OXNARD, Calif. – Brian Schottenheimer has gotten a football education that is better than most.
Everything started with his father Marty Schottenheimer, who is credited with inventing "Marty Ball" and has a strong track record as an NFL head coach. He's worked for the likes of Pete Carroll and plenty of others, but now gets his first chance to run the show as a head coach.
And in doing so, he's leaning on the lessons he's learned in the past to help him in the present.
"I'm a big note taker," Schottenheimer said. "I would go back probably to Steve Spurrier, my dad, Dick Vermeil, and I just always would write down thigs that I liked. Hey, when I get a chance to run a football team, this is what I like or this is what I believe in, this is what I don't like or what I don't believe in."
As the game of football has evolved, so has Schottenheimer, not just from a schematic standpoint, but from going to a number of different staffs while adding and subtracting to his philosophy for the day when he'd get to run his own show.
"It's been rewritten a number of times, my vision and some of my things that I truly believe in have adjusted," Schottenheimer said of his notes. "If you would have asked me, if I take a job in the early 2006-2007 years, does it look like it does today? Probably not, just because of the experience that I have now."
The collection of notebooks stretches far back into Schottenheimer's career, and is also becoming a family heirloom for the next generations.
"I have notebooks upon notebooks that I've referred back over the past 15, 20 years in this business," Schottenheimer said. "I plan on giving them to my kids one day and letting them have that for my grandkids."
In all those years and all the notes he's taken, one of the more valuable lessons that's stood out to him come from the likes of guys like Pete Carroll and Dan Quinn, who emphasized the importance of the people working around one another.
"I think the value of people," Schottenheimer said when asked about some of his bigger takeaways from past coaches he's worked with. "When I was younger and I had been passed up for some head coaching jobs and things like that, I think I kind of pressed and said 'Oh, if I have the best offense in the league, I'll get a job, or whatever it is…"
"It's not about that. The journey is more fun with the people."
And amongst the many changes and edits Schottenheimer has made to his notes, that part of the business has never changed for him.
"You always change scheme, the game changes, but the value you put on people and the connections and the relationships that you build. You're going to have real hard conversations when you sit in my chair, that's part of the job…" Schottenheimer said.
"But it's easier to have that hard conversation when you're delivering the message maybe that's not as easy for the player or coach to hear, it's a lot easier to hear when they know you love them and you care about them."
Schottenheimer isn't changing his emphasis on people, and as he begins to lead the Cowboys in his first training camp as a head coach, he isn't changing anything about himself either.
"I haven't given it much thought, I think once you do it those first couple of times, you kind of get used to it," Schottenheimer said when discussing if leading practice was what he thought it would be. "Like I said, one thing about me, I've always been authentic, I'm going to lead to my personality."
