Some people might say that new Skyhawk head football coach Matt Griffin is too young to be from the old school. Actually, at 34, Griffin has old school values with new school flair. The Skyhawk mentor plans to mix old and new together and create a winning football program at Tennessee-Martin. Recently, Sports Information Director Joe Lofaro and Griffin sat down to talk. The following is the transcript of that meeting ...

SID: Let's talk about your family. COACH: I married my high school sweetheart, Lisa, and she is probably my biggest fan and more importantly she is my greatest friend. She is dreadfully honest with me, which at times isn't what I want to hear. Naturally she is my greatest supporter and I would have to call her my soul mate because we have been through a lot.

SID: Does she know football? COACH: Yes, a little bit, yes, she does and probably more than I would give her credit for. She is very inquisitive and I can remember there were occasions coming off the field here at Martin where she threw out some different things about what I ran on this situation. So, yeah she does, but she is not going to sit there and pretend to come off like some big-time announcer or anything like that.

SID: Tell me about your children. COACH: I have three children who are my greatest accomplishments in life, and they are awesome. I miss them right now; they won't be here for a few weeks. My 9-year-old Molly is a very bright little girl. My son Cullen, who is 7 years old, is very active and very inquisitive, and I have my 2-year old Garrett, who I think people will come to know, because he is kind of a "wild child."

SID: Coach you were here before and wanted to become a head coach, I would assume this is why you made this move. You have got a lot of work to do, where do you start? COACH: The first thing is to get my feet on the ground, get a staff together that I know will come here and be enthusiastic about coming here. I don't want to break anybody's arm, or twist anybody's arm, so to speak, to come to Martin and coach. They also have to understand that they are going to coach. I don't want guys who want jobs. I want guys who want to coach football. It is a game, it is fun and if they are having fun with it, then our players will have fun with it. The next step naturally, the most obvious step in this whole process, is to go recruit some players. Recruit good kids, recruit character, recruit kids who are motivated and want to set goals. I want kids who have a goal to get a college degree. I also want those same kids to have a goal to play in the NFL because that is important. Kids who set goals lofty or otherwise, any way you want to determine, are striving to achieve and will do anything you tell them to get to those goals.

SID: If there is a player out there who wants to play at this level, obviously you can't go find all these players, what should that player do to make himself known to Matt Griffin and UT Martin? COACH: Just do his job in high school, just play. We will find him. We are going to shake every bush and we are going to turn up every stone, and look everywhere. We are going to recruit hard, and recruit smart. We are going to know everything going on in West Tennessee and Middle Tennessee also. I think when a high school guy starts worrying about the recruiting process, getting offers from UT, Ole Miss or Tennessee-Martin or any other places, they don't play as well, because they are not taking care of the task at hand. They need to keep playing. We will get some kids on campus with some passing camps and some football camps, contact camps. We will have an opportunity for them to highlight themselves for us.

SID: What is your favorite part of the game? COACH: Well, when you get to X's and O's, and you played quarterback, naturally I love the scoring aspect and want to score a bunch of points, throw the football. I will be honest, I think one of the greatest things, I guess you can call it two highs -the first would be of seeing a young man going four years and graduating with a degree. The second would be a young man who goes to the NFL. Our jobs are created by these kids. We are here for them. It is not about Matt Griffin. It is about Michael Jackson, Ben Gallien or Shane Oldham and those fellows. It is about their success as students, athletes, as human beings, as people that we are putting out in society.

SID: You talk about kids and it's all about the kids. We have kids that worked hard last year. How will they adjust to Matt Griffin? COACH: I hope in a positive way. They are excited. I hope they are as excited about me as I am about them. I just finished a letter this morning that I will send to them over the break informing them of our first team meeting in January when they come back. They will meet the new staff and the staff will meet them. I will give them a January calendar for conditioning that we will all be adhering to and we will kind of go from there.

SID: Are you looking for position players or are you just looking for kids? COACH: As we evaluate those guys and look at them physically, and I would say if this guy doesn't play quarterback, his frame tells me that he is going to put on 40 pounds and play defensive end or he is going to play inside linebacker. I like recruiting quarterback-type guys for the simple reason that the high school coach is generally going to make their best player, their best athlete their quarterback, because he is always handling the football. I like those guys because generally they are winners, they are competitors, but just like every position, we will recruit positions we have to. I am anxious to do that. The guys have to have some character and have some work ethic. They have to want to achieve, they will want to be goal setters.

SID: Talk about life away from football for you. COACH: I try to spend it with my family as much as I can. That is hard in this business. Our summers are all standard in this profession. I try to stay active. I like to work out here and there, do some things where I am staying in shape and playing some golf. Golf is a little bit harder because of the hours away. As I may have said earlier, I try to get my wife and children playing golf. My wife has just taken it up. It will be a lot more fun here in a smaller town in this environment. I am excited about that. My son, Cullen, loves to play. My daughter, Molly, is a pretty darn good golfer. Those are things that I really like. There are days, and my wife will attest to, that I am a couch potato. I may sit and watch six movies that I have already seen.

SID: Do you have a favorite movie? COACH: Braveheart has to be one of the tops, I am a big fan of that. A Few Good Men. On the comical side, I am a huge Caddyshack fan. I like things that are inspiring. I like things that give you some response.

SID: Do you have a favorite actor? COACH: Really I don't. There are guys that I watch their movies, like Mel Gibson. Patriot is another great movie. I am a history buff. Being from New England and Boston, I can give you any facts about Paul Revere and the Trail, the English and the Revolution.

SID: What about actress? COACH: Don't know. I haven't gone to a movie theatre for a while. My wife and I used to go all the time, but with three kids it is pretty much rent a movie and that is it.

SID: Do you listen to music? COACH: Actually believe it or not, the coaches at the University of Maine are big country music fans, so we listen to that stuff in the office there. I like Top 40. I like some of the new stuff. Back in my playing day I loved things like AC/DC.

SID: Our marching band played AC/DC this year at halftimes. COACH: They are going to get kudos from me, because I am a big fan. Guns and Roses ... if they can work that in, a little Guns and Roses and Aerosmith would be great.

SID: If you can invite any five people in the world over for dinner, who would it be? Family not excluded. COACH: The first five that come to my head are my five college roommates. They played the offensive line in front of me. Maybe it is because you said five. Certainly there are some great friends in this business I would love to sit down with. The coach at Brigham Young. Jimmy Turner, who is the Godfather of my son Garrett, who coaches the offensive line at Harvard. Coach Cosgrove, who is fun. He and I with a cup of coffee are like a couple of old ladies who can make six hours seem like six seconds with just conversation.

SID: No Paul Revere? COACH: I tell you what as much as I like it, I think if I had to put myself back in time, it would be the Roarin' Twenties. As much as I love the revolution of history, I would like to be in Manhatten for a day during that time to just see some things.

SID: After football, what is you next favorite sport. COACH: I am a huge baseball fan. I love playing baseball.

SID: Are you a Red Sox Fan? COACH: A die-hard. I will go to the grave with them. Sometimes the Sox are hot in May and done in July. I like that. I also love hockey. I love the collision of it, the speed of the game.

SID: You will have to go to Nashville to see the Predators. COACH: I was fortunate enough before I moved from Martin; I was at the opening night of their preseason. My dad is friends with a number of guys in the organization. I was a guest of those guys there. I can't skate to save my life to be honest with you.

SID: Coach you talked about your dad there a minute, is he your biggest role model or motivator? COACH: I think so. He was in the grocery business for 30 years. I think that as I have gotten older and all through college. There was a day in my second year of college, I called up and told him you have been right in a lot of things. That wasn't hard to do because he was my dad. One of the things I emulated and think so highly of him is the fact that he raised nine children. He didn't own the grocery business until maybe his last 15 years. He was always working for someone else. My five brothers, two sisters and my mother are highly successful in life right now. They are happy, they have families, no one is in jail, thank God, or anything like that.

SID: Are you the only coach in the bunch? COACH: Yeah, my brother John is a Babe Ruth baseball coach. He loves baseball. I was actually the first of the boys to go to school. Since then one of my older brothers, Paul, has since got his degree and now he is a controller at a prep school in New England. My dad has been very influential and I am probably his biggest fan. He may be mine, I think he is, as he is of all of his children.

SID: Where are you among the nine children age-wise ? COACH: I am the seventh. I have two younger sisters after me.

SID: Where do your parents live? COACH: Yes, my mother and father actually live in Gardner, Mass., which is about forty minutes outside of Boston. It is the same town I grew up in, then we moved when I was in high school. That is where I met my wife. It is good to go home.

SID: Not only are you faced with the challenge of winning at UT Martin, you have two characteristics that are very uncommon for the South - you are Catholic and Irish-Italian. How are people are going to relate to you? COACH: I will be honest with you, I think that as they get to know me, I think they will like my personality. I am very outgoing. I like people, like talking to people. I can get in a conversation anywhere, anytime on any subject. I think when they walk away that I had a sincere interest in their conversation. I think that goes back to treating people the way you want to be treated. That is what I learned here the first time. That was more of a thought, maybe a concern my first time down. I am used to going to Mass and I love to go. I am looking forward to St. Jude's and seeing Father Joe and going there every Sunday. As I said before, religion, race, it is all how you treat people and how you want to be treated. I think the sincerity is going to show. I know this with the young football players, whether they are freshmen or seniors or in high school, you can't fool people. They are going to see right through you one way or another. Hopefully they will see a sincere individual when they meet Matt Griffin.

SID: When you talk about your players what are their different jobs and what is the priority? COACH: First they are students and secondly they are here to play football.

SID: How will you work your football players into the mainstream of the student body and is that important? COACH: It is very important. One of the things I want to do, is I don't want all my guys in the same residence hall. I want them to spread out. I want them to create their own ambiance on campus and I think that is important that theydo that. I am sure because of the change, some people may have some problem with that, players and what have you, but I am that guy and that is the way it is going to be. In the long run they will see why. I know they will come accustom to that and like it. Because as football players when you are on the field, you have to be a little bit off-centered so-to speak. It is a tough game, it is physical, it is hard. When you leave the football field I will expect all of our young men to be gentlemen and be scholars and to treat people the way they want to be treated. There is nothing I dislike more, and I can remember some of the guys like this who walked around campus with their chest out and their arms out to the side like they had a lot of books under their arms like they just came from the library, so people would know they were football players. Well I don't want that ego in my players. These guys, if they are doing what they are suppose to be doing in the weight room, they are going to stand out anyway. I want them to be regular people. Off the field there is no physical playing so to speak. There is no thumping around. I want the rest of the campus to see that. Athletes at some point, whether college or professional, there is some preferential treatment with things. I don't want people to think that these guys are getting it. I know there are some things that we will ask for because of the nature of the schedule throughout the course of the year, that we will talk about with Phil Dane and others, but nothing uncommon to the regular student. When they leave the fieldhouse they are regular students. I want to get that point across to them. I am sure we will butt heads with some kids for about two years. That is part of the process, that is my job to teach them and our coaches' job to teach them, and why we are doing it. Every young man that we recruit I want to come out of high school thinking that he is going to play at Tennessee-Martin and the NFL. You want to recruit those kids with high aspirations or high goals. Because they are going to do everything they can to achieve it. We have got to get the point across that less than one percent are ever going to get into a camp at the next level. So you are here to get your degree. All the people you interact with here, you never know when you will come across them later in life and how it is going to affect you.

SID: Have any of the players that you recruited ever gone on to the NFL? COACH: Yes, at Northeastern, a young man by the name of Jim Murphy was a quarterback, just an unbelievable character guy, a great person. We are still in touch. He got married last summer. My wife and I were at his wedding and that is special. I think when you get to that point you establish relationships.

SID: Is he playing now? COACH: Actually not. He was two years with the Patriots. He was in camp with them 1998-99. Matter of fact, Ernie Zampezie who was the coordinator for the New England Patriots called me before the draft to ask me questions about Jim. The first ten minutes I thought it was one of my roommates playing a gag, I didn't believe it was him. I was fortunate enough to go spend a couple of days and watch Jim in camp. Physically he wasn't a NFL caliber quarterback because all of his strength was speed, but mentally and the fact that he was a great competitor and had great character, he stayed on the practice squad for really a year and half and then spent six months in NFL Europe, which was a testament for the kid. It was nice of him to credit me with so many things but he did all of the work. He really did. Another, I did not recruit Chad Hayes, he was there when I got there. He became an All-American ... played in I-AA. He is now on the practice squad with the Tennessee Titans. He is doing great. He is going to be a player. The two offensive lineman that I recruited that are juniors at Maine right now, I am absolutely sure they will be in an NFL camp.

SID: Will you have any involvement with the Titan's organization. COACH: I am going to do everything I can to incorporate us with them in every way, shape or form. I spoke to Chad, about doing our passing camp here in June. I would like to do things where we can involve getting him to a team meeting. Kids need to see him. Chad is from Old Town, Maine, which is probably half the size of Martin. He wasn't a highly recruited guy, probably a guy like Shane Oldham. He was a skinny, great-looking frame kid, who came in a plugged himself into our program, put on 50 pounds in muscle mass and became a NFL tight end.

SID: Let me finish with just a couple of one-word answers from you. What is your favorite color? COACH: Navy blue

SID: Favorite book ? COACH: I guess a couple of books come to mind, Pat Riley's Success and Winning and Secrets of Success. Vastly from a coaches standpoint, it had some great points.

SID: Are you reading anything now? COACH: I actually read The Junction Boys in preseason. It was a good book.

SID: Favorite food? COACH: That is a tough one. I am a meat and potatoes guy. Probably steak and a baked potato. At my mom's house, lasagna.

SID: How far do you run? COACH: I go about 25 minutes and that may be it.

SID: Is this something you do every day? COACH: I try to get in a run every day in some way, but this past year has been hard. Usually around noon time.

SID: What time do you go to work in the morning? COACH: Generally 5:30 am, and that is the case we will keep here.

SID: Quitting time is … COACH: When the work is done.