SE: On Podcast, Malone Chats with Coaches, ADs and Super Bowl Champs

By: Austin Siegel

He heard it during his football career, first with the Texas Longhorns and then the Detroit Lions.

It came up again as an assistant coach in the Big 12 and SEC, and when he was the defensive coordinator at SMU.

"Yep, go talk to Van."

The assistant head coach at Kansas State is no stranger to chatting with the media, an approachable, quotable presence in Manhattan since he arrived in 2019.

On everything from his favorite artists ("John Legend, Drake is OK, and I like Bach - you know Johann Sebastian?") to his cooking skills ("There might be people who come here from Indonesia to try my crawfish"), no one on the coaching staff is better at turning a phrase than Van Malone.

Consider it a lifetime of preparation for Winners Win, Leaders Lead, a podcast that Malone started last summer.

From coaches to athletic directors, conference commissioners and other leaders in the world of sports, each episode has been another unexpected opportunity for someone with 23 years of experience on the sidelines.

"I'm a coach, I'm not a journalist. Podcasting hasn't been around for that long, so I just viewed it as an interview," he said. "But once I got into that and viewed it as a discussion, not just an interview, but a sharing of ideas, then I personally got a lot more out of it."

Malone considers his podcast a way to follow through on something he hoped to do when he arrived at K-State and provide fans with an inside look at what actually goes on behind-the-scenes at a college football program. But his focus isn't purely on football.

Winners Win, Leaders Lead is also about leadership and all its different forms and functions. That's been an interest for Malone throughout his coaching career, whether or not the lessons come from guys in headsets who go to work in front of 50,000 people.

"The same thing that works at Exxon works at Kansas State. And it's the same thing that works at ABC High School," Malone said. "That's been a really intriguing part of it for me."

Guests this month have included everyone from Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive coordinator Todd Bowles to K-State Director of Athletics Gene Taylor.

Future Head Coach and 2021 Super Bowl Bound-Tampa Bay Bucs DC Todd Bowles shares his path. pic.twitter.com/Iap2qxjVu4
— K-State Coach Van B Malone (@VanBMalone3rd) February 4, 2021

Plenty of them have crossed paths with Malone in his career, episodes that feel especially personal. A particularly meaningful conversation was with Colorado Mesa head football coach Tremaine Jackson, who was one of the players that Malone coached in high school.

"To have him on was kind of a full circle situation," Malone said.

No matter where each guest on the podcast comes from, Malone hopes the interview might impact young people, whether it's someone preparing to embark on a career in business or a student-athlete on the verge of taking the next step after college.

It helps that coaching football is an example of something abstract that Malone has found to be true of many guests on the podcast.

"It's the same thing in leadership from different realms," he said. "Leaders want to pass on what they've learned, just like coaches."

In a recent episode with Taylor, the Kansas State AD recalled his career path from an intern in the Navy athletic department to leading 16 varsity programs in Manhattan.

KSTATE AD @KSTATEADGT Always Leads from the Front @KStateFB @kstatesports @KState pic.twitter.com/oSeGGXEJdt
— K-State Coach Van B Malone (@VanBMalone3rd) February 9, 2021

One of Taylor's first mentors was Navy AD Jack Lengyel, the former football coach played by Matthew McConaughey in the film We Are Marshall.

But Taylor also spoke of the Navy admirals at the school, men who spent their career in the military and still left a lasting impression on him during his time in the athletic department.

"It's just like the players that we coach," Malone said. "They all have different stories, but when you zero in, you realize that everybody had struggles, everybody had points where they could have gone to the left and they went to the right. Everybody had someone in their life who provided great leadership for them. When you lock in, you realize that we're all the same."

Hosting the podcast has also made quite an impact on Malone himself.

The K-State coach recalled something his Mom used to tell him: If you get the same kind of message from different kinds of people, those are the messages worth following.

"The podcast only lasts 30 minutes or so, but I'm always on with them for an hour," he said. "Like Cori Close, the women's basketball coach at UCLA who spent a lot of time with John Wooden. You can't talk to her for less than an hour."

In a profession where the NFL Coach of the Year is 38 years old and both of last week's Super Bowl coaches are grandparents, Malone said the most important thing he's learned is, well, never stop learning.

"In sports, there's this mindset, 'If they're not on your team, don't talk to them,' but this has given me the opportunity to dig into programs and organizations all across sports," Malone said. "I've been able to keep learning without leaving my office at Kansas State."

Kansas State University Athletics

SE: On Podcast, Malone Chats with Coaches, ADs and Super Bowl Champs

Related Videos