Former Rams coach gives leadership talk

Dick Vermeil may be the reigning world champion football coach, but he didn't have too much to say about the big game yesterday. Vermeil, who won the Super Bowl last year while coaching the St. Louis Rams, offered his leadership philosophy in a talk at the Wharton School yesterday. But his comments extended far beyond professional football, since much of his strategy works just as well in the business realm. Co-sponsored by Wharton's Leadership Program and the Office of Graduate Student Affairs, Vermeil's speech to a crowd of more than 100 graduate students in Vance Hall lasted over an hour and included a lengthy question-and-answer period. Vermeil, who says he's "inspired by bright people," also had the opportunity to be at the front of three Wharton classrooms today, working in conjunction with Management Professor Monica McGrath, the director of leadership development at Wharton. Vermeil spoke with McGrath's leadership management classes before addressing a standing-room only crowd in the Hoover Lounge. Throughout his talk, Vermeil stressed the importance of bestowing confidence onto other people. "You show more confidence in yourself when you show confidence in other people," said Vermeil, who now works for a venture-capital firm that has money earmarked for women and minorities in high-tech fields. He then went on to talk about his role with the Rams, using his hands-on approach in creating his team -- he met individually with every prospective player he was interested in drafting -- as a lesson in team-building in the business world. "It's very important to know exactly what you're looking for in a person," he noted. That way, he said, you can form a team that works well together and whose members have confidence in each other. Vermeil began coaching at the high school level, and moved through the college ranks at Stanford and UCLA, eventually becoming the head coach in Los Angeles. In 1977, he took the head coach's position with the Philadelphia Eagles. Vermeil drastically improved the Eagles, taking on the role of offensive coordinator himself. In 1981, Vermeil took the Eagles to the Super Bowl, where they lost to the Oakland Raiders. He retired as a coach after that loss. Then, following a 12-year absence from the sidelines, Vermeil was wooed back to coaching by the St. Louis Rams in 1997. After three seasons in St. Louis, Vermeil had turned the team with the worst record in the 1990s into the Super Bowl champions. When McGrath, who teaches classes on leadership at Wharton, learned that Vermeil was retiring from the Rams after his Super Bowl victory, she invited him to speak about leadership here at Penn. He readily accepted and was, in his own words, "excited by coming here." Other advice he offered was on how to handle adversity. "I use adversity to motivate," Vermeil said, but "if it doesn't make a difference in your success or failure, don't worry about it." When asked by an audience member why he retired only two days after the biggest win of his life, Vermeil responded matter-of-factly and with the same humor he exhibited throughout the whole forum: "I didn't want to press my luck."