""The club I'm at now is very, very similar," Hardwick said. "A bit of a laughingstock, a bit of a joke. People used to come to our place for a holiday.""
""He's a connector," Hardwick said of Lea. "We were fortunate enough to sit in his meeting, and I felt like running through a brick wall for him with the way he goes about it. He's just a very smart operator. The way he gets his people to do great things is what makes a great coach, and that's the reason I think they're having success.""
Damien Hardwick, coach of the Gold Coast Suns, watched the Netflix series Any Given Saturday and was fascinated by Vanderbilt's 40-35 upset of then-No. 1 Alabama on Oct. 5, 2024. That victory marked Vanderbilt's first win over a No. 1-ranked team and first over Alabama in 40 years. Undersized quarterback Diego Pavia and head coach Clark Lea led a cultural turnaround that transformed Vanderbilt from an SEC underdog into a legitimate College Football Playoff contender. Hardwick and four assistants flew to Nashville, sat in Lea's meeting and praised Lea's leadership and ability to get people to perform. Lea and Pavia are major reasons for the program's turnaround, with additional staff and players also contributing.
Read at ESPN.com
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