Mark Richt’s digital Rolodex had no limits, and his new job at his alma mater, Miami, had no shortage of people looking to join his Hurricanes staff.
Richt had already been named the Southeastern Conference’s coach of the year twice, and he would eventually nab the same honor in the Atlantic Coast Conference after the 2017 season.
As he prioritized the culture he would instill in the Miami program, Richt made an immediate decision for one of his first hires: Gus Felder.
No staff member spends more time around a team than a football program’s strength coach, and Richt knew that Felder – now the Carolina Panthers’ director of player engagement – checked every box.
“You have to have trust,” Richt told FootballScoop. “Like maximum trust with your strength coach for that very reason. He does spend more time with players than really just about anybody, and it’s all year around.
“There’s a lot of people talking about culture, but a lot of your culture, it comes from strength and conditioning, equipment people, dining hall staff sometimes. How these guys get treated and how they need to treat everybody that supports them and that’s very crucial. With Gus, you just knew.”
The gregarious Felder, a former star offensive lineman at Penn State who played briefly in the NFL before he transitioned into coaching, has filled roles from prep coach to assistant strength coach to running the Canes’ strength program and now serving various roles in the Carolina franchise. .
What has never changed has been Felder’s approach to helping others.
“I can dedicate more time to really, really getting to know these athletes and not just the Xs and Os but getting guys to believe they can play above the Xs and Os with a clear and free mind,” Elder told FootballScoop. “Even though you’re a ballplayer now, God has prepared you in so many ways to do so much more. Too many guys, coaches and players, identify with what they do versus who they are.
“I was a head football coach, a coordinator at D-II, a high school coach and then transitioned to strength and conditioning because I wanted more interaction with players.”
Already among the staff with the most day-to-day contact with members of the Panthers’ organization, Felder has seen his role amplified in recent weeks after the firing of head coach Matt Rhule.
As the NFL invests more into educating and empowering its first-year players, Felder typically plays a role in the NFL’s rookie program on Mondays, and Tuesday, a typical off-day for players after a Sunday game, is a key day for the community. service. Felder carves out large swaths of his early-week schedule for individual meetings, makes sure he’s available on Wednesdays as practice ticks up and hosts a fellowship/book club gathering on Thursday evenings.
“The biggest thing with NFL and change is some of these guys have already been through this with college coaches coming and going left and right,” said Felder, who first worked for Richt at Georgia when Felder was hired as the Bulldogs’ assistant strength coach. by John Thomas. “It’s never good to see somebody get fired, and some guys have been really attached.
“But now this is a chance to help these guys understand the business side of the NFL, more so the younger guys, in helping them navigate through their emotions. It’s OK to be upset but not too emotional. More so you’re just trying to use your skills to help them navigate through the transition, continue to develop and also be empathetic.”
It’s Felder’s ability to relate to players from all walks of life that Richt recalls as an undeniable strength for Felder, who grew up in a hardscrabble area of Philadelphia and overcame remarkable obstacles to earn three degrees from Penn State.
“He’s got a lot of credibility, just as a person and a coach,” Richt said. “Truthfully, when you’re that big of a man, you kind of gain the respect of those boys pretty quickly. He’s just a very amazing human being, has this awesome family. And he’s a guy who loves the Lord. He checked every box for me. I knew how he was going to work and treat those guys.
“He could relate to anybody. No kid could come to him and say, ‘You don’t understand what I’m going through’ or ‘You don’t understand how I was raised.’ He had been there, done that, overcome it. He was a guy that was a living example of overcoming a lot of adversity in his life, and he could encourage guys to know that they could as well.”
In the NFL, adversity takes on different levels than college. Players are fighting for roster spots, for health, for their livelihoods and their families.
Felder is in the battle with each individual.
“Servant leadership is the way to go,” Felder said. “I’ve seen it from Mark Richt, one of the greatest servant leaders I’ve been around. I was here with Matt Rhule, who just enjoyed working to help develop people. Now I get to work with Coach (Steve) Wilks, who is simply great at relationships and working with people.
“I look at every person God puts in my life as a chance to take this and go wherever He goes with it. Whether it’s athletic administration or helping coaches develop student-athletes or here in the NFL as a director of player engagement or a chief executive officer, it’s my mission to help athletes develop and see their potential in life.
“If I sit at Walmart and greet people, I’m going to find a way to be a better cart-pusher and work with people.”
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