Swimming, farm life and Bielema's path to coaching

Illinois HC Bret Bielema reflects on his journey to coaching, discussing his days as a competitive swimmer, growing up on a hog farm, his "tough, smart dependable" mindset and the mentors who helped shape his career.

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All right, Brett Bielema, you said you didn't start playing football until seventh grade.

Correct.

So what sport were you playing at that point, as a child?

At that point, you know, I did the standard, you know, baseball.

Really wasn't good at it.

Basketball, but, my first competitive sport was swimming.

I was a Prophetstown Piranha.

Uh- Wait, that's the best team name- Yeah ever.

The Piranhas.

The Piranhas.

My sister- Very scary was a swimmer.

I had an older sister who was huge into swimming, so, my older brother, Barry, and I just kind of followed down that line, so we- Okay, so what strokes?

Did 'em all, but I would say favorite were backstroke, the butterfly.

Um- You liked the butterfly?

I did like the butterfly.

It's like the most painful stroke.

I was long.

You know, I was long.

So, yeah, that would probably be my, my go-to.

Do you still swim?

I do, with my daughters all the time now.

It's more of a, a My daughter, Bexley, we were in the pool just this past, Friday with one of my coaches, and she s- she said, I usually throw her.

She's small, right, so she throws easily.

But, she said, "Throw me Hawaii high."

I said, "Hawaii high?"

And she goes, "Yeah, when we were in Hawaii you used to throw me really high."

So, that's wh- That's how her mind thinks.

That's my answer.

You have different- Yeah different, uh- Yeah heights for- Yeah for the pool tosses.

I wanna ask also a little bit more about your upbringing on a hog farm.

Yep.

H- how did that help shape who you are today?

Yeah, so, we moved to the farm when I was five.

We lived in the Quad Cities.

My dad was, worked for a sporting goods store, and so we kind of lived the city life, back then.

But then when I was five we moved to the farm.

My mom ran a daycare center.

So I actually kind of went there the first couple years, but then my dad bought a farm and, we had pigs, really it was the only livestock.

We had at different times rabbits and I think we at one point maybe had a goat or something.

But, mainly pigs.

But I think the value of work- and the things that I appreciate, we always talk about it in our building, right?

Hard work, pays off, and it's not necessarily how much you sweat or how hard it is, right?

It's about how smart you are, and I think, a lot of what I learned was from the farm.

And probably got used to some smells.

Yes.

That a locker room is probably, like, smells like a laundr- laundry mat You know what?

When you grow up on a hog farm, it smells, right?

And it was funny, like, I never really noticed it until I came back.

When I went to college and I came back, and I'm like, "What in the- hell are we li- you know, smelling?"

but, my dad would tell it'd be the smell of money.

Oh, yes, yes.

So you talk about some of the messages that you, talk about with your team.

There are three messages that you send every day?

Tough, smart, and dependable.

Yep.

That's our DNA.

Yeah.

So I'm a big, I think you gotta be based on something, right?

And that has to carry not only from your players.

I actually hire people onto tough, smart, dependable.

I, I hire a strength coach, a video coordinator, a, a recruiting coordinator.

Whatever it is, I think tough is both mentally and physically.

It's something I really believe has to be a background of what you know.

Smart isn't really an IQ or a GPA.

It's about how aware you are.

Like, I always think of, like I r- had a lot of guys with good GPAs who didn't know anything, right?

And had guys that didn't have great GPAs who knew a lot, right?

So there's a balance there you gotta figure out.

And then dependable, I always say it's a really hard word to spell, right?

'Cause every time I gotta write it I gotta look it up- 'cause I can't remember where the A's and the E's go.

Back to the smart point.

Yeah.

But dependable, if you think about it, Nicole, in our life, right, like, there are very few people you can truly depend on, right?

It's one thing to answer a call at 2:00 in the afternoon, or another to answer a call at 2:00 in the morning, right?

Like, that's dependable people when you need them the most.

And that TSD, tough, smart, dependable, that's our DNA.

DNA is also- Has that evolved over the years?

Or has that been your mission- I- everywhere you've coached?

I would say that that's probably been a big part of who I am.

But when I went to New England with Bill, he used a variation of it.

I've seen some people, but I always start it, so I have a block I, which is our, obviously, big symbol, and then below it I just tough period smart period dependable.

And so I'll have players get out of player meetings at the draft, and I'll have a GM call me and say, "Hey, tell me about tough, smart, dependable," right?

And 'cause the players regurgitate it.

And I, I even tell our players that are here today, you know, use, use those things in the way you answer questions, and you'll be all right.

It, as you're talking about being dependable, it makes me think of your relationship with the moms of your players.

Yep.

I know that's kind of the secret sauce.

Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Yeah.

You know, one of the things I always go back to is you, you, no matter where you get a kid from, no matter where he comes from geographically, what kind of background he comes from, you know, they always have a mother in their life that means more than anybody else, right?

Like, like, my father and I are very, very similar, and I, I carry his, his first name as my middle name.

I'm probably more like him than anybody in this world.

But he and I can argue about the color of that, that board, right?

Like, and, my mom, I don't think I ever argued with her.

I definitely never swore at her.

And she's a person that you just treat differently, right?

And I, I will say this.

There'll be times where I'll be in a home and I'll watch an interaction, and if that reaction and interaction with a mom is disrespectful, like, if a kid disrespects his mother, it's usually a great indication of who he's gonna be, right?

And so I use that a lot.

And then, yeah, we have a moms practice that, I'm sure you're making reference to.

Like, that's probably one of the more enjoyable things in my entire season, really in my career, is to see the interaction with those moms with their sons in a way they've never seen.

It's a very special moment.

As you're talking about your mom, I wanted y- you to tell the story about, you know, why you decided to get into coaching- Yeah in the first place.

Like, why this has been your calling.

You know, I never really grew up thinking it.

To be honest, you know, the coaches I was around throughout middle school and high school were good, and they were good people.

I don't know if they ever, you know, grabbed my soul, right?

Like, I was very close with my mom and dad and my family.

But then when I went to college and I started playing for Hayden Fry, like, he had an effect on me like no man had ever had, right?

Like, other than my father, who's been the most influential man in my life, just I, I found myself hanging on every word he said.

And then when I got done playing, I got, and I had a wonderful NFL career, six days with the Seahawks, before they cut me, and- Does that even count as a cup of coffee?

It's like maybe two.

A cup of coffee.

Two.

Maybe a, maybe a double latte.

But I, I, you know, go home, to college and go back to college.

I needed an ACL r- reconstruction, and I didn't have insurance, I didn't have anything.

And Coach Fry said, "If you go to work for me, I'll pay for the knee surgery.

We'll get that done, and, and then you can work for me."

And that's how I started coaching, and it's, you know, I, I always make reference there's a Quote I love from Confucius, "Choose a job you love, you never work a day in your life."

And you know, I'm 56 years on this earth, over 30, 33 years of coaching, and I, I don't think I've, worked a day yet.

Yeah.

That's, it's When you get to be that voice in someone's mind, where they're hanging on your words- Yeah and you become that impactful person, that's really why people do it.

I feel like these days everything gets overshadowed by NIL and the transfer portal and, and all of that.

But that really is kind of the core of this.

You and I talk a lot about- Yeah those big issues in, in college football.

So I'm gonna give you a magic wand.

Yeah.

You can change one thing.

What would you change?

Oh, one thing.

I would just, one of the things that the NFL, when I was there, intrigued was, you know, they don't have draft, they don't have recruiting, they got drafts.

So you pick your players, and everybody has the same number of draft picks, and everybody, in theory, has the same, salary cap.

If we wanted to make this world great, I would think is you make everybody's playing field level.

It's more level now than it's ever been, which is why I think you see the parity and the ability for teams to rise and fall quickly.

But I would, I would say, you know, like a couple years ago when it came out they were gonna do revenue share and every team was gonna have somewhere between 15 to 18 million on their roster, I'm like, "Perfect.

Sign me up," right?

And, and everybody's If I could be within two or three million of everybody that I'm gonna play, I'll do that every day, right?

But now you got teams that are in 45, $50 million ranges, and other people are in 20.

Like, you can't, that's two and a half times the salary.

And it, you, you can survive at times, but that, that's the one level playing field I wish we could create.

A- as you mentioned just how the parity has impacted college football, there's also just been a little bit of a changing of the guard.

Big Ten- Mm-hmm three straight national champions, three different teams.

What does that say about this conference?

Well, I think top to bottom, the Big Ten is the most competitive I've ever seen it, and I've been in this league as a player and, and now as a head coach, three different places, and then at Iowa for a long time.

And don't get me wrong, SEC is phenomenal.

They have a lot of really good football.

I just think those two leagues are probably at a different place than everybody else.

We can sit here and it's great batter, banter back and forth for people.

You're playing with it.

I do like to get into it a little bit.

Because I kind of do see us, right, like right now Brett gave me a, a list of, like, all these things where we're fourth in the Big Ten over the last several years in wins, home games, ranked wins, all these different, draft picks.

Like fourth, right?

And, and you, we're usually behind Indiana, Oregon, Michigan, Penn State, right?

Like, well, that, that group of people.

Ohio State are kind of there.

But, I, I think the, the parity in this league is at a place it's never been before.

Okay, I have two opponent questions for you.

Illinois' perfect record against Southern Illinois.

On September 11, September 19th, you will face them at home.

What's the key to keeping that perfect record?

Well, I think the first thing is we gotta, prepare for two games before that, right?

We always kind of have a one and oh mentality.

So if we ever try to jump to that game, we're never gonna get to where we wanna be.

So, but Southern Illinois, Coach Hill is a ph- phenomenal young head coach that, has done a lot of great things there.

When you play an FCS opponent, I think the ability to have your players focus and get ready, it's probably become easier now than ever before because Southern Illinois, I believe it was four years ago, beat Northwestern at Northwestern.

Same head coach, same team, so, there's a, there's a lot of, lot of things we'll put at stake there.

Little bit later in the season, Ohio State.

Mm-hmm.

As you mentioned, always one of the toughest teams on the schedule when they're on there.

What's gonna be the key against the Buckeyes?

Trying to Obviously, historically, they, they, they've won a lot of games in this- Yeah rivalry, but to flip that this year.

Yeah.

It's our first Big Ten game.

It's on the road at Ohio State.

I think we actually scored more points against Ohio State than any team in the country last year.

So, we were able to put some points up, but we gotta stop their points, right?

They're explosive.

Ryan is an extremely talented, head coach.

Now there's another offensive play caller guy that came from the NFL who's got a lot of, Arthur Smith, that, who's very talented.

It's gonna be interesting to see what he does.

So there's a little bit of an unknown with that, and then Matt Patricia's back on defense.

So as you know, Ohio State has great players year in and year out.

They lost a lot of great players to the draft, but they always reload and, it'll be a tremendous contest.

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