{"id":14608,"date":"2018-09-13T18:12:18","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T18:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/pegasus\/?p=14608&#038;post_type=story"},"modified":"2022-08-03T14:07:20","modified_gmt":"2022-08-03T14:07:20","slug":"believe-the-heup","status":"publish","type":"story","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/pegasus\/believe-the-heup\/","title":{"rendered":"Believe The Heup!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><i>Fall \u00a02018 |\u00a0<\/i>By Jenna Marina Lee<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Josh Heupel may be in the midst of his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/pegasus\/josh-heupel-named-ucf-football-head-coach\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">first season as Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ head football coach<\/a>, but his coaching career can be traced back as early as age 5.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLittle Heup\u201d \u2014 pronounced Hype \u2014 as he was known then, began changing out the cleats in the equipment room at Northern State University\u2019s football offices in Aberdeen, South Dakota, where his father, Ken Heupel, served as head coach. He ate at team meals and sat in on film sessions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just thought it was the coolest experience that you could have as a kid,\u201d says Heupel, who now brings his children, Hannah, 10, and Jace, 8, to the office with him on occasion.<\/p>\n<p>A former Heisman Trophy runner-up and national champion at the University of Oklahoma, Heupel has never lost his excitement for the sport that allows him to impact the lives of others.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe greatest part of my job is our players,\u201d he says. \u201cI love getting to interact with them. They have a great energy. There is brotherhood here, and we are continuing to build on that culture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>[callout background=&#8221;#ccd2d6&#8243; content_align=&#8221;left&#8221; affix=&#8221;false&#8221; css_class=&#8221;&#8221;]<\/p>\n<h2>How do you make a program better every day?<\/h2>\n<p>We emphasize accountability, trust and attacking; and attacking is just another word for working extremely hard. Those three values are how we are going to interact in every area of our life. We talk about being great with your faith, being great with your family, and being great academically, socially and athletically. If you carry those values into those different areas and try to achieve greatness in all of them, you are putting yourself in a position to be successful for your entire life.<br \/>\n[divider][\/divider]<\/p>\n<h2>What is the key to motivating today\u2019s student-athletes?<\/h2>\n<p>Communication, more than anything, is different with this generation. That doesn\u2019t apply just to players; it\u2019s my son and my daughter, too. Technology has dramatically changed the world. The amount of information everyone has access to has changed their perspective and understanding. So for us as coaches, when we\u2019re dealing with our players, the thing we always have to answer to me is \u2018the why\u2019 \u2014 why are we asking you to do something? If you answer the why, and players understand there\u2019s a purpose behind something, they\u2019re going to buy in.<br \/>\n[divider][\/divider]<\/p>\n<h2>Morning routine?<\/h2>\n<p>I pound coffee. I drink it by the gallon \u2014 straight, black. I\u2019m way more productive in the morning than I am late at night.<br \/>\n[divider][\/divider]<\/p>\n<h2>What\u2019s playing over your speakers?<\/h2>\n<p>When I drive into the office, I\u2019m listening to Christian contemporary, probably. Sturgill Simpson for country. My kids really like Imagine Dragons, so I\u2019ll listen to that, and I get into Mumford &amp; Sons and that genre. During football season, it goes in a different direction. We\u2019ll do some old-school rap in the offices. Biggie Smalls is a personal favorite of mine. We call Mondays \u201cOutkast Monday\u201d while we are putting our game plan together.<br \/>\n[divider][\/divider]<\/p>\n<h2>Your mom was your high school principal. Were you ever called into her office?<\/h2>\n<p>Only for good things. That\u2019s what I\u2019m going to say in this magazine article anyway. If I ever did get in trouble, which was maybe once, I tried to get to the assistant principal and not walk into my mom\u2019s office. As far as leadership style goes, my dad gets a lot of play because he\u2019s in coaching and I spent a lot of time around him, but I\u2019ve tried to take a lot of communication skills from my mom and learn from how she interacted with others as a leader.<br \/>\n[divider][\/divider]<\/p>\n<h2>If you never played football, you would have played\u2026<\/h2>\n<p>At one time, I was involved in hockey, basketball and wrestling all at the same time. My mom was getting tired of it and said, \u201cYou\u2019re going to quit one of them, and it\u2019s going to be hockey.\u201d And that was because of the outdoor practices. We only had one indoor rink, and you only got it once a week.<br \/>\n[divider][\/divider]<\/p>\n<h2>How do you prepare for fans\u2019 expectations going into this season?<\/h2>\n<p>I love their expectations, but I don\u2019t really pay attention to them. At the end of the day, none of their expectations are going to be any higher than I have for our football team and for myself. We focus on our daily purpose and our daily actions, and we\u2019re going to go into every Saturday understanding that we have an opportunity to win.<br \/>\n[divider][\/divider]<\/p>\n<h2>Why Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½?<\/h2>\n<p>As big as our university is with the number of students that we have, it still feels like a true community. It\u2019s not overwhelming for our student-athletes or our recruits when they come to campus. I think that\u2019s a unique quality, and it\u2019s a lot of fun when a university feels that way. I love that we\u2019re situated right in Orlando. When I want to get out with my wife and kids, you have everything here you can imagine within a 30-minute drive. At the same time, you go out to the other side of campus, and you have the opportunity to go hunt, fish and be out in nature. The uniqueness of this university in this city is that within an hour, you are everywhere you want to be.<\/p>\n<p>[\/callout]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14713,"template":"","categories":[],"tags":[388,239],"class_list":["post-14608","story","type-story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-ucf-athletics","tag-football","issues-1242","issues-fall-2018"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v22.3 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Believe The Heup | Interview with Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ Football Coach Josh Heupel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We ask new head Â鶹ӳ»­´«Ã½ football coach, Josh Heupel, eight questions and he is as real as it gets. 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