Why they coach: Barry Odom

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PM: What sports did you play growing up?

BO: "Always in the size of town we grew up in, it was pretty much everything. There weren't a lot of options. We had baseball from early on, started with tee ball, it went from tee ball to kid pitch, there was no coach pitch then. And somehow we played like 12 games a summer and turned out okay. Strange how that's transpired. Played basketball through elementary school and junior high and played two years of high school basketball. Ran track, ran summer track. Then I started playing football in the fifth grade. We had it in the elementary school starting in the fifth grade at that time. So fifth and sixth grade and then there was a seventh grade team and then an eighth grade team which was considered the junior high team. My freshman year I started with the varsity."

PM: And you played other sports through high school too?

BO: "I ran track every year. I played football every year. Basketball, I didn't play my freshman year because I had a torn ACL, played my sophomore year and my junior year and did not play my senior year. I ran track every year. The school I went to, once you got into sixth grade, we didn't have baseball. So if you wanted to play in the summer you had to go play Legion ball somewhere else. Then when I moved to Ada High School, they had every sport, but at that point, I just played football and ran track. Then sang songs with Blake Shelton every year on the weekends. He was a year older than me in school (Odom clarifies the part about singing with Shelton is a joke)...Probably wouldn't have been good enough, no, I wasn't good enough, to make the basketball team at Ada, but we had a really good track team and good football. Always involved with sports from early on. Having an older brother, I kind of always tagged along with him, but kind of was brought up on the idea that it was important in the community, also important to the school, to take part in those things."

PM: So where along there did you decide you wanted to coach?

BO: "I think fortunately, I was always, even from like fifth grade football on, I had really good coaches. Looking back, I don't know how good of a coach they were, but they were so influential and they in some capacity impacted the way I lived. Because it was important to me, I had respect for them and I valued the ways that they led our sport teams. And all of them were community leaders and leaders within the school system. So I was drawn to that. I enjoyed trying to work together to form a team of individuals to become a team of being as good as you can be. But that started early on. At that time, growing up, college football became really important to me and I started to follow it. Every coach I had along the way in every sport, I felt like I respected and admired them."

PM: Was there anybody in that group that you'd really single out as having a big influence on you and your career?

BO: "I think I've probably taken a little bit from everybody, more recently in college than elsewhere, but the guy, Larry McBroom was my high school football coach at Ada. He won seven or eight state championships and then he went to Texas for a number of years and coached there. He's still coaching and they've moved to Arkansas because his daughter lives there with grandkids; lives in Sheridan, Arkansas. But so impactful. And had great success, but also hearing each message that he would give us during the season or offseason, there were always some life lessons tied to it. Big picture ideas on how important it was to be selfless and some those things. Really had a unique way to reach everybody in the locker room and his communication skills and such great respect that he had earned with every team that he had. And was it because he won all the time? Probably some of it. But also he was an awesome person. So, fortunately, able to still keep in touch with him on a regular basis.

Then I came here and Larry Smith was impactful to me. There are some things that I try to instill in our team today, even motivationally, some of the things that he did that I thought really stood out to help us during whatever particular good or bad going on in the season. He had a pretty good pulse fo the team really on what he thought we needed. Now whether or not we always followed it out, that didn't always happen, but I did respect the job that he was able to do. He knew what was going on within the team, within the locker room. Obviously a different style; everybody's a little bit different.

Then the chance to work with Gary (Pinkel) for a number of years that I did and the number of roles that I had with him, great experience and things that I've carried on from his time and my time with him. Organizationally, I don't know that, and I've talked to a lot of coaches around the country and over the years, I don't know that anybody can touch Gary's organization skills and the systematic approach really to everything that we did. I admire it. It's tedious, it takes the attention to detail and the habits. It would be easy to take a day and say I'll do it tomorrow, but if he came in to run the staff meeting right now, I know exactly, we would start with the injury report, we'd go to academics, we'd go to the depth chart board and then that's every single day was that way. When I started as a GA it was that way, when I came back from Memphis, it was exactly the same structure. Which I admired.

And then working with (Justin) Fuente, but there were a number of guys on that staff. I failed to mention Matt Eberflus. I learned a lot from Matt. He's had a lot of success. He was a lot better recruiter than maybe anybody gave him credit for. He was so well respected by high school coaches and the other coaches that recruited against him. And he recruited some really good players here. There were a lot of things he wanted to do schematically that we couldn't really get done, but I always had and still do, a lot of respect for Matt and the way that he did some of the things he was able to do.

Fuente was brought up in a different world on his influences, but we crossed paths over the years so knew some familiar background with what he had been around and what he knew. So the things that he was able to get done at Memphis and his leadership style, took some things that I think I have applied here. But also a guy that was on that staff named James Shiebest, who is with him at Virginia Tech, that was our special teams coordinator that was really, really good in all areas. Darrell Dickey who's at Texas A&M now as offensive coordinator, was the head coach at North Texas. There were a lot of ups and downs there, but it was a unique staff that everybody cared about each other and worked really hard for the kids. It was a fun three years.

Then I think we've got staff members that fortunately I have around me now on our staff that I think we all have been able to provide input to help us out. And I think you're always learning. One of the benefits to having Bill Snyder come to campus and speak to our high school coaches, get to spend hours with him that day. I've read as many books as I can read on coaches and I've been drawn to his foundation on how he built that."

PM: I know you got into coaching pretty quickly after college. Was it immediate or did you do some other stuff?

BO: "I knew I wanted to be involved with athletics and if I would have been true to myself, I knew I was going to coach. Graduated in December of 1999, in January of 2000, I went to work in the Tiger Scholarship Fund office as an intern with Laird Veatch, Ross Bjork, Brian Wickstrom, a pretty good group of guys to be around. And kind of the first job they gave me was to, they were going through re-seating of the Hearnes Arena depending on your donation level and points, and I had to make a lot of phone calls, said 'Hey, we're moving your seats from like AA to like DD.' I've got such great respect for the job that folks do in sales and marketing, but that wasn't really me. But I did learn a lot about how parking and all the different things work. I didn't really want any part of that. I always kind of kept coming back over here from the Hearnes Center. I'd get finished in the early afternoon and I'd venture back over here and then I'd help the staff that was still in place with breaking down film, help with some recruiting stuff and I liked my afternoon part of my job a lot more than I did the morning part.

Then trying to find what's the next step, get into coaching, thought I was going to start as a GA and then Larry McBroom, my high school coach called and said, 'Hey why don't you come down here and work with me? Run the defense and we'll find you a job in the school system.' To have that opportunity, I couldn't say no to the guy. Went and did it. Started there in June of 2000, I guess."

PM: And that was at Ada?

BO: "Yeah, that was at Ada. We got beat in the state championship game. And then Pat Smith, Dr. Smith here locally, called and said 'We're looking for a coach here at Rock Bridge High School. Would you be interested in looking at it?' I said 'you bet.' Was able to get that job two seasons, Rockhurst and Tony Temple beat us in the semifinals year two. I didn't know Gary Pinkel at that time. I mean I knew who he was, but I hadn't worked with him. We had been at a couple of clinics together, I'd listened to him speak and he recruited the school. I had mentioned that I was interested in getting into college coaching and he called and said 'We got a GA's job, I want you to interview for it if you're interested.' And I did and got offered the job and didn't know what I was getting into. I had a pretty good setup at Rock Bridge. Thought it was a great chance to learn under somebody I had respect for and who had started to build this program and I wanted to help out."

PM: I assume it was that phone call, but everybody who's in college talks about getting a break to get to this level. Was that your break?

BO: "I think it was the start of it. He didn't know me and I didn't really know him so I had to get the job. It wasn't just handed to me. And then as a GA, you better be able to provide enough worth that they want to keep you around. So I did that and became the director of recruiting, did that for I think two seasons and then became the director of operations. Always throughout the process, coach had me doing a lot of football stuff. He knew that I wanted to get on the field coaching and I trusted that he was going to provide the opportunity and platform to do that. I stayed with him."

PM: What's the most rewarding part of your job?

BO: "It's hard to look past, because we just had the event on Monday night, we had former players come back for career networking and mentoring event. To watch our guys interact with them and knowing that there's a connection there. I want to win every game, but that opportunity to provide real-life platform experiences for my team, I feel like that I've got a responsibility to do that and when I see it start to take place and guys, the light bulb goes off and they say, hey, yes, for three-and-a-half hours Saturday we've got to take care of our business and win games. We're judged on wins and losses bottom line, no matter what you do. It does. But that's at the top of the list. To see some of those things really become the culture of who we are in the locker room, that's really rewarding to me individually. To see guys have success with a plan that you put in place and working together and seeing a team form, those are some of the most rewarding things that I can get out of this job."

PM: And what's the most challenging part?

BO: "Some of the things through the recruiting process on, being in the relationship building part of it for, it becomes years, and then not being able to secure the guy. Also wanting to be able to fix issues within college athletics that you know that it's not good for the sport or the game or society and you can't do anything about. The injury part is something that I probably won't ever really get over. When guys get time cut short because of an injury, you hate it. Because the window of opportunity is so small with the ability to play a game, when that's taken away by injury, I hate it. I don't like losing guys either. I don't like guys leaving the program. I feel like some how, some way, I didn't reach them deep enough, quick enough, to be able to show them the big picture on what they can get achieved here."

PM: On a smaller scale, what's the most challenging part of specifically the Missouri job?

BO: "I look at it as opportunity in the conference that we're in but also the grind of what that is. But I wouldn't want it any other way. I don't know, I'm going through things in my mind. I look more as opportunity than it is challenge. That's kind of the coachspeak answer. I firmly believe you're dealt a hand of cards in life and you make the best of it. I don't look at the struggles or lack thereof, I see solutions to them."

PM: You've talked about this before, but how important was leaving here and seeing something else before you came back?

BO: "Very impactful for me but also, I think, the way things worked out and the timing, you never can script it on how it's going to work or should work or supposed to work. Coming back as a coordinator in 2015, there was never, ever, not one discussion on, 'Hey, come back, be the coordinator and become the head coach.' That wasn't part of the deal, that wasn't ever even talked about. It was an opportunity for me to leave as a position coach and go somewhere and build a program as a coordinator and try to make my own path, but also then coming back as a coordinator in 15 and then proving it at another spot. I didn't know what that would lead to. I sure didn't anticipate Gary retiring eight months later. That wasn't anywhere close to the radar. I wanted to come back to Mizzou and run the defense and help us continue to achieve success. I'm a believer if you do your job where you're at and make it your quote unquote dream job, then if you do a good enough job, then everything else will fall in line like it's supposed to. Whether it's here or somewhere else."

PM: Whenever it is that you're done with this and walk away, what do you want people to say or remember about you as a coach?

BO: "That he did everything he could for his players on giving them the chance to be successful for the next 40 or 50 years of their life. He won championships and he did it the right way."