# 681: Clark Lea (Vanderbilt Football Coach) - Rebuilding a Program, Belief as a Practice, Leading Misfits, Ownership Mentality, and Why Relatedness Is Your Edge

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-learning-leader-show-with-ryan-hawk-467929/681-clark-lea-vanderbilt-football-coach-rebuilding-a-program-belief-as-a-practice-leading-misfits-ownership-mentality-and-why-relatedness-is-your-edge
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-learning-leader-show-with-ryan-hawk-467929/681-clark-lea-vanderbilt-football-coach-rebuilding-a-program-belief-as-a-practice-leading-misfits-ownership-mentality-and-why-relatedness-is-your-edge.md
Podcast: [The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-learning-leader-show-with-ryan-hawk-467929)
Published: 2026-03-29T23:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://learningleadershow.libsyn.com/681-clark-lea-vanderbilt-football-coach-rebuilding-a-program-belief-as-a-practice-leading-misfits-ownership-mentality-and-why-relatedness-is-your-edge
Audio file: https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/learningleadershow/LLP_-_681_Clark_Lea_FINAL.mp3?dest-id=259291
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Duration seconds: 2326

## Resource

Go to www.LearningLeader.com/becoming to learn more about "The Price of Becoming." -- My new book! Clark Lea is the head football coach at Vanderbilt… He's led one of the best turnaround stories in college football. He got hired as head coach in 2021 to inherit a program that had gone winless the year before. What he's built since is remarkable: a 40–35 upset of No. 1 Alabama, back-to-back SEC Coach of the Year awards, and Vanderbilt's first 10-win season in program history. He's won games and changed the culture. Key Learnings Better people make a better team. Development in one area is development in all areas. We're trained to see life in separate lanes (coach here, husband here, father here, student here, athlete here), but when you live that way, you're in constant conflict. Instead, see each person as a circle where all those roles define who we are, and development in one area is development in all areas. Show up on time, deliver on time, engage resources. If you show up on time, turn your work in on time, and engage the resources that are here to help you, you're not just going to survive, you're going to thrive. This is what it takes to be a great football player and a great student. "We are not victims in this process." After missing the playoffs, Clark told his team: This is the ground we stand on, this is who we are. Let's be really proud of what we accomplished, but also acknowledge we've fallen short, and that is no one else's fault. Vanderbilt football doesn't need to complain loud enough to get someone to change their mind. We need to play better football. The joy we can experience is equal and opposite to the pain we can experience. In athletics, you're suspended between the pain and the joy, and the depths of that pain can be excruciating. But the joy…

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