University of Tennessee Athletics
STRAIGHTFORWARD APPROACH
September 01, 2006 | Football
Sept. 1, 2006
By Austin Ward, UT Sports Information
He's a football coach.
John Chavis is not a politician.
He's intense and gets right to the point.
So the Tennessee defensive coordinator doesn't make any apologies if he doesn't feel like stopping to chit-chat with the media everyday.
"Well I'm a no-nonsense guy, and I don't need to waste my time," Chavis said. "I need to devote my time toward preparing this defense to be the best that it can be."
Chavis, heading into his 11th season as defensive coordinator at UT, has been doing exactly that this fall - preparing a defense that ranked among the nation's best a year ago for a tough early test against California and largely keeping his name out of the papers and his face off the television.
If Chavis is hesitant to open up to those outside of the program, it certainly doesn't bother anybody on the inside.
Chavis is famously focused, incredibly intense and a gifted coordinator.
While his players claim Chavis is much more of a talker than he lets on, he's still not one to waste any time getting his point across.
"He'll shoot you straight," junior linebacker Ryan Karl said. "He'll tell you what he wants, and he'll get what he wants."
"You can always tell that he says what he means," senior Justin Harrell said. "He's not going to beat around the bush with you. If he says you're not doing your job, he's going to approach you like a man and tell you what you need to be doing."
And the man knows what he's talking about.
Since taking the reins in 1995, the Vols have finished in the top three in the SEC in total defense eight times. UT defenses have held opponents under a 100 yards rushing average six times, including last season when the Vols finished second in the nation after giving up just 82.5 yards per game on the ground.
"I think we've been very fortunate that tradition never leaves," Chavis said. "It never graduates, it stays around and these guys have seen and been around some very good defenses. It's expected at Tennessee, and they expect it of themselves."
Chavis, in his predictably straight-forward fashion, is quick to point out that it's not through any special scheming or trick defenses that his units have been so traditionally tough.
"Effort," Chavis said. "We've got a saying around here that the magic's not in the scheme. The magic is in the effort. If we get great effort on every play, then we've got a chance to be successful."
Based on the success of his defenses, Chavis qualifies as a magician of sorts - pick a player, any player - pulling effort out of every helmet on the UT sideline.
"If you give all your effort, he'll put you in the right spot," Karl said. "He'll teach you the defense, and if you give effort you're going to be a good player.
"That's why you always see Tennessee defenses are fast and swarming to the ball, because if you aren't going full-speed you're not going to play."
Sometimes he doesn't even need to say anything at all to get what he wants.
Chavis says more nonverbally with a withering stare than he ever could in a lifetime of interviews, and the players have no problem getting the message.
"He definitely has a mean little stare down," Harrell said. "If he gives it to you and pokes his lips out, you know you pretty much just messed up and you're in trouble.
"He's one of the most intense coaches we have, and he's fired up every time he comes out for practice or a game. He's got a way of getting the best out of his players, and he's been doing it for a long time."
"That's why we call him `Chief,'" Karl said. "He's the head of the tribe. He'll stare you down and make you know that you did wrong."
It's there on the sidelines on Saturday, but the Vols see the same stare and intensity during the week from Chavis - which is part of the reason head coach Phillip Fulmer hired him in the first place.
"John is very single-minded," Fulmer said. "He's very intense, a very aggressive person, and he does the same thing in his preparation on the practice field as he does in the office.
"Back from the time that I was considering hiring John, everybody was on my butt about that. They wanted me to go get a quick fix there, some gunslinger, and John was sitting right here under my nose who I knew well.
"I knew what kind of person I had, coach I had, and the intensity. It was that intensity and that trust that made him a defensive coordinator, and I don't think that he's disappointed anybody."
Except for maybe the media, who don't get to see the softer side of Chavis.
The family man. The father figure to his team. The guy that Karl says, believe it or not, isn't always about 100 percent football.
"He might not talk to the media all that much, but he's real helpful with us," Karl said. "He'll definitely talk to us. He's going to get on us hard, but he's also going to praise us when we do well.
"And it's not always about football with him. We talk about God and religious stuff like that, and we talk about family life and everything else."
It's the family atmosphere, the trust developed between coach and player and the occasional joke that Harrell swears Chavis will make that has helped make the UT defense what it is every year. If effort is the brand Chavis is selling, his players would wait in line to buy it from him.
"Any coach you know that really cares about how you're playing and also your well-being, you just want to go out and do all you can for him," Harrell said. "He's a great coach."
Which is all Chavis really cares about being.
He said he doesn't have any friends in the media, and he doesn't want any.
"I do work with the media, I do what I need to do for the university, but I'm not going to go out and make friends with the media," he said. "I don't need any friends there.
"I'm a football coach and that's what I do by trade, and that's what I'm going to spend most of time doing."
