Several folks have asked what it was like to do the interview of Coach Tressel a few weeks ago. Exhilarating for me of course. And he was all you would expect...warm, gracious, helpful, insightful. The thing that impressed me the most though was the man's mind and memory ...the ability to grasp, analyze, focus and cut to the heart of it.

Not wanting to look like a hayseed of course, I went in prepared with 4 (I thought) well thought out questions. Each question was thorough and a 3 or 4-parter. In large type, they filled one page. I didn't know if I would get two minutes, ten minutes or sixty minutes, get through one, two or all, but I was prepared to do as much as the time he gave me allowed.

"Lets roll," he said before we were completely down the hallway to his office. We started the interview before we were even seated and I opened with a quick summary of where I was hoping to go with the conversation. I shared I had 4 questions and that maybe I could quick go through all those and he could pick one, two, or all to comment on. He nodded to that, so I super quickly ran through each of the four questions, and each of their parts.

When I finished Coach said, "I can roll one and two together" and off he went. We went back and forth a bit, but I never once repeated the original questions. Twenty-two minutes later on my recorders counter Coach had touched every point in every question, in the exact order I had asked them, and he never once said "Now what else was it you asked?"

I got good stuff, exactly what I wanted, what I needed, and couldn't have asked for more. He has amazing abilities and I witnessed first hand the skills one needs to be successful at that level.

It was at that point in the interview that I needed to pivot, and just about tripped all over myself in so doing... but more on that tomorrow....