Aside from his new players, Will Healy has another kid he needs to receive constant updates about.
As he went through the process of getting the head coaching job at Charlotte, his wife was expecting their second child. Over the past three months, Healy has been doing everything that comes with a new job, and his wife, Emily, gave birth to their second son a few weeks ago, so there have been all sorts of new duties and responsibilities to figure out. Healy has been living in a house with eight other coaches and staffers until Emily and their sons move in mid-March, a common living situation after a coaching change.
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At 34 years old, Healy is the third-youngest FBS head coach, but he has three years of head coaching experience under his belt. At 30 years old, he inherited the worst program in Division I at Austin Peay and turned it around to 8-4 in his second season in 2017. The Governors went 5-6 in 2018, but that’s still a success by Austin Peay standards, and Healy was bringing in some of the best recruiting classes at the FCS level.
Charlotte was in deep talks with Mike Houston (now at East Carolina) about the head coaching job, but when word got out publicly, Houston said he wanted to keep his options open, and Charlotte athletic director Mike Hill publicly rescinded the offer. Hill turned to Healy, who was already in the mix. Now Healy takes over a Charlotte program that began play in 2013 and hasn’t posted a winning record. But it is coming off its strongest FBS season at 5-7, and other investments bring potential to this Conference USA program.
Before spring kicks off, Healy spoke with The Athletic about how he got the job, the change from Austin Peay and more. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How have the first few months on the job been?
The one thing I love, and the one this place is missing, we’re not very relevant in the community. It’s going to see every guy that’s got pull in Charlotte. Whether they give money or not, you need them on your side. As soon as you get off the road, things should settle down, but I had four meetings today with boards and speaking engagements. We’ve gotta do it. I used to call in to radio stations in Clarksville (at Austin Peay), just so they’d talk about us. It’s the same way here. You’re trying to be relevant.
You just completed your staff with a some guys directly from Austin Peay and others who used to work for you there. What was the process of picking your staff?
Awesome. To me, the hard part about this profession is the fact that you’ve got great friends and great people you’ve worked with, and there were guys that did a heck of a job for us at Austin Peay that I wasn’t able to bring with me. They’ve done everything they’re supposed to do, turn a program around, and you have to sit in an office and have a conversation. I had coaches leave me the year before, and I wanted those guys back. You’re going to make somebody mad every time you hire somebody, because you got a good job. That’s what stinks about it. Whether it was here, cleaning house at Charlotte or having a hard conversation with guys at Austin Peay, you can only hire 10. You’ve got a lot more than 10 friends in the profession, but you can lose them really quickly if you don’t hire them. That’s the not-fun part about the job.
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How was the process getting this job? You were in the mix, then the school was close with Mike Houston. Then they pull out, and you’re there. How did you pitch yourself and position yourself for the job?
I was supposed to interview on a Wednesday. I got a call Wednesday morning canceling the interview. They’d decided to go in a different direction and felt good about it, so I never got a chance to sit in front of Mike Hill. I asked if there was any way we could still meet. Mike said he didn’t feel it was the right thing to do, don’t want to put you through this dog-and-pony show when we know who we want to hire, and he’s accepted the job, so we’re going to move forward.
Fast-forward 36 hours later, I get a phone call saying they’ve decided to go in a different direction, are you still interested? I said absolutely. They said, “When can you be here?” I said, “Tomorrow morning. I’d like to bring my wife if that’s OK.” Mike Hill said he’d love it. I was in Cookeville, Tennessee, at the Tennessee state championship games and I called my wife in Clarksville. She’s 34 weeks pregnant and I said I need you to meet me tomorrow morning at 6 o’clock at the Nashville airport. She says why? Because we’re going to Charlotte. We’re back in it. She called the doctor. The doctor said she could fly. We met at the airport, flew to Charlotte. She sat in a 4 1/2-hour interview and ate it up. We had dinner with some of the administration and their families and fell in love with the place. I flew back home. Got the job two days later.
It’s been a whirlwind couple of years for you. Two years ago, you’re leading a program on a 27-game losing streak, and now you’re an FBS head coach, still at a young age. How do you reflect on what you’ve been through?
The one thing I have to constantly remind myself is to enjoy the moment, enjoy where you are. Sometimes things get so fast that you’re constantly thinking about fixing a place immediately that you don’t get a chance to reflect on unbelievable experiences you had at Austin Peay. That team going from 0-11 to 8-4 was as much fun coaching as you could have. I enjoy that. More than anything, I enjoy the guys I work with, so that makes this thing fun. When you’ve got a great relationship with guys on your staff and they’re your best friends, you’re not working when you go in the office. It feels like a hobby more than anything.
We had an unbelievable experience in Clarksville. There’s nobody else in college football that would have hired a 30-year-old who had never called a play. We didn’t accomplish all the goals, but we felt we could do it. We established a foundation, and hiring (Mark) Hudspeth will take it to the next level. It’s been a lot. It was hard leaving those kids, because they’re the ones who gave you this opportunity. It wasn’t me. We had kids that played hard and made Austin Peay relevant. It’s hard for them when “I’m the one who did this, and he’s the one who has the opportunity to move up.” They’re right. But for me, this was such a no-brainer I had to find a way to get in the mix.
Why was it a no-brainer? Charlotte is a young program without much success, but more is being put into it. What appealed about the job, and what is the potential?
No. 1, living in Charlotte is not a bad place to live. Raising a family here was exciting to me and my wife. Being a young head coach trying to figure it out, I’m interested in jobs where you can continue to grow and exceed the past. The expectations here, you have the opportunity to do a lot of different things, because it’s such a young program. Go to the first bowl game, win the first conference championship. What made it more attractive is this group has had success. Brad Lambert did an unbelievable job, goes from one win to five wins, goes 4-4 in the conference. He did a heck of a job and has great kids here. There’s a solid foundation.
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You’re just talking about a young program learning to be great. That’s hopefully what I am too, a young guy learning to be great. The vision for the football program matched the vision of the university, which is to be the largest in the state of North Carolina in the next few years. An AD who knows what it’s supposed to look like, having spent 25 years at the University of Florida. The deputy AD, I’d known for a while. It was all of the above. A great situation being around great people, knowing I could run it the way I believe and could hire a staff that loved to do something everybody didn’t think was possible.
What’s been the biggest adjustment moving up to an FBS school, whether it’s something like recruiting or the number of scholarships?
Recruiting changes. It goes from a December-January to year-round. The resources that go with that, always having a mailer, the social media side, having kids on campus, camps, all of that stuff is magnified. You’re recruiting a different caliber of player. The other thing is you have more resources. We’re still not where we want to be, from a resource perspective, but you’ve got more than the previous level, so it’s understanding how you utilize position and how to make sure you can do more. Making sure you communicate properly about responsibility and expectation and delegating more opportunities to get more done and be more sound with doing the little things.
When you moved into your office, what was the first thing you put up?
First off, I have an office. At Austin Peay, we used our suites as offices, which was incredible, because we were able to give everybody an office. We had 13 suites, so everybody got an office. It was driving into that stadium every day and feeling good about where you worked. We were making the most of what we had. There was nothing wrong with that, but I walked into an office (here) that had a huge desk and four TVs mounted as one with an Xbox and two controllers I’m trying to get every recruit in the Carolinas to come sit in. The offices, the meeting space, the locker room, this place has really good facilities, a great foundation. We’ve got to jazz it up a little bit to make sure it pops, but we’ve got something great to start with.
(Photo courtesy of Charlotte Athletics)