions involving success
Again he unconsciously blames the culprit success  as the reason for his disregard for discipline and his eventual retreat  into failure. Remember in the same speech he told another story in which, he said it clearly, “success meant destruction.” If you succeeded, your opponent would try and drown you (see previous article “A coach retreats from success”). The unconscious mind, as Chizik demonstrated there, sees the full power behind the killer instinct which competition secretly engenders.

Simultaneously in this story Chizik implied that, in order to win, you had to drown the person trying to drown you. Indirectly Chizik pointed to his own killer instinct which competition mobilized—drown or be drowned.  To win, you must dominate others. It’s a fixed universal idea about intense competition in the deeper mind, what we call an “archetype” of the psyche.

The passionate deeper mind is what it is.

Success goes to his head—“Winning is all about me”
To continue to understand his last two seasons, especially 2012, we turn to another key idea in the back of Gene Chizik’s mind—a concept which explains his central problem. He could not handle success and had to get out of Dodge as secretly as possible without anyone recognizing why. He had to obscure the real story with classic denial. While his failure was painful, there was a much deeper, more painful story and two more truckloads of fear. But he actually shows us how to see past his frequent denials.

In the same quarterback club speech in September 2011 as Chizik reviewed Auburn’s success, he insisted that “it is not about me.” Often to hear unconscious secret confessions we read through denials and pay attention to the key idea particularly when something goes wrong. The message now: Auburn’s success “is all about me.” The natural self-centered way imperfect human beings unconsciously look at life and try to deny it at the same time. Of course we all comprehend how such thinking originates in childhood. We try to fight it but deep down the idea lives on. Chizik’s super-intelligence had thus informed him that indeed he had experienced great success as “all about me”—that success had gone to his head

Furthermore success had seduced him into the self-idealization that he was above such a human foible.

Chizik underscores how success swells our pride and distorts our mind. The question is not can success go to our heads, it’s how much and how to recognize it. Control it. We first must own it and constantly look for its hidden effects.  It’s painful to see our heroes like this—but look we must because nobody is above their own humanity.

Chizik’s story represents the human dilemma in which we all find ourselves and it well illustrates why success can be so difficult to handle.

Yes, we are surrounded by many people who succeed, and don’t forget that not so long ago Chizik himself had been one of those success stories. We are looking at a man who got to the top of the heap. His experience on the way up that hill reveals the secret struggles less-prominent folks have as we all try to get the best out of ourselves. Humility doesn’t come easily.

Constant reinforcement for the ‘big-head’
We wonder could Gene Chizik really deny such thoughts completely—in the vast unconscious mind where we are free to expand our thinking? Think of how often he was reminded that he was the one responsible for the success. He had just won the national championship—and had achieved the greatest comeback in Iron Bowl history. He was the National Coach of the Year.  As he recounted in his book All In, along with the governor and Nick Saban at Alabama he was one of the three most prominent people in the state. And, in an attempt to educate Cam Newton about the pressures of success, he included the two quarterbacks at both schools in his top five.

Constantly catered to, being paid millions of dollars, ever reminded of just how important he was—how could he possibly escape thinking, “You know, it really is all about me?” Yet his strong denial and self-idealization reveals that Chizek suffered serious secret guilt over his ego trip. He will remind of this enormous burden at the end of his self-sabotaging journey in 2012.

A major personal clue – His deep pain
Chizik revealed a personal reason for his vulnerability to a retreat from success in that same key speech in 2011. For the only time I know of, he publicly mentioned how he came from a broken family as did his wife. They both had been severely traumatized by divorce and pledged they would not put their kids through the pain they’d felt after their parents’ separation. Whatever it took, Chizik and his wife would make their marriage work. He was putting down a crucial personal marker of unfinished business. It was a brief glimpse into his life, and he quickly closed the window. Later we will explore what this had to do with his shifting roles from a leader to an absent leader. 

Now we return to the end of the 2012 season and pick up on Chizik’s comments and mindset as his career at Auburn came to a “blue blue” end.
(To be continued.)

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Infamous bank-robber Willie Sutton was once asked why he targeted banks.  “Because that’s where the money is,” he answered.

So why do we look deeper into the mind of Gene Chizik in light of his team’s unmatched calamitous decline? Because that’s where the real answers are.  There lays the power of hidden motivation — why success itself totally blind-sided him.   

Success carries with it powerful threats. If you believed unconsciously that success was dangerous, you would act accordingly. If this deeper quick-read mind had a major vote, you would do the “Success Two-Step”—a step forward as though you really did want to succeed, followed by a big disguised step backward, a blind spot step.

You would continue the same dance without ever really recognizing it until it was too late.

Coach ‘no show,’ team ‘no show’
First, another prominent coach highlights just how clearly Chizik’s players were accurately reading his messages of retreat. Former Georgia Coach Vince Dooley — whom I once interviewed and who also won a national championship — told an unforgettable story at the same Birmingham quarterback club that Chizik later addressed.

One Sunday following a Saturday football game Dooley experienced a painful attack of angina. He had an emergency stent put in place and survived the procedure with no damage to his heart. But what about his team’s next game? He was told he could coach the following Saturday only if he simply “made an appearance” and avoided all excitement. As Dooley put it, “I made an appearance the following game in the first half—and my team made an appearance.”  The Bulldogs appeared, all right, but that was the extent of it. They were lackluster and on the verge of losing.

At that point Dooley said he showed up, told his team exactly what he thought of their effort, and as a result his Georgia team showed up in the second half and won. He highlights that players read coaches for guidance at an unbelievable depth, never missing a thing.

Coaches’ points determine wins and losses
Along the same line comments by the late UCLA basketball coach John Wooden also shine a bright light on Gene Chizik. Wooden noted that when games were won by twenty points, those were players’ points, but when games were won by one or two points, those were coaches’ points. He also suggested that when games are lost consistently by thirty points to major opponents those are coaches’ points as well—and over his last two seasons Chizik would often lose by huge margins.

When we put Chizik’s 2011 season under the microscope we find numerous retreats enabled by his own decisions. Those detrimental decisions are exactly the kind of choices made by men who’re secretly afraid of winning.

Chizik slows down the offense – and the quarterback
His most obvious retreat occurred when he demanded offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn slow down the “Gus Bus”—his fast-paced offense—to protect the defense. He made this demand over Malzahn’s extreme objection. It guaranteed Malzahn—the highest-paid coordinator in college football at $1.3 million a year—would leave Auburn. Malzahn was so determined to escape Chizik’s sinking ship, he took a $500,000 pay cut to take the Arkansas State head coaching job.

Chizik’s rationale that his defense needed protection because it was young suggests his real message, his deeper message about himself, “I am young when it comes to success and need protection because it’s so dangerous,” as he told us (see previous blog).

Simultaneously he delivered a related secret message: “I’m slowing down my offense, my power, the real strength of my team.”

Soon Chizik would repeat the same message when he suddenly changed quarterbacks in the second half of the Florida game at mid-season with his team leading. At halftime his starter, Barrett Trotter, had thrown just seven passes and completed two. But one of them had been a thing of beauty which put Auburn ahead, a perfectly placed touchdown pass between two leaping defenders. On top of that he had a pass dropped inside the 20-yard line virtually guaranteeing at least a field goal just before halftime. The same quarterback had led Auburn to a 4 and 2 record including a gutty win on the road as an underdog at South Carolina two weeks before and hadn’t yet played a truly bad game. Trotter appeared rattled at times—rifling the ball without his usual touch—but this was his first year as a starter in the tough SEC.

It goes unsaid that quarterback is the most important position on the team. As the player who runs the offense, calls the plays and takes the snaps, the quarterback is clearly an extension of the coach. He’s the coach on the field, and changing leaders sends a powerful message to the team— “I no longer believe in your leader.” If we read deeper, the coach’s message can be seen as, “I am no longer your leader” if the decision doesn’t pay off—and it clearly didn’t. Of all positions to change, a coach must be most careful with the quarterback.

Micromanaging the quarterback – more retreat
Chizik indicated he had already made the decision before the Florida game. During practices that week, he had told back-up quarterback Clint Mosley to be ready. Auburn had lost to Arkansas on the road the week before, but Trotter played reasonably well despite the fact that his only experienced wide receiver was injured. The game was closer than the score.

I suspect the quarterback change was largely another Chizik micromanaging decision—and that Malzahn covered for him.

As it happened, Mosley played fairly well in the second half if you overlook the dropped “pick 6” near-interception the new quarterback threw to the wide-open Florida safety. That rookie mistake could have lost the game.  While Auburn went on to win, Mosley proved significantly immobile and prone to throwing interceptions. In short, he was not the answer.

It was in the last game—the Chick Fil-A Bowl against Virginia—when the forgotten Trotter (5 and 2 as a starter at the time) finally stated his unmistakable case. He came off the bench after Mosley sprained his ankle on the first series after throwing another sure interception which was dropped on Auburn’s own 13 yard line. Now Trotter, relaxed with the pressure of being Cam Newton’s successor off his back, confidently ran Malzahn’s offense to perfection leading Auburn to an eventual runaway victory. Trotter’s vastly superior mobility was apparent.

He demonstrated after his sabbatical that he had gone through the learning curve and all he had needed was a sideline break to gain perspective. All in all, Auburn was 6 and 2 when he played—and by now Trotter was an experienced SEC quarterback who had weathered a difficult season. The striking message from Trotter in the bowl game was “I figured it out.” Keep that in mind because it comes into play in a huge way the next season.

More micromanaging – the defense
When it came to the defense in 2011, Chizik continued to micromanage. He ordered defensive coordinator Ted Roof to simplify the defense, and would change game plans in the middle of the week. Micromanaging undermined his coaches and reflected a lack of discipline and trust. In the end it undermined Chizik’s own role. Strong leaders build strong associates, but Chizik was weakening his coordinators and thus weakening himself.

Such management also reflects a boundary problem in relationships—addictive type behavior. It’s as though the boss, the coach, is saying, “I must cling to you, control you and not let you be an individual.” No boundaries means no discipline deep down, self-sabotage and  passive-aggressive anger.

Chizik’s surrogate coach
Chizik had also given executive associate athletics director Tim Jackson too much power to deal with players and coaches. He and Jackson had become a team. Jackson would later describe  athletic director Jay Jacobs as the CEO, himself as the GM, and Chizik as the coach.  That says it all.  And Chizik again reflects a boundary problem in defining himself as “the leader.” The players would have again sensed an absent leader, a leader who wasn’t sure he was the leader.

Chizik also seemingly undermined staff unity by allowing coaches to quarrel unnecessarily to the point of supposed bitter disputes—when decisions by Chizik could have settled arguments. Another hint of an absent leader.

Team lacks mental toughness
A significant realization came in the LSU game when the LSU fullback described Auburn as the least physical team they had played—something Auburn had never been accused of in its long history. He accused Auburn players of backing down (and they clearly weren’t good tacklers). That opponent’s deeper mind was also pointing out that, just as the players weren’t mentally tough, neither was their leader. Was he picking up on something even the Auburn players didn’t realize? Surely it echoed what former player Heath Evans noted (see previous blog).

In the back of their mind the players could read the retreat modeled by Chizik’s decision-making: slowing down the offense, pushing Gus Malzahn aside, changing his QB, pushing coach Ted Roof aside and running a vanilla defense. He also failed to model a clear leader role either in himself or his associates.

One behavioral tip-off which spoke volumes was Chizik’s reported habit of arriving late to team meetings —and apparently his staff followed suit. We all know the meaning of promptness in organizations. In that light a starting player told me he overslept once as a freshman in 2010 and was late to strength coach Yox’s early morning workout. Yox’s punishment got his attention, and after that the player set three alarm clocks every day—living in fear of missing another workout. But Chizik didn’t hold himself to the same rules, just another subtle way of not showing up.

Chizik’s team makes appearances – but doesn’t show up
Auburn would lose big in the last half of the season suffering massacres at LSU and Georgia, and bowing to Alabama at home 42-14 without scoring an offensive touchdown except on a kickoff return. Chizik’s micromanaging would become so pronounced that—frustrated with the ineptness of the offense—he took over the play-calling in the last quarter of the Alabama game, the ultimate insult to Gus Malzahn.  Chizik’s desperate move produced zero points.

We remember John Wooden’s wisdom about coaches’ points and the scores of games reflecting a coach—and here we had a team reflecting a coach who was losing control. In too many ways Chizik had just made an appearance as a coach, had not really shown up and thus neither had his team. Key alums were warned at the end of the season that Chizik was slipping. But nobody in their wildest imagination could have envisioned what was to unfold in 2012.

The 2011 season ended on a note of optimism with the bowl victory following the crushing losses to major conference rivals. His defense had been young and supporters were looking for better days ahead.  But when we pick up with the key decisions Chizik made at the end of the 2011 season and the beginning of 2012, they will still reflect a coach in retreat. We continue to look at a post-national championship Chizik. And he will tell us that deep down more than anyone he saw it all coming.

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Gene Chizik was telling us that success was “The Issue” on his plate.

His team had already told us that in the off-season—very quickly.  Chizik had  shown us that certain stars were treated differently. But now he had a team full of stars, national champions all. On a cold January 22, 2011, a dozen days after beating Oregon, Auburn staged a monumental championship ceremony in Alabama drawing nearly 60,000 proud fans to Jordan-Hare Stadium. Around the same time, the players received their national championship rings.

In March of 2011, barely two months after Auburn won the national title, four players with no apparent history of trouble-making decided they would rob a person in a nearby trailer home. They had reportedly been drinking and smoking synthetic marijuana.

It was a stupendously stupid crime. With only one gunman among them, the players took money and other items from another college student who had been entertaining a female friend at the trailer. Returning to the getaway car where the driver had remained, the robbers rolled five minutes down the road before the Auburn police—who had been immediately alerted—pulled them over. All four players were arrested and one has since gone to trial.

The three who ventured inside the trailer had been expected to be key players when the 2011 season got underway in the fall. The senior-to-be gunman, Michael McNeil, certainly anticipated an NFL future and the other two with him in the trailer might also have developed into professional prospects. The home invasion plan had been hatched in an apartment where star freshman running back Michael Dyer was also present. The four thieves had even taken Dyer’s .45-caliber handgun to pull off the robbery.

For the sleepy, gentlemanly town of Auburn this was a surreal moment—four heralded college football players had been arrested and charged with a senseless and dangerous crime. Right off we can believe that the incident resulted from “success craziness”—albeit it unconscious. Why else would these players behave in such a strikingly unusual fashion—even considering drug use? It was as if they were simply relinquishing their success.  This becomes even clearer when we take a close look at Michael Dyer.

Michael Dyer
In many ways Dyer was a symbolic example and a precursor to coach Gene Chizik’s eventual success sabotage. In 2010 he had been one of the two or three top running back recruits in the nation, and he eventually broke Bo Jackson’s longstanding Auburn rushing record as a freshman. But it was at the National Championship Game against Oregon where Dyer suddenly was catapulted to fame.  He rushed for 147 yards with two memorable runs—one unbelievable 35-yard run in which he rolled over the Oregon tackler on the final drive leading to a chip shot Auburn field goal. Michael Dyer —not Cam Newton—was voted the MVP of the game, and it quickly became more success than he could handle before he finally pulled a “Maurice Clarett.”

As a powerful freshman running back, Clarett lead the Ohio State Buckeyes to the national championship in 2002 where he was also MVP of the game. Basically Clarett became so dysfunctional and difficult that he never played another meaningful down either in college or as a professional player. He was suspended from Ohio State after being charged with filing a false police report about $10,000 worth of missing merchandise before being arrested a few years later on armed robbery and weapons charges. He was sentenced to more than seven years in prison. Success had gone to Clarett’s head in a huge way.

At Auburn, to his credit Dyer lasted two seasons. While he had a productive All-SEC-type sophomore year rushing, he was a disruptive, self-centered force on the team. He had developed a secret drug problem – at least to the degree — and was suspended prior to the 2011 Chick-fil-A Bowl game. He was told major behavioral changes had to take place before returning to the team.

When Auburn offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn left to take the head coaching job at Arkansas State, Dyer—an Arkansas native—decided to transfer with him and “get a fresh start” even though he would likely have to sit out the next season as a transfer.

Here was Dyer sitting on a gold mine at “running back U” Auburn, who with another productive season would have signed a lucrative NFL contract. But his behavior was clearly signaling retreat and self-sabotage.

At ASU, Dyer continued on his decidedly self-destructive course. He was a star in the spring game but around the same time he was caught speeding in a car at more than 90 mph while high on marijuana with more in his vehicle and his girlfriend by his side. The highway patrolman who pulled the football star over let him off with a warning and soon lost his job over the permissiveness. When the story came to light Dyer then lost his job as Coach Malzahn kicked him off the team. (Reports have since surfaced that Dyer, who did not play in 2012, is now getting help with his drug problem.)

Later, at the trial of one of his former Auburn teammate’s, Dyer testified under oath that he had been battling a synthetic marijuana problem for at least his first two years at Auburn. His abuse of “spice” —which had apparently started back in high school as his fame grew—had worsened as time went on. Understand addiction is just one form of self-sabotage which undermines success. Often it begins with success.

Looking back we see how fame became increasingly difficult for Dyer to handle.  Early success can be especially tumultuous for young men to navigate.

Now we can better understand how success produced two Gene Chiziks: one “pre” and one “post” national championship. Take nothing away from what he achieved. Of course he had some good luck in 2010, but winning teams always do.  As will we see during his first two seasons his players read his message—“I want  to win badly” —and followed his plan to a tee.  Yes, he was blessed with extraordinary players, but he managed to keep the team together. Chizik’s message gradually changed, however, over the next two seasons.

If we pay attention he will tell us how and why.  He will explain to us how his somewhat subtle but powerful message became “Men, as your leader I am now in a disguised but powerful retreat from success. Follow my lead—read my deeper messages, especially my behavior.”

Contact: andrewhodges@profilingsuccess.net

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