MADISON, Wis. – After watching North Carolina men’s basketball coach Roy Williams get choked up during his retirement press conference last week, Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez wanted to make sure the day he announced his retirement after 32 year at the University of Wisconsin was full of stories and laughter and not tears and choked-up emotion.
“I wanted to try and make it fun,” Alvarez said.
Badgers football head coach Paul Chryst was one of the many who applauded the achievements of Alvarez, who made it official Tuesday that he will step down from his role as UW’s athletic director at the end of June. But as someone who has spent 15 years working for Alvarez, the seventh-year head coach admitted a selfish sadness in moving forward without his long-time boss.
“Every time I had an opportunity to work for Coach Alvarez, you just wanted to do your part,” Chryst said. “Every day that I had a chance to work for him, I truly enjoyed it (and) appreciated it.”
Chryst is of the unique position where he was hired three times by Alvarez, first as the UW tight ends coach in 2002, then the offensive coordinator position in 2005 and finally hired from Pittsburgh to coach his Alma Mater in December 2014. With Chryst and Alvarez working together at Wisconsin, the Badgers football program is 134-47 (.740)
“I’ve always felt fortunate to be working for him and with him,” Chryst said. “I think that so many of what his core beliefs and attitudes (are), that’s always what I appreciate from working with Coach Alvarez. It is real what drove him. Obviously, there’s a competitive part of him, no doubt, and yet truly the love of the student-athletes, love of the game and competition. Really in all the roles I was fortunate to be with Coach under, those resonated and those were true every time.”
While Chryst takes a lot of his offensive philosophies from Mike Riley, the former Nebraska head coach who Chryst worked for in college (Oregon State), semi-professional (San Antonio) and the NFL level (San Diego Chargers), he said part of the draw from joining Alvarez’s staff on multiple occasions was learning things on multiple fronts.
When Chryst was hired the first time, he remembers a staff full of different coaching styles that was ultimately successful in an 8-6 season that culminated with an upset over No.14 Colorado in the Alamo Bowl.
“I asked him what kind of coach does he want?” Chryst recalled. “I appreciated then and try to take this forward in everything I’ve done. He said trust yourself and be who you are. I thought that resonated then and it still resonates now. I’ve always admired the way he approached the game.”
While individuality is important, Alvarez did create a blueprint for how to be a successful Wisconsin football head coach. The rapid turnaround of the program in the early 1990s came in part from Alvarez being able to successfully keep the best high school recruits from playing for programs other than Wisconsin. With that philosophy beginning to wane when Chryst took over as head coach, Wisconsin rebuilt the wall in the state. This fall, the Badgers are expected to have 25 scholarship players from the state on their roster, easily the highest of any state.
“Each year you got to work at that, but I know that when Coach was at Iowa, we had a lot of players that left the state that were good players elsewhere,” Chryst said. “When I was an assistant for Coach Alvarez and coming back, you take a look at it and there’s a really good football players from the state. To be the best team we can be, and I still believe it’s true and Coach said it a long time ago, you’ve got to start with getting the best kids in-state. It was a big part of what he believed in, and certainly learned that lesson quickly from him.”
Calling Alvarez the best athletic director he’s been with, Chryst said he’s confident in the school’s process to find the next in line, even though they will certainly have a different style.
“There’s one Barry Alvarez,” Chryst said. “Wisconsin is a special place, and what we’re doing, we’ll get the right person I’m sure.”
