Hiring Hafley: No Sales Pitch Required

Martin Jarmond never believed he needed to sell Jeff Hafley on coming to Boston College. The athletic director knew what his institution could offer a football coaching candidate, so he never felt the urge to talk about the location or the direction of the program as anything other than what it is. That would be enough for the right person, he reasoned, as long as that person's values aligned with what BC offered.

"I think we have a lot to offer," he said. "So I was looking for individuals who really wanted our job and wanted to be a part of our community. To me, BC is not a place that you have to sell, and you don't want to be in the business of selling. You want to be in the business of finding the right people, of understanding what's important to them and if that aligns with what you're trying to do. That's what (the coaching search) really was about."

That's why hiring Hafley felt like such a power injection to Baldwin's stratosphere. The Ohio State defensive coordinator brings his own brand of football credibility, but Monday's press conference brought perspective to the new coach's character. He choked up when he mentioned memories of doubters, and tears nearly flowed freely when talking about his family.

It became a very obvious validation for both sides. Boston College nabbed one of the hottest candidates in the offseason coaching carousel, and Jeff Hafley found a power conference university willing to take the leap of hiring a first-time head coach. It produced a genuine excitement for both the athletic director and the coach, and it became difficult to contain.

For Jarmond, the validation is unique. He's been at the helm of his department since the spring of 2017, a young, first-time athletics director navigating his way through the next stage of a power conference school. He believed BC had dormant power, and he spent the first two-plus years awakening it through various initiatives and hires.

Few things compared to the weight and gravity of hiring the football coach. He understood how football plays a role in the American sporting lexicon, and he wanted to ensure this hire stuck the proverbial landing. That meant using his own judgment with input from BC-based individuals as opposed to firm-based search occasionally seen throughout the country.

"It's not every time you have a first-time athletic director that doesn't hire a search firm to do a search of this magnitude," Jarmond said. "(Father Leahy) had the confidence in me and the trust in me and was there with me every step of the way. Also, three individuals that were critical for me for this whole search process: Jocelyn Gates, our senior associate athletic director; Father Jack Butler, our VP of Mission and Ministry; and Matt Hasselbeck."

It all enabled Jarmond to call upon his own personal experience over the past two years, during which he executed hires in several other sports, including women's basketball, women's soccer and volleyball. The experiences shaped how he wanted to approach finding a football coach, creating core pillars for a candidate.

"I think you have to have alignment in what you're looking for," Jarmond said. "They're very consistent for me - integrity, passion, a drive to compete and a teacher, someone that's willing to teach. It's not just tackling or how to kick a ball or throw a pass, but teaching you how to become a better person, teaching you how to become a better person, a better student and a teammate. Those don't change for me. I look for leaders."

It led him directly to Hafley, a candidate experts considered as the cream catch of the 2019 offseason carousel. Statements from Ohio State head coach Ryan Day, himself a former BC coordinator, and others echoed the sentiment with their own statements of support. San Francisco 49ers general manager John Lynch and defensive back Richard Sherman weighed in for the new head coach, and Dave Wannstedt, the former NFL head coach who served as Hafley's first FBS head coach at Pitt, endorsed the hire.

"Jeff fits all of those (criteria)," Jarmond said. "We've been very consistent with our approach and how we look at hires of head coaches. Leadership and culture are the two most important things, and he has a lot of the characteristics I was looking for and more. I think the distinct thing about Jeff is that he has those intangibles you look at it.

"He talked about a chip on his shoulder," he elaborated. "I like that. I like someone that's hungry. I like someone that just needs an opportunity because I resonate with that. It makes you go that much harder to try and be successful. You don't accept no. You don't accept failure. I heard some of those things the first time I met him and when I sat down with him."

For his part, Hafley's actions are the perfect complement to his words. He is seeing through his commitment to the Buckeyes in the College Football Playoff because he is indebted to his current football team. He wants that national championship for Columbus, and he wants to celebrate it with his team.

He also wants to get started with the Eagles. Being in Chestnut Hill on Monday only made him want to begin the process of assembling his team of coaches to work with the players who are now his own. He wants to begin awakening Boston College back to its past success, even as he wants to defeat Clemson this year with the scarlet and grey.

"I've been constantly learning," Hafley said of his coaching experiences. "From the start, people really taught me how to be a coach, how to treat people the right way and how to recruit. Then all of a sudden, I entered the National Football League, where you go into detail; you have to learn the big picture or you're exposed pretty fast, especially in the secondary. With that growth, I've balanced both since returning to college football, and it's been really helpful. I'm still learning. It's been an awesome process."

All of this, of course, leads back to the original statement. Nobody needs to sell Boston College. It's a place capable of selling itself because of the people. Both Jarmond and Hafley talked about winning with people, and the message is already extending to fans and donors. It's an energy injection for a program ready to shatter the ACC's glass ceiling, and it was a first step that everyone hopes ends with numbers next to schools and big time bowl bids.

"Since the announcement, we've sold a couple hundred season tickets," Jarmond said. "We've had the fastest renewal of season tickets in a two-day period that we've had. The excitement is translating into season tickets and donations. We just need to keep riding that momentum and capitalize. Like Jeff said, we have to 'get in.' We need everyone to 'get in.' It's really important."

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