By Anthony Caruso IIIThe Capital Sports Report’s Owner/Sr. WriterChris Boden, the new Ferris State University offensive coordinator, recently took time to do a Q&A session with The Capital Sports Report. His interview is about his sports career and views.TCSR: who is your biggest role model outside of sportsCB: “I would say my dad. Both my parents are extremely hard workers and I’ve come to respect that over the years from their work ethic that they taught me.”TCSR: favorite mottoCB: “My favorite motto that I always preach to my guys is: count on me. I think it’s a phrase that you could tell somebody and mean it. It shows them that you are going to work hard to do your very best.”TCSR: any superstitions as a coach before gamesCB: “No, not really. But I do try to shake hands with every single player. That’s about a 100 players, but I want to go up to them to wish them luck. Hopefully, they will play their very best in the game. I call it more of a routine that I have, because I don’t believe in superstitions.”TCSR: any failures that has made you a better coach todayCB: “Absolutely! I think there’s been tons of failures. I had a goal as a young man to play in the National Football League, and obviously, I wasn’t talented enough to do that. I think it taught me a lot about the game, because I worked so hard to achieve that goal. That made me want to be a coach, and I’ve been a college coach for the past 20-years. I’ve been fired, like others with normal jobs, but I’ve learned that you can’t take it personally. Sometimes unusual circumstances take place that you can’t control that leads to you being fired.”TCSR: how has sports impacted your lifeCB: “It has tremendously impacted my life. It has taught me perseverance, to work hard, and to understand that not everything is going to go your way. You have to keep fighting for your goals. Sometimes you are not going to reach them, but as long as you are working to be the best you can be, you’ll be successful.”TCSR: what has been the best thing that competitive sports has taught youCB: “I think the best thing that competitive sports has taught me is to be a dreamer. I really believe that you can dream big – as I told you earlier that I wanted to play in the NFL – but at some point, I realized that I wasn’t going to be good enough to play in that league. Then, I put my energy into being a coach. And when I was younger, I didn’t know I could be a college coach; now I’ve been one for 20-years. It has been an unbelievable experience. If you focus on something, you can eventually do whatever you want.”TCSR: what keeps you motivated in sports as a coachCB: “I guess, more than anything, you want to win. You want to be successful. At the collegiate level, you’ve got to win in order to keep your job. You have to be a good teacher and work hard to be a good coach to be successful. You have to work your butt off in recruiting, too.”TCSR: why did you choose to attend Saginaw Valley StateCB: “It was about an hour from my home. They also had the degree that I wanted. I thought it would be a good school for me, and I enjoyed my time there.”TCSR: being a graduate assistant coach at Central Michigan UniversityCB: “I got a job out of college, where I was making good money. I had been doing it for 6-months, and I really didn’t like it. I wanted football, and I figured out that’s what I wanted to do the rest of my life. So, I was home at Christmas and was able to talk to my high school coach, who knew the coaches at Central Michigan at the time and made a call to them for me. They let me volunteer for a year, where I worked my butt off as a volunteer. I was able to earn a graduate assistant coaching position after that.”TCSR: being the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach for Urbana (Ohio)CB: “It was a good experience. I had to adjust from being a secondary coach at Central Michigan to being an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Urbana. It was a learning experience for sure. It helped me move on to Valdosta State.”TCSR: being an assistant coach at Valdosta StateCB: “It was awesome. I learned at Valdosta State the offense that I currently run. I learned how important football is in the South. It is truly unbelievable. I learned to appreciate how to live in the South, a totally different part of the country that I had been used to living in. Football is different and living is different in the different regions of the country. It made me mature a lot; it made me change and grow as a coach. I also met my wife down there, which I think is the best thing out of it.”TCSR: working with Hal Mumme at Valdosta StateCB: “It was tremendous. He’s one my very good friends and references. His offense is the reason why I moved down to Valdosta State and I still run it to this day. He’s a great coach and a great teacher. I really respect him. He’s done a great job with his life and career, as a coach. He really understands the game of football.”TCSR: working with Mike Leach, the former Texas Teach head coach at Valdosta StateCB: “I worked with Leach at Valdosta State for a year. He’s a unique individual; he’s definitely a character. He’s different than any person I’ve ever met. I don’t mean it in a bad way. He’s incredibly intelligent. I’ve talked to him occasionally, but you lose track of all the people that you work with over the years. I haven’t talked to him since that incident, so I don’t know much about it. I’m sure since he’s such a good, offensive-minded coach, he’ll land on his feet with a head coaching position in the next couple of years.”TCSR: thoughts on if he thinks Leach will become a college football analyst, like other fired head coaches, with ESPN, ESPNU, or CBS College Sports to stay around the game until other jobs open upCB: “I don’t think so. Those guys get paid so much at that level, so I’m sure he’s got a lot of money that he doesn’t have to work for a while. Tommy Tuberville didn’t work as a coach for a year [however, he did work as a college football analyst for Buster Sports and ESPN last season] before taking the Texas Tech job. I’m sure he’s going to be patient and wait his time out, before picking whatever job he wants.”TCSR: thoughts on Valdosta State’s rich football traditionCB: “Well, football is so important down there and it all starts at the top. The President and the Boosters put a lot of resources into it that they want to be successful. Winning in football helps the entire University as a whole. When you have those kinds of resources, you’re going to be successful if you have good coaches. Usually, they do. The program is one of the top in Division II football year-in and year-out, because of No. 1) their location and No. 2) they want to win.”TCSR: on helping Valdosta State to the 2002 National Championship gameCB: “We got beat with a 1:30 left in the game. It was truly heart-breaking. We went into that game undefeated and left that game with a 14-1 record. I had never experienced anything like, I sure hope to experience that again. I want to get Ferris St. back on the winning track. It is so exciting to show young athletes what that experience is like – playing in a game of that magnitude and to play on National television [ESPN/ESPN2] – you are treated like the big time. To get championship rings for being conference champs, it’s a wonderful experience that I had when I was a Valdosta State Blazer for 8-years.”TCSR: coaching a GSC Offensive Player of the Year at Valdosta StateCB: “I coached two actually. I coached Lance Funderburke in 1996, he was a quarterback, who finished second for the Harlon Hill Trophy, which is the Division II football Heisman Trophy. He threw for almost 40 touchdowns and 3,500 yards. I also coached Aaron Jenkins, who is the all-time leading rusher in Valdosta State history. Both of them were great players, and Jenkins is probably the greatest player that I ever coached. God blessed him with some speed that I’ve never seen before. It was truly unreal. He was a hard worker and a great young man, a classy individual.”TCSR: being the offensive coordinator at Texas A&M-CommerceCB: “I appreciated my first opportunity to be an offensive coordinator there. I called my own plays. We took an offensive that was dead last in the league and made it near the top in just the one year. We threw for more than 280 yards per game, while breaking several passing records. I had a wonderful experience there in 2004, the same year Valdosta State won the National Championship. So, I’m kind of tied into both programs, which allowed me to get the head coaching job at Northern State University.”TCSR: being in Texas to see what Texas high school football is all about and how it helped your team with recruitingCB: “Well, I wasn’t there long enough to get a great feel for it. But I did attend a lot of high school football games. I only helped recruit one team there, but everything is bigger in Texas, I’ll tell you that. The attendance at high school football games is just incredible. I was telling a coaching body of mine [June 23rd] about the facilities I would walk into at the high school level down there. They would have indoor practice facilities and outdoor practice facilities with putting greens that they practiced on. It was the elite of the elite. Football there is as important as Georgia and Florida and California. I haven’t been out there personally, but I had coaches recruit California.”TCSR: what it mean to him to be the Northern State head coach for 5-yearsCB: “I think it was an awesome experience. There are a lot of things that I would do differently, but there are a lot of things that I would do the same. It’s a tough situation to be successful due to the resources and location. But I appreciated the opportunity so much that I improved as a coach and as a person in the 5-years that I was there. I believe I did the best that I could by getting the most out of the players that I had. I didn’t do a good enough job to recruit there for us to be ultimately successful.”TCSR: being the 6th sixth-winningest coach in history with a 18-37 recordCB: “I think when I retire in 20 some years, I can be proud of that. I don’t worry about those things. It’s just like when I tell my offense to just play the next play. I don’t think about what happened the previous week, neither should they. I want them to improve on the upcoming week and move forward from there. That’s my thoughts exactly on that record.”TCSR: any advice from the recently-retired basketball coach Dan Myer at Northern StateCB: “Dan Myer is a great coach. I had the privilege of being on an athletic staff with him for 5-years. He’s probably the greatest individual that I ever met. He’s such a classy person, with knowledge that you wouldn’t believe. He knows more than I would ever know. I learned a lot from him. I appreciate how he ran his program. He had a horrific accident a couple of years ago, and I was in the area when that happened. It was a life-changing event for me, but a great life-changing event for me.”He lost his leg in the car accident, as he was leading his group of players to a retreat. They rescued him from the car until the ambulance got there. While he was recovering, the doctors discovered that he had cancer. So, his life needs to be a movie. It was truly unbelievable. He won an ESPY and got to speak at the ESPY show. He’s definitely a role model of mine and a very good friend of mine.”TCSR: what his expectations are for Ferris State, as the new offensive coordinatorCB: “I have high expectations. When we break the huddle, we say ‘ready, score.’ I want to score on every play, but I’m a realist, so I understand that it won’t always happen. We play in a very difficult conference with some great teams. It’s going to be a real challenge, but I think we have some good things that are going for us and I believe I’m a good coach that can teach our players this system. Hopefully, I can take Ferris State back to that high level, where it was in the 90′s. We believe we can get there eventually.”©™Copyright 2010. All rights are reserved to Anthony Caruso III. All original materials contained on this website are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of Anthony Caruso III, the owner of that content. It is prohibited to alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.Breaking the copyright agreement will result in legal action. 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