Alexander, Golden Eagles work to protect the game with OVC Sportsmanship honor and NCAA Committee nod

By Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information

Protect the game.

College Football has been around a long time, heading toward its 152^nd birthday this season. The history of it is important to Tennessee Tech head football coach Dewayne Alexander.

A look around his office reveals how much the history of the game, the history of Tennessee Tech football, his own football history means to him. Miniature football helmets of the schools he played and coached at line the top of his desk space, as well as photos of every Golden Eagle head coach in the program's near-century of competition. A graphic celebrating every Heisman Trophy winner is there, as well as mementos of his personal milestones.

It is obvious the game is bigger than just one person. It takes a lot to build a program and even more to do it the right way.

When he says his goal is to protect the game of football, he is sincere. He's grown up around the game and has been such a major part of his life.

So as the Golden Eagle football team earns its third consecutive Ohio Valley Conference Sportsmanship Award on Wednesday, as well as his own selection to the NCAA's Committee for Ethical Conduct and Sportsmanship, Alexander continues to fulfill that promise.

"From day one when I took the job here, I said we want to win and we want to win the right way," Alexander said. "It is college football. We do stress the student in student-athlete. Part of the student-athlete experience in college football is learning things besides just how to play football. It's learning the lessons the game can teach you, the life lessons through participation, being part of a team. Those lessons are important."

There's no question Alexander loves the sport of football. What better way to express that than helping shape the game?

"I'm at a point in my career where I have a strong desire to give back," Alexander said. "I want to give back to the game. To young coaches, to up-and-coming coaches, that's important to me. To high school coaches, I've been a high school coach numerous times. I love teaching the game X-and-O wise, but I want to do things to make the game better. I want to see football preserved. I still want to see football as a sport for young men to get involved in and learn from, to be part of a team. It's just an awesome thing to be a part of. You don't really get that in too many other walks of life. It's a great game – we need to preserve the game and keep it a great game.

"It's about doing the right things, not just winning. It's about helping others. It's about the sportsmanship. It's about how you handle yourself. It's about the discipline you get. It's all those things that are beneficial and worthwhile, and if we're not teaching those things and make those things insignificant in the game, football will struggle."

The OVC has awarded the sportsmanship trophy for 16 years, 2020-21 will be the fourth time it has gone to the Golden Eagles and the third-straight year. It is voted on by the sports' student-athletes and coaches to honor the team they deem to have best exhibited the standards of sportsmanship and ethical behavior as outlined by the OVC and the NCAA, including the conduct of student-athletes, coaches, staff, administrators and fans.

"The fact that this is the third year in a row that we have won it is a good indicator of the respect people have for our program," Alexander said. "People look and see that we're a program that is doing things the right way. Our coaches and players are going to treat opponents with respect, they see how we treat our players, how our players treat each other and other players. It speaks volumes of how people view our program."

However, just the internal actions isn't telling the whole story. There's also what the Golden Eagles do off the field, in the community.

Actions speak loudly – Alexander is a firm believer in that.

 "Whether it is serving our community, campus involvement or helping out their fellow students, it's bigger than just football," Alexander said. "Football is important – nobody wants to win more than I do and our staff does – but I truly believe all of that comes when you have those other pieces in place. When you build your program on a firm foundation – how players treat players, coaches treat coaches, coaches treat players, players treat coaches, all of our administrative staff, our trainers and strength coaches – everyone is a part of this. It's in how we leave the visiting locker room when we leave – it all matters. It's a reflection on our university.

"As an alum of Tennessee Tech both as a student and a player, it's important to me that our team represents Tennessee Tech the right way. We are the front door, the front porch of our University. We take 100-plus people on the road all over the country, and it's important to me whether we're in a hotel or a restaurant or even just on the bus that we're representing the best of this University.

Alexander continued, "If you wanted to interview the bus drivers or the hotel staff, I want the first words they say to be 'first class.' People from all of those have gone out of their way to tell me your guys are friendly, polite, handle themselves right. That means a lot to me. When you make that a foundation of your program, other things start happening."

Actions speak loudly – while student-athletes tend to be role models for youth, there are plenty of behaviors and abilities worth imitating and striving for. However, there are some that have creeped in over the years that have tarnished the game at times.

To protect the game, steps have to be taken to prevent those bad habits from taking hold.

"As coaches, we bear the responsibility of protecting the game," Alexander said. "As coaches, we share the burden with officials, the OVC office and the NCAA to promote good sportsmanship. It's important for all areas of leadership and administration to recognize the importance of it, but ultimately, at the end of the day, coaches are responsible for that with your players setting the example.

"It starts in practice. I don't want or allow anything to happen in practice that doesn't happen in a game. I think that's fair and I'm very clear with our players on the first day of spring practice or camp. We're going to be intense, we're going to do all those things that you have to do to be a competitive and successful football team, but we also know there is the respect factor in how you're supposed to carry yourself in everything you do."

Some of these bad habits take hold at a young age, leaving their later coaches to try to reverse the damage.

"It's a challenge to teach that because it's not being stressed as much as these guys are coming up through middle school and high school, travel ball and 7-on-7s," Alexander said. "Sportsmanship hasn't been thrown to the wayside, but you see more examples of poor sportsmanship than you ever have before. I want our guys to respect the game, respect the officials because they've got a job to do.

"It's the same thing in the stands. I've had four kids that have been involved with athletics their whole lives. Unfortunately, you're seeing instances with spectators on the pee-wee level, little league, middle school. Sometimes everyone needs to take a step back and realize this is just a game. We're supposed to enjoy it. The reason there are rules and guidelines is to make it more enjoyable and make the game better. None of us would come to games, coach or play in a game that had no rules."

Alexander continued, "As coaches, we have a responsibility to honor the game and teach our players to have a respect for the game and understand what that is. We have to set parameters of how we're going to behave on the sidelines and in the locker room, before, during and after the game. We all know that it's an emotional game. We understand that.

"No one's going to be perfect, but recognizing the importance of it is crucial. I'm blessed to have a staff of coaches that put a huge importance on treating people the right way and doing the right thing and it shows in how they work with our student-athletes and how they handle those situations and shape what they stand for. It works throughout the team."

To be able to expand his efforts at Tennessee Tech and help shape sportsmanship across the entire NCAA is an intriguing task for Alexander.

"I'm excited to be a part of this," he said. "I've been an administrator at a high school, an assistant principal, a high school athletic director, a high school football coach, a collegiate assistant coach and head football coach. When I was at Cumberland, I served on the American Football Coaches Association's Ethics Committee (from 2011 to 2015). The committee had coaches from every major conference and every level of football. I was the NAIA representative, and our biggest task was protecting the game, put standards in there to make it a game fans want to watch and players want to play.

"These are student-athletes in college football. We are at an institution of higher learning – everything we do here at Tennessee Tech should have educational value. I don't care what it is – an organization, a club, whatever – it should have some educational value, something you're learning from. It's teaching you something and making you a better person and have value to you somewhere down the road. Playing the game of football should teach you values that carry through to what you choose to do, to your family, to owning your own business, to helping out your community."

He continued, "The AFCA committee was about making sure football was still about the right things, making sure young men were still learning from the game, trying to keep the game safe and has the respect it deserves. The NCAA committee follows a lot of the same values. It's not just about you – it's a team sport. It's about honoring the game, respecting the game, respecting your opponent."

Trying to get Tennessee Tech back to the Golden Eagle Way certainly hasn't been easy. When Alexander was named the head coach following the conclusion of the 2017 campaign, there was some work to do in restoring many aspects of the program that had fallen in disrepair over the course of time.

"We have checked just about every box for areas we needed to grow in since I've gotten here – community relations, we needed to grow and repair those; relationships between players, I want them to enjoy coming to play football; develop relationships between coaches, players and people on campus," Alexander said. "Recognition like this is showing that we are doing those things.

"There's a point here where once the scoreboard is consistently starts turning our way, there's going to be a lot of exciting and positive things happening around here. I have a lot of confidence in that because it has happened everywhere I've been as a head coach. I've seen that progression. One doesn't come without the other. It's impossible to change the scoreboard without changing those other factors. If you don't, it's going to be a house of cards – it won't last, it'll be one of those things that lasts a year and there's no consistency. We want to build a firm, rock-solid foundation. This program is going to be built to last for the long haul, long after I've gone. Someone's going to be able to take it and continue because they know what the foundation is built on, what the expectation and standards of the program are."

He continued, "I want a football program here that's easy to cheer for. I want people to get behind this program. Anyone who came out to watch our guys at home this year, if you were alumni in the stands, I think you could be proud of how our guys played, how hard our guys played, how they played together, the energy. They did a nice job of that and they will continue to grow and get better every year."

While the win-loss tally wasn't what the team would have liked in the 2020-21 spring campaign, the Golden Eagles were in every game. Only the finale at UT Martin was decided by more than 20 points, with three of the five losses decided by one possession, all with a lineup that was constantly in flux with injuries in key spots and the overarching threat of quarantine or contact tracing.

It might not have been a championship year, but it was certainly progress.

A huge step in promoting the team's culture of sportsmanship is in its leadership development. At nearly every position stands a Golden Eagle player that could easily serve as a team captain, bolstering his teammates and guiding them into the field of competition.

In trying to build the team the right way, Alexander and his staff have put the keys in the hands of some incredible on-the-field leaders.

"Coach (Chip) Pugh has been instrumental," Alexander said. "He's been our character and leadership development coach. It's a position I felt was extremely important in today's day and age of working with young people. You have to make that a foundation of your program.

"These guys are dealing with a lot of things – now more than ever before. They're dealing with things generations before didn't have to deal with. It's important that we try to grow these guys as young men. If we want them to be the best football player they can be, it just makes sense to make them the best person they can be. It's plain and simple. It's something we've invested in heavily since I've been the head coach here."

Alexander's years of experience presented itself an epiphany, one that has paid off great dividends for the Golden Eagles.

"I've been a head coach before and I've taken notes at every stop I've been," he said. "When I was blessed with the opportunity to take the head coaching job here at Tech, I knew from day one, I wanted to go all in on player development, relationship building and leadership development. On that, it's not just going to be seniors and captains. The seniors who have been in the program certainly deserve recognition, but leadership comes from everybody. You can help develop leadership skills, you can help develop character traits.

"If someone already has leadership skills, you can make them a better leader. That's what I've seen in our program – guys coming in that already had leadership ability, but they've really matured and developed across the board. We have a leadership group that has representatives from every position group and from every class. It's representative of the entire team. We sit and talk about who we can add to that. It started as eight to ten, now it's almost 21, 22 guys and we're in the position to add even more."

Alexander continued, "There's all kinds of ways to lead. There are 14,000 books on leadership, so obviously people still try to figure out what that looks like. It's not just one thing. It's not just an ability to talk or pep talk. That's a good quality, but it's not the only one. Leadership by example, be a good listener, just doing for others, you're compassionate, someone drops their books and you pick them up – all of those are examples."

The COVID situation this year threw a little bit of a wrinkle in the development though.

"That's something I really missed this past summer with COVID," Alexander said. "It affected our team because there really wasn't the ability to do those team-building events. I talked with (Tech women's basketball head coach) Kim Rosamond and she felt the same way. They do a lot of things as a team and we didn't have a chance to do those things. They spent more time in quarantine or isolation then they spent anywhere else. Team meetings were few and far between and held in rooms that hold 400 people, but you've got to have everyone six feet apart. You've got to have your mask on, don't talk, don't shake hands. It's just not natural for our guys – we hug, we shake hands – and it was just all taken away. I'm excited about being able to come back to some of those things, meeting our freshmen and incoming guys.

"But through all of this, it's helped us learn to value the relationships we've built. It reinforces how important it is and yes, it is important to invest in. The closer you get these guys and build the trust between players and coaches, the better your football team is."

Over his tenure at Tech, Alexander and his staff have shown how important each piece of the team is and that is the basis behind the Golden Eagle Way – simply distilled down to do good, be good.

Now he has the opportunity to extend his wisdom and knowledge to the national stage and make football a better sport for all.

"Human beings are made where when we do something positive and good, you do something right that helps someone else, it makes you feel like you've done the right thing and it's a good feeling," Alexander said. "The NCAA certainly has this committee for a reason, and I'm excited to serve in a three-year term. There are a lot of issues in all sports right now, and football certainly has its fair share. There's a lot of complex issues, and I'm sure there will be some we haven't even thought of yet.

"So what are more good solutions to that? You can't just point your finger and say, 'Look at that guy.' We have a responsibility to that young man and help him understand why it's not positive and set an example. What are some things that could be put in place to prevent that? This committee will oversee a lot of different issues. My experience at many different levels and as an administrator and coach, I've certainly seen a lot of different things. There will be so many people from so many other backgrounds from around the NCAA, so I'm honored to be a part of it."

Photo | Thomas Corhern, TTU Sports Information