FOXBOROUGH – For an hour on Friday night, Vanderbilt head coach Clark Lea had a room full of football coaches hanging on every word.

And it had nothing to do with Xs and O’s.

Lea was one of two keynote speakers this weekend at the annual Massachusetts High School Football Coaches Association clinic held at Gillette Stadium. Vendors and high school and college coaches from around the country head to 1 Patriots Place for two days, enjoy a social hour on Friday and then (some) head out to keep the conversations going. Saturday morning’s festivities start at 8:30, with three coaches from BC, Merrimack head coach Mike Gennetti and Bryant head coach Chris Merritt just a few of the coaches presenting on various topics. New Yale head coach Kevin Cahill is the second keynote speaker.

The guys that run the show – Gary Doherty, Fred Kirsch and Dave Driscoll – have been getting some phenomenal speakers since 2012, including Chip Kelly, Dan Mullen, Brian Kelly, Kirk Frentz, Bob Chesney, Jeff Hafley, Don Brown and for the past two years, Bill O’Brien.

As someone who has now been to four clinics, Lea’s stands out above the rest.

That is absolutely not a knock on any of the other coaches, but Lea never showed a single football play, yet was riveting.

“I choose to come here to be with you, because this is a win for our program,” Lea told dozens and dozens of coaches. “It’s a chance to carry the message of Vanderbilt football to Boston. That’s a big deal. It’s worth the time.”

Lea message was about being vulnerable in front of your team and family, while also embracing adversity. Creating Clarity and Shaping Alignment are two big themes that he stressed.

“Once we create clarity and shape alignment, what we start to realize is the culture is the football,” Lea said. “That’s the beauty of our game. We don’t actually have to create things outside the sport if we teach it the right way.”

Lea showed a graphic of a 62-0 nothing loss to Georgia Vanderbilt suffered on September 25, 2021…Lea’s fourth game as head coach of the Commodores. A lot of his speech stemmed off of that particular day and how he’s grown from it while building Vandy into a legit tile contender, but towards the end, Lea revealed that while his kids were coloring at a table in his office, he began crying almost uncontrollably alongside his wife.

He didn’t give a rat’s ass if people thought it was lame.

Lea acknowledged that while self doubt was and is real, it’s important to find a way to not let it affect how you move forward with your life and aspirations. He also talked about finding mental clarity when dealing with a contract extension, realizing he had unfinished business and just how much the university means to him.

It’s all stuff guys aren’t supposed to talk about.

“If you’re not careful, you live your life formless. If you live your life formless, you get shaped by the world,” he said. “That is a bad thing. If you have values, those values will anchor you to something beneath the surface that’ll hold you in place. But, there’s something beneath values, because values are still man-made. It’s within each of us (to live from a spiritual center) when we operate out of (it), that is beautiful, true and good. You got to take time to listen to it.

“The problem is, we’ve spent years – especially as men – we’ve spent years learning how to cover that shit up. I talk to my team about this all the time.  We want to be like a heavy stone of substance and mass, dense. That, when dropped in water, there would be a splash and a ripple. We would have real impact. As opposed to the leaf, when dropped, floats down, doesn’t break the surface tension of the water and gets carried anywhere the current wants to take it. That is allowing the world to shape you.”

Lea also talked about coming off a 2-10 season in 2023 and telling himself there’s a good chance he’s going to get fired. Again, talking more about mindset than any X’s and O’s.

“In 2023 off a 2-10 season, I had to look myself in the mirror and say ‘you know something Clark? This may not work out. All the dreams and visions you had for success, this might actually end up being a story of failure.’ You start to come to grips with that,” he said. “You start to come to grips with the fact that ‘I might lose my job.’ Not that anyone was insulting that in our building, but it’s the reality of a lack of performance.

“So, what I do, is I take that and say ‘ok. I’m not going to worry about that. It’s out of my control. I’m going to be really proud of what’s on film.’ When I see our team play, I want to be proud…not just that we played hard, but I want us to play smart. I want us to execute. Execution is structure plus intensity. I want to have a team on the field that knows what the f**k they are doing.

“They’re well-taught, they’re well-trained, they’re competitive.”

While answering questions now well past an hour, had a thought-provoking response when it comes to building a culture in an NIL world that becomes more ugly by the day.

“These NIL issues are real,” Lea added. “So, if left to its own device, our locker room would resemble our world. Our world is divided based off socioeconomic status, yes? So, you’ve got rich people here, you’ve got kind of the middle class here and lower class here. That is a recipe for disaster. You’ve got the $1 million dollar club there, here’s your $500,000 guys here. Here’s the $250,000, here’s the $100,000, oh these guys don’t even get paid shit…

“I watched today in our weight room there were five platforms in front of squat racks around our weight room. I’m looking at a platform and the team…we lift in two groups. The entire team is around this platform. They were screaming. I was like, ‘who is on that platform?’ By the way, the guy that was on this platform went for five reps and he had a lot of weight on the bar. And then, he did plus two, which was beautiful. I love that attitude of like, ‘man, F it, I feel good, I’m going to keep going down.’ They’re screaming for him, he gets off, he finishes and I look and it’s our walk-on long snapper.”

Lea’s speech was a reminder that in a cutthroat world, it’s okay to be vulnerable while also making sure you continuously show up for yourself and those around you.

It may lead to success quicker than you think.

“Look man, you guys were probably tweeting and laughing five years ago when I said ‘we’re building the best program in college football at Vanderbilt. But, I sent that because I meant it. I don’t fake that shit,” he proclaimed.

“That is what I meant. They heard it. Even though we weren’t there, we were building. We were getting there and over time, young people are down to that spirit. The best coaches are the ones that have a vision and actualize it in their behavior. When we say belief is a practice, all we mean is belief is not a feeling or a solution. Belief is an action. When I believe in a kid that we bring into our program, the act that I show is time spent. Time invested, Watching film with him as the head coach. Doing drills with him as the head coach.

“That practice of belief says to them ‘I’m important. I belong here. This is meaningful what we’re doing.’ That’s your best chance at keeping people bought in.”