Luke Fickell opens up on impact John Cooper, Jim Tressel, Urban Meyer have had on his career

New Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell has had no shortage great mentors in his career. Playing and coaching for nearly two decades at his alma mater, Ohio State, Fickell has taken a number of lessons from the likes of John Cooper, Jim Tressel and Urban Meyer.

Playing for Cooper and coaching under Tressel and Meyer, Fickell learned oodles about how these Hall of Fame coaches went about leading one of the nations premier programs. He’s taken something from all of them over the years and incorporated it into his way of coaching.

“Borrowed, stole, become a part of — they’re all those things. And I think those opportunities, those situations have all shaped me. I was very fortunate to be in one place for a very long time but really be with three Hall of Fame coaches. From Coach Coop who I played for to Coach Tressel to Coach Meyer, three hall of fame coaches that have done it in many different ways. And that’s probably the greatest thing that I learned, that there are many different ways to do this. There are many different ways to lead. There are many different ways to win and to grow a program. But it’s gotta be you,” Fickell said at Big Ten Media Days on Thursday.

All three coaches imparted something different for Fickell, too. Cooper, his college coach, was a former soldier in the Army and had coached far and wide. Tressel, who Fickell coached under for nearly a decade, was iconic for his success and buttoned-up disposition. And Meyer’s seeming win-at-all-costs ethos supercharged Ohio State in the early part of the 2010s.

Fickell took all that he learned and parlayed it into a head coaching job at Cincinnati, where he led the Bearcats to the College Football Playoff. He was only able to do that, though, because he wasn’t trying to be Cooper, Tressel or Meyer.

He was trying to be Luke Fickell.

“It’s gotta be authentic. And it’s gotta be consistent and all those things. Taking things from each and every one of those guys that I was fortunate enough to spend a lot time with, whether it was five years, six years, 10 years — that’s a lot of experience,” Fickell said.

Fickell also served as the interim Ohio State head coach in 2011, stepping in for Tressel after an NCAA investigation ended his coaching career at Ohio State. That year, Ohio State went 6-7 — one of the worst seasons in modern program history.

Those months, he said, might’ve taught him just as much as all the years of serving under Hall of Famers.

“But the eight or nine months where I had an opportunity to kind of do things on my own really kind of showed me how important the true leadership behind all that we do is. The failures that I had, especially in those eight or nine months, probably as much as those other times with all those guys have really helped me be who I am. So I think there’s a shape and there’s a part of all of it and it doesn’t — you could come and you could see and recognize things from all of them,” Fickell said. “But I think more than anything it’s the ability to be consistent, to believe in what it is you’re doing and be authentic in everything it is that you’re doing.”