The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk
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My Guest: Clark Lea is the head football coach at Vanderbilt University. He spent 14 years as an assistant coach, including three as defensive coordinator at Notre Dame, before returning to his alma mater in 2021 to inherit a program that had gone winless the year before. He's now the back-to-back SEC Coach of the Year and the architect of one of the great turnarounds in college football history. We recorded this conversation live at our 2026 Learning Leader Growth Summit in Nashville, surrounded by members of the Learning Leader Circle.
Key Learnings
Clark inherited a Vanderbilt program that went winless the year before. He says he probably screwed up 50% of his first year. The game is how quickly you can pivot.
Losing is a powerful teacher. It cleanses and purifies you in ways you don't want but need. You can blame other people, sink into self-pity, or ask: "What am I meant to be learning right now?"
Fast-forward 15 years. Look at this moment from a future place of breakthrough. What did you do now that allowed change to occur?
"What do I wanna be proud of in the attempt?" Letting go of expected outcomes is what allows you to refine and simplify the way you see the world.
Enter the building unguarded. The clearer you are about who you are and what you want, the more obvious it becomes who fits and who doesn't.
Different ball, same problems. Clark spends time learning from the Milwaukee Brewers, the Baltimore Ravens, and others. Different industry, same human challenges. Sometimes the different ball is the gift, because you walk in without preconceptions.
Knowledge is limiting. Questions illuminate. Once you know something, you stop pursuing it. The questions you ask are the first constraints you put on knowledge.
Get past the touchy-feely. Ask: "Tell me what's screwed up here." Problems are always there. Your job is to be willing to look for them.
Check the cabinets. Living in a 700-square-foot LA apartment with his wife, Clark would open the cabinets and find them swarming with roaches. The building was fumigated. Two months later, they were back. You can move the pots out and stop checking, or you can keep opening the cabinets. Leaders keep opening the cabinets.
Tell people what TO do, not what NOT to do. Rick Neuheisel's lesson. Stop coaching against the bad thing. Manifest what you want to have happen.
Hire bunker guys, not logo people. Logos are easy to change. Hire people who'll fight for you in the bunker when it's hard.
The Michigan Reset. Before his first game as Notre Dame defensive coordinator, Clark told the team's mental performance coach: "We're gonna be down 50 to nothing at halftime. BK's gonna fire me on the spot. Jerome Bettis and Rocket Ismail will be screaming at me in the tunnel." She asked, "Why don't you trust your players? You think this is all about you?"
Have more captains. Clark sits in a room each summer with around 25 players he identifies as leaders. If the people at the leadership table are good, the locker room will be good. The team votes. He draws the line wherever the vote naturally falls.
When you try to go opposite of what you're trying to avoid, you eventually become it. Clark spent his first years at Vanderbilt rejecting the program's past. Going opposite. Then he realized it was just attaching his identity to the very thing he was trying to escape. Now he plots toward the vision instead.
What got you here won't keep you here. As Clark has grown, the program has grown. Once he understood that, he could sit with a player and listen first, instead of looking to them for affirmation.
The mission is winning. Clark scrapped a beautiful, eloquent, unclear mission statement and replaced it with three words. Now every dollar spent, every coach hired, and every player retained is measured against the same lens.
Well-better-learned. Vanderbilt's after-action review for every game and every process. What did we do well? What do we need to do better? What did we learn?
On Alabama week, Clark's team had the best practice he's ever been a part of. His job each week isn't to tell the team the challenges. It's to give them the plan to win. At halftime against the number one team in the country, he kneeled the team down and said, "It's on a platter for you. Go take it." They beat Alabama.
Stewarding 17-to-22-year-olds means helping them decouple their worth from outcomes. Clark cries in front of his team. His kids are around. His wife is there. His dad is at every practice. The players see a man. A human. A son.
"An asshole in a Nike Tech Fit is still an asshole." In the NIL era, Clark fights to keep the locker room from splitting into a million-dollar club, a $500K club, a $30K club, and a $0 club. What you drive doesn't make a man. NIL value doesn't make a man. The grounding is the work.
Reflection Questions
More Learning
#681: Clark Lea - Belief is a Practice
#281: George Raveling - 8 Decades of Wisdom, from Dr. MLK to Michael Jordan
#637: Tom Ryan - Chosen Suffering, Becoming Elite & Life & Leadership
Podcast Chapters
00:00 The Price of Becoming - Pre-Order Now!
00:47 Welcome Back, Clark Lea
02:38 Taking Over a Winless Vanderbilt Program
04:18 What Losing Taught Clark About Hiring
07:52 The Three Things That Light Clark on Fire About Coaching
10:27 Different Ball, Same Problems: Learning From the Milwaukee Brewers
13:14 Knowledge Is Limiting. Questions Illuminate.
18:09 The Introvert Who Had to Learn to Lead the Room
20:13 Brian Kelly and the Bet on Clark Lea
23:19 Why Clark Has More Team Captains Than Anyone in College Football
28:58 The Transfer Portal Pivot and the Culture Reset
33:58 The Mission Is Winning
34:51 "If We Don't Have $3 Million by December, We Won't Have a Program"
37:26 Why Candice Lee Took a Bet on Him
39:53 Inside Alabama Week: The Best Practice He's Ever Been a Part Of
44:03 The Bye Week Reset: Penalties, Third Down, and the Ball
46:11 Beating the No. 1 Team in the Country
49:50 Replacing Diego Pavia's Locker Room Leadership
51:39 Decoupling Worth and Identity From Outcomes
56:27 Hiring Bunker Guys, Not Logo People
01:01:47 "An Asshole in a Nike Tech Fit Is Still an Asshole"
01:04:47 EOPC