Kansas State University Athletics
SE: Ben Newman: His Connection to K-State Head Coach Chris Klieman and Why He’s Excited to Work with the Wildcats
Jan 28, 2019 | Football, Sports Extra
By Corbin McGuire
Nearly five years before Ben Newman was in the Vanier Family Football Complex last week, telling K-State's players his story and getting them to rally around a message of daily improvement, "Pound the Stone," he was being bearhugged by Chris Klieman.
Then, the two had just met.
Klieman was North Dakota State's head coach. The Bison had just finished winning their fourth-straight FCS Championship. Unbelievable success aside, Klieman wanted another edge. So, he decided to bring in Newman, a performance coach, on the recommendation of Craig Dahl, a former Bison standout who was playing for the San Francisco 49ers at the time and who Newman was mentoring.
Newman's first thoughts at the request?
"Are you sure you need to bring me in? I think you guys have this under control," he recalled, laughing at the memory in a phone interview K-State Sports Extra. "You kind of come in and it's, like, 'Why am I here? Why did you bring me here?'"
Newman found out immediately after he finished that first talk to Klieman's team. Like he did to the Wildcats last week, Newman emptied out his heart to the players in the room. He shared how his past drove him toward a better future.
He told them how his mother died of a rare disease, amyloidosis, when he was seven years old.
Once Newman finished talking that day in 2014, Klieman jumped up out of his seat and "bearhugged" the man he had known for less than an hour.
"You're kind of walking away from that going, 'Man, this guy cares about his players. This is a relationship guy,'" Newman said of his first encounter with Klieman, who he often calls "Kli" for short. "You don't show that kind of emotion when you don't care about people."
In the years since, Newman has gained an even greater appreciation for K-State's new head coach.
Newman has worked for some great leaders in business and sports. His clients range from businesses like Microsoft to the United States Army to athletes in just about every professional league in the United States, as well as dominant football programs like Alabama and North Dakota State. (A more complete list of his clients can be found here.)
From his wide-ranging experience, Newman said he's observed that Klieman shares a number of qualities with some of the best of the best in both worlds, business and sports. First, he pointed to Klieman's attention to detail. Next, he listed his intelligence. The list could go on and on, but Newman finished with one final trait to highlight about Klieman.
"Great CEOs are never scared to leverage other people, to let them do their job," Newman said. "That's what he does."
Which is where Newman enters the picture.
A financial analyst out of college, Newman turned a hot start in the business into his first speaking engagement in 2006. An energetic, naturally talented storyteller, he said he "fell in love with the opportunity to help others."
So, he started writing books in 2008 and has published six since, including a few best-sellers. His first crossover with sports came in 2011 when his old high school basketball coach in St. Louis, Missouri, called to ask him to speak to the team before a rivalry game. His alma mater won against the 10th-ranked team in the city, and "the rest is history."
"That's literally how my work in sports started," Newman said, who has since shared the stage with notable athletes like Jerry Rice, Ray Lewis and Aeneas Williams.
Newman said his role, regardless if it's sports or business, starts with helping "identify individual's purpose, what's in their heart."
"If I understand your heart, then we can have a real conversation about your thinking and what's possible for you," Newman said. "If we can connect that head and that heart, you're going to start to show up differently and you're going to start to give more of yourself.
"If you can come in and start to understand that heartbeat of each individual and understand how everybody thinks, build a culture and identify why people want to work together, it's amazing the stories you can write."
To understand K-State, Newman did intense research on the program. He talked with Klieman multiple times about the players and his perspective on the current culture of the program he just took over.
A strong believer in the power of a simple message when driven with consistency, Newman racked his brain for one that would immediately resonate with K-State's players.
One day, Newman said, it just hit him: "Pound the Stone."
Newman, who brought a sledgehammer with him to help reinforce his message, got the idea from his friend, Joshua Medcalf, who wrote a motivational book by the same name. It centers on the stonecutter's credo, which was also used by San Antonio Spurs head coach Greg Popovich a few years ago.
It goes: "When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before."
Why, from Newman's perspective, did this fit K-State? In short, the program's tradition was rich. Wildcats, for decades, had been swinging the metaphorical sledgehammer to build a program with first-class facilities, a passionate fanbase and tradition of success.
"We didn't come into a program that was broken. This isn't a program that hasn't won for 20 years. Last year was a losing record and you lost three games by six points or less. The year before that you were 8-5; the year before that you were 9-4 and finish top 25 in the country; and a couple years before that you're winning the Big 12," Newman said. "This is a fantastic program. It's about coming in and shaping their mindset that we're all going to put our hands on the sledgehammer and go to work every day.
"To me, it's that shift in mindset that if we all can choose to work just a little bit harder one day at a time, this is going to be one heck of a story we write."
After his speech to the Wildcats, Newman met separately with 10 team leaders. Together, they set out to come up with four to five words that "identify who this team really is," which will be written onto the sledgehammer as a reminder.
Newman said the first word that came up, unanimously, was "family." It spoke to him about the quality of leaders on the team and the state of the program as a whole.
"They said 'family' has to go on there. That, to me, is one of those signs that you're in the right place. It wasn't 'win.' It wasn't 'undefeated.' It wasn't 'champion.' It was family. First one," he said. "These leaders are hungry, and they care deeply about the tradition about this program being a family."
This reinforced Newman's favorite part of the job: The relationships. Though his busy schedule keeps him from being at any one place for extended periods of time, he keeps in constant contact with players. Even when the season ends, good or bad, he hears from them, and vice versa.
Recently, he experienced what he views as perfect example of this.
Part of North Dakota State and Alabama's programs, Newman entered this past season working for the two reigning national champions of the FCS and FBS, respectively. The Bison entered the season having won six of the last seven FCS titles, while the Crimson Tide had won five of the last nine at the FBS level. Both made it to their title games again with undefeated records.
North Dakota State, with Newman on its sidelines, went on to win its seventh title in eight years. Alabama, however, fell in a lopsided game against Clemson. The next day, however, Newman's phone started buzzing with texts from both teams. The messages were similar in tone, too.
"Not a single message from the Bison had anything to do with winning or losing. Not a single message from Alabama players had anything to do with winning or losing. It was all about the brotherhood, it was the love, it was the family, it was, 'Man, what a great year.' It was all about relationships," he said. "It's those types of moments when you realize you're with the right programs and the right people, when people realize it's bigger than winning and losing."
Newman said he knows, without a single doubt, Klieman will create the same culture at K-State. Newman saw it his first day in Manhattan.
While the two walked through the Student-Athlete Enhancement Center in Vanier, Newman said Klieman spotted one of his players. Immediately, Klieman walked away from Newman and toward the player to put his arm around him and ask how he was doing.
"You would have thought he'd been the coach there for years," Newman said, who will return periodically to Manhattan to speak to the team and work individually with players. "I think what (the players are) realizing is this university picked the right guy. If there's anything I could say to the fans, it's that I can't wait for them to continue to know more and more about Coach Klieman's heart… because you got the right guy.
"I couldn't be any more fired up about the opportunity to be part of the program. I can't wait for the fans to watch him embrace these players and these players to embrace him, as the next chapters of the Kansas State football program are written."
Nearly five years before Ben Newman was in the Vanier Family Football Complex last week, telling K-State's players his story and getting them to rally around a message of daily improvement, "Pound the Stone," he was being bearhugged by Chris Klieman.
Then, the two had just met.
Klieman was North Dakota State's head coach. The Bison had just finished winning their fourth-straight FCS Championship. Unbelievable success aside, Klieman wanted another edge. So, he decided to bring in Newman, a performance coach, on the recommendation of Craig Dahl, a former Bison standout who was playing for the San Francisco 49ers at the time and who Newman was mentoring.
Newman's first thoughts at the request?
"Are you sure you need to bring me in? I think you guys have this under control," he recalled, laughing at the memory in a phone interview K-State Sports Extra. "You kind of come in and it's, like, 'Why am I here? Why did you bring me here?'"
Newman found out immediately after he finished that first talk to Klieman's team. Like he did to the Wildcats last week, Newman emptied out his heart to the players in the room. He shared how his past drove him toward a better future.
He told them how his mother died of a rare disease, amyloidosis, when he was seven years old.
Once Newman finished talking that day in 2014, Klieman jumped up out of his seat and "bearhugged" the man he had known for less than an hour.
"You're kind of walking away from that going, 'Man, this guy cares about his players. This is a relationship guy,'" Newman said of his first encounter with Klieman, who he often calls "Kli" for short. "You don't show that kind of emotion when you don't care about people."
In the years since, Newman has gained an even greater appreciation for K-State's new head coach.
Newman has worked for some great leaders in business and sports. His clients range from businesses like Microsoft to the United States Army to athletes in just about every professional league in the United States, as well as dominant football programs like Alabama and North Dakota State. (A more complete list of his clients can be found here.)
From his wide-ranging experience, Newman said he's observed that Klieman shares a number of qualities with some of the best of the best in both worlds, business and sports. First, he pointed to Klieman's attention to detail. Next, he listed his intelligence. The list could go on and on, but Newman finished with one final trait to highlight about Klieman.
"Great CEOs are never scared to leverage other people, to let them do their job," Newman said. "That's what he does."
Show up and #POUNDtheSTONE? tomorrow (@ContinuedFight)#KStateFB pic.twitter.com/YDdpglyWfN
— K-State Football (@KStateFB) January 24, 2019
Which is where Newman enters the picture.
A financial analyst out of college, Newman turned a hot start in the business into his first speaking engagement in 2006. An energetic, naturally talented storyteller, he said he "fell in love with the opportunity to help others."
So, he started writing books in 2008 and has published six since, including a few best-sellers. His first crossover with sports came in 2011 when his old high school basketball coach in St. Louis, Missouri, called to ask him to speak to the team before a rivalry game. His alma mater won against the 10th-ranked team in the city, and "the rest is history."
"That's literally how my work in sports started," Newman said, who has since shared the stage with notable athletes like Jerry Rice, Ray Lewis and Aeneas Williams.
Newman said his role, regardless if it's sports or business, starts with helping "identify individual's purpose, what's in their heart."
"If I understand your heart, then we can have a real conversation about your thinking and what's possible for you," Newman said. "If we can connect that head and that heart, you're going to start to show up differently and you're going to start to give more of yourself.
"If you can come in and start to understand that heartbeat of each individual and understand how everybody thinks, build a culture and identify why people want to work together, it's amazing the stories you can write."
To understand K-State, Newman did intense research on the program. He talked with Klieman multiple times about the players and his perspective on the current culture of the program he just took over.
A strong believer in the power of a simple message when driven with consistency, Newman racked his brain for one that would immediately resonate with K-State's players.
One day, Newman said, it just hit him: "Pound the Stone."
Newman, who brought a sledgehammer with him to help reinforce his message, got the idea from his friend, Joshua Medcalf, who wrote a motivational book by the same name. It centers on the stonecutter's credo, which was also used by San Antonio Spurs head coach Greg Popovich a few years ago.
It goes: "When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before."
Why, from Newman's perspective, did this fit K-State? In short, the program's tradition was rich. Wildcats, for decades, had been swinging the metaphorical sledgehammer to build a program with first-class facilities, a passionate fanbase and tradition of success.
"We didn't come into a program that was broken. This isn't a program that hasn't won for 20 years. Last year was a losing record and you lost three games by six points or less. The year before that you were 8-5; the year before that you were 9-4 and finish top 25 in the country; and a couple years before that you're winning the Big 12," Newman said. "This is a fantastic program. It's about coming in and shaping their mindset that we're all going to put our hands on the sledgehammer and go to work every day.
"To me, it's that shift in mindset that if we all can choose to work just a little bit harder one day at a time, this is going to be one heck of a story we write."
After his speech to the Wildcats, Newman met separately with 10 team leaders. Together, they set out to come up with four to five words that "identify who this team really is," which will be written onto the sledgehammer as a reminder.
Newman said the first word that came up, unanimously, was "family." It spoke to him about the quality of leaders on the team and the state of the program as a whole.
"They said 'family' has to go on there. That, to me, is one of those signs that you're in the right place. It wasn't 'win.' It wasn't 'undefeated.' It wasn't 'champion.' It was family. First one," he said. "These leaders are hungry, and they care deeply about the tradition about this program being a family."
This reinforced Newman's favorite part of the job: The relationships. Though his busy schedule keeps him from being at any one place for extended periods of time, he keeps in constant contact with players. Even when the season ends, good or bad, he hears from them, and vice versa.
Recently, he experienced what he views as perfect example of this.
Part of North Dakota State and Alabama's programs, Newman entered this past season working for the two reigning national champions of the FCS and FBS, respectively. The Bison entered the season having won six of the last seven FCS titles, while the Crimson Tide had won five of the last nine at the FBS level. Both made it to their title games again with undefeated records.
North Dakota State, with Newman on its sidelines, went on to win its seventh title in eight years. Alabama, however, fell in a lopsided game against Clemson. The next day, however, Newman's phone started buzzing with texts from both teams. The messages were similar in tone, too.
"Not a single message from the Bison had anything to do with winning or losing. Not a single message from Alabama players had anything to do with winning or losing. It was all about the brotherhood, it was the love, it was the family, it was, 'Man, what a great year.' It was all about relationships," he said. "It's those types of moments when you realize you're with the right programs and the right people, when people realize it's bigger than winning and losing."
Newman said he knows, without a single doubt, Klieman will create the same culture at K-State. Newman saw it his first day in Manhattan.
While the two walked through the Student-Athlete Enhancement Center in Vanier, Newman said Klieman spotted one of his players. Immediately, Klieman walked away from Newman and toward the player to put his arm around him and ask how he was doing.
"You would have thought he'd been the coach there for years," Newman said, who will return periodically to Manhattan to speak to the team and work individually with players. "I think what (the players are) realizing is this university picked the right guy. If there's anything I could say to the fans, it's that I can't wait for them to continue to know more and more about Coach Klieman's heart… because you got the right guy.
"I couldn't be any more fired up about the opportunity to be part of the program. I can't wait for the fans to watch him embrace these players and these players to embrace him, as the next chapters of the Kansas State football program are written."
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