Florida football philosophy: Better people make better players

The clock was pushing 11 p.m., and Chris Reynolds was feeling good. His shift at the Florida football facility usually lasts until midnight, but there was a good shot he’d get home early.

“I might get out of here at 11:30,” he said. “I’d be happy for that.”

Reynolds is a custodian at the Heavener Football Training Facility. Keeping the 142,000-square foot complex clean is hard enough without its occupants acting like slobs.

In his 20-plus years of cleaning buildings at UF, Reynolds has seen some slobbery. I asked what it’s like these days.

Reynolds grinned and said — no joke — “It’s great to be a Florida Gator.”

Why?

The building’s primary occupants pick up after themselves. They greet Chris the Custodian as he pushes his cart down hallways and generally treat the facility like it’s their apartment and a date they really want to impress is coming over.

“Everybody has a part to do, you know what I mean?” Reynolds said. “When Coach came in, it was all about the buy-in.”

Coach would be Billy Napier, of course. He has preached buying into a new culture since arriving.

Coaches love to throw around the C word. But what exactly is “culture?”

“It’s a set of beliefs, values, that ultimately impact the outcome,” Napier said. “We’re big believers in that.”

It’s being accountable, unselfish, punctual, positive, courteous, disciplined and showing leadership. The basic philosophy is that better people make better players, and they’ll eventually make better contributions in the real world.

“I'm a firm believer that a player that lacks character, at some point, he's going to let you down,” Napier said

To which many a Gator fan these days would say, “That’s great, but I’m a firm believer that we should beat Kentucky. And at this point, I’d take P Diddy at quarterback.”

Granted, a good culture does not guarantee wins. But a bad one guarantees it will be harder to win.

So how does a team build a good one?

“Little things,” Ed Reed famously said.

The Hall of Fame safety famously said it in an interview with Joe Buck. He was referring to Baltimore’s locker room before the 2012 season.

Reed said players would leave towels on the floor. They wouldn’t walk three feet to throw wadded-up tape into a trash can. They expected the clean-up crew to do all the dirty work.

Reed ripped into his teammates, calling them “low-lifes” and demanding they show the clean-up crew more respect.

“We ain’t winning if y’all don’t do the little things,” he said.

At Florida, new strength coach Tyler Miles is driving home the Reed gospel. He learned it growing up on a Kansas farm, getting up to feed animals at 4 a.m.

There were no days off, no excuses and no shortcuts.

“You don’t just go through the motions,” Miles said. “You do the best you can.”

Reynolds has seen players go through the motions. A few years back, there was a section of the locker room known as “The Junk Palace.” Now, the locker room would get the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

“I mean, it’s our home. You want to keep it clean,” tackle Austin Barber said. “I don’t want to go home and have someone trash my house.”

It’s nice that players can eat off the floor, but will that really help them beat Georgia?

“I know it doesn’t sound like a big thing,” Miles said, “but that is a big thing. All the little things stack up and matter.”

Reed would agree. After the locker room rant, the players’ attitudes shifted.

“No doubt,” he said, “we started to come together.”

A few months later, the Ravens were popping champagne and hoisting the Lombardi Trophy in their locker room.

None of which means the Gators are going to win the Super Bowl this year, or even beat Kentucky.

But doing the little things matters. If their football skills aren’t good enough, they’ll at least have learned some life skills.

That counts for something. Just ask Chris the Custodian.

David Whitley is The Gainesville Sun's sports columnist. Contact him at dwhitley@gannett.com. Follow him on X @DavidEWhitley