{"id":97894,"date":"2014-11-06T08:57:13","date_gmt":"2014-11-06T13:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=97894"},"modified":"2014-11-14T16:29:42","modified_gmt":"2014-11-14T21:29:42","slug":"bob-diaco-man-on-a-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2014\/11\/bob-diaco-man-on-a-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Diaco: Man on a Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

This article was first published in the Fall 2014 print edition of\u00a0<\/em>UConn Magazine<\/a>. To read more stories like this, visit\u00a0s.uconn.edu\/fall14<\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/em><\/a> or download\u00a0<\/a><\/em>UConn Magazine\u2019s<\/a> free app<\/a>\u00a0for iPads.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\u201cThe<\/a>
\u201cThe mission of cultivating and developing young men is what drives me personally. I don\u2019t make all the right decisions. I make mistakes every single day. I\u2019m going to make a bunch today. But I\u2019m going to work, and I\u2019m not going to duplicate them tomorrow.\u201d (Stephen Slade ’89 (SFA)\/ UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

First-year UConn head football coach Bob Diaco likes to say he doesn\u2019t have a job. Instead, he insists, \u201cI have a mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the outside, that mission may seem fairly straightforward: Take the Huskies to new heights as a nationally competitive program.<\/p>\n

The 41-year-old New Jersey native, who was named to his first head coaching job last year after a successful stint as defensive coordinator and assistant coach for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, says his mission \u2014 indeed, his vision for Husky football \u2014 goes far beyond playing on the field. It is a philosophy that has guided Diaco, a 1995 Iowa graduate and linebacker, throughout his life: Reject fear, embrace simplicity, put your head down, and work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink about if today is going to be your last day. What would it look like?\u201d he asks. \u201cKnow yourself. Know what you\u2019re competing against and know the terrain, and you\u2019ll have no reason to fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u201cWe<\/a>
\u201cWe have respect and love and care built as a baseline in the foundation. Listen: If you\u2019re going to berate and demoralize and dehumanize and emasculate and you\u2019re going to communicate like that, no one is going to listen to you.\u201d (Stephen Slade ’89 (SFA)\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
\u201cI’m not going to let anything go. The players have to go to class. They don\u2019t go to class, they\u2019re not going to play. Period. … If a key starter doesn\u2019t go to class this week, then he\u2019s not going to play.\u201d (Stephen Slade ’89 (SFA)\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From the time he gets into his office before dawn to begin prepping for the next game, through the team meetings and meals and practices, Diaco says he tries to embrace a kind of emotional asceticism to cut down on whatever distracts him from his goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cTry it yourself,\u201d he says. \u201cNeed less. Need fewer pats on the back from people. Need fewer things that get between you and achievement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diaco, who dazzled Connecticut residents in his first UConn press conference with off-the-cuff Latin and classical quotations, is under no illusions about miraculous reversals of fortune: Progress takes time. It is a message he has delivered throughout his first year as he speaks on campus and as he travels around the state speaking to fans, business leaders, and anyone else interested in UConn football.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one in this building is under false pretenses,\u201d he says. \u201cEverybody here understands the work that\u2019s needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\u201cYou<\/a>
\u201cYou tell them the truth, and you show them the truth. You don\u2019t blow smoke. You don\u2019t make stuff up. You show them the truth and you tell them, and in doing that, they\u2019re going to see a lot of positives. A lot of new<\/em> positives.\u201d (Stephen Slade ’89 (SFA)\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
“We’ve had benchmarks where there\u2019s an evaluation and a successful moment, and it\u2019s celebrated. So we didn\u2019t just end camp, we broke camp. They won that moment. Then we celebrated. There have been 100 different moments like that, where we\u2019ve tried to reset the energy and belief system.\u201d (Stephen Slade ’89 (SFA)\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
“We’re just getting started with our program. We\u2019re in an incredible development phase. We\u2019re taking over a downtrodden, losing program that was losing in almost every area. It\u2019s going to take some time, and everybody understands how far we have to go. We have a long way to go.\u201d (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
\u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019re building a strong foundation. How long it takes to get that foundation, we\u2019ll see, but this is not being built on sand. This is not a house of cards. This is not sticks and timbers that the big, bad wolf is going to blow down.\u201d (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Get an insider’s look into the philosophies guiding new UConn head football coach Bob Diaco as he seeks to take the Huskies to a new level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":98447,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[131],"class_list":["post-97894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 02:28:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97894"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98755,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97894\/revisions\/98755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/98447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97894"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=97894"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=97894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}