Tom Herman defies football coaching stereotypes. Rather than discipline his players on game day, he kisses them all before the team steps on the field. It's not normal, but it works. Herman went 22-4 at Houston, a program that won just 21 games in the three seasons before his arrival.
Last week, Herman was hired by Texas to bring his emotion to Austin. And Herman started his Longhorns career with a mushy Twitter post.
To all the GAs out there grinding away, keep working hard. Dreams can come true. #GreatToBeHome #HookEm pic.twitter.com/7CQynzpU11
— Coach Tom Herman (@CoachTomHerman) December 7, 2016
Herman played at Division III Cal Lutheran before taking his first coaching job as the wide receivers coach at Texas Lutheran. His second job was at Texas, where he spent two seasons (1999-2000) as a graduate assistant. Herman held assistant coaching jobs at Sam Houston State, Texas State, Rice, Iowa State and Ohio State before landing his first head coaching job at Houston.
And now he has made it back to one of the poster programs of college football: Texas.
As Herman shows, coaching, like almost any job, requires hard work and commitment to get to the top. In his case, he got a taste of the Longhorns in his 20s and made it back in his 40s.
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