How Will Healy changed Charlotte 49ers’ culture, delivered bowl berth

The images will forever be etched into the memory bank of Will Healy’s first season as the Charlotte 49ers’ football coach:

▪ There’s Healy, shirt off, jumping into a players mosh pit during one of the 49ers’ post-victory “Club Lit” locker room celebrations.

▪ There’s Healy, decked out in snorkeling gear earlier this month, walking into a meeting room to announce to his players that the 49ers had accepted a bid to play in the Bahamas Bowl.

▪ There’s Healy, reclining in a beach chair earlier this week, directing Charlotte’s early national signing day operations from a seaside cabana outside the team’s luxury resort in the Bahamas.

It’s all calculated by Healy, who, at 34, is the second youngest coach in the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision. He’s taken the 49ers (7-5) to the first winning season in program history and a berth in the Bahamas Bowl on Friday against Buffalo (7-5).

And as long as his teams win — and that’s been increasingly the case over his four-year career as a head coach at Austin Peay and Charlotte — he’s not changing.

Although there might be some people who wish he would.

“(It’s) egotistical fanfare,” griped one 49ers fan in an email to the Observer this week.

But that’s not indicative of the outpouring of support Healy has received from Charlotte’s fan base, which has been craving the kind of jolt of energy and, of course, winning, that Healy has provided.

That public persona — and, yes, Healy plays the gee-whiz, baby-faced Beaver Cleaver role to the hilt — masks what has made him one of the hotter coaching prospects in college football.

Healy acknowledged recently that he was contacted about job openings at Mississippi and Missouri. A source said that Memphis and South Florida also expressed interest in Healy.

“We’ve created a buzz,” Healy said. “I love that. There were some great jobs and great opportunities out there and, in some instances, family-changing money involved. But I don’t want to be the guy who jumps around every year.”

49ers athletics director Mike Hill is aware of that. Hill is soon expected to announce a contract extension for Healy, who is wrapping up the first year of a five-year deal that pays him $700,000 per year. Healy says he won’t accept a raise — any extra money will go to his assistant coaches.

“This profession is crazy,” said Healy’s dad Rob, a former player at Georgia Tech. “But Will has got such a love for the kids, such a love for the process, such a love for helping develop these kids into something bigger than just football. To be great husbands, great employees, great people in whatever environment they’re going to be in.”

‘I picked you’

Healy replaced former coach Brad Lambert, who was fired after last season.

“We didn’t know much about him,” said senior defensive tackle Tommy Doctor. “There were tons of rumors flying around, it’s going to be this guy or that guy. I looked him up. He seemed pretty young.”

On the day Healy was hired, he met with his new team for the first time.

“Raise your hand if you picked me,” Healy recalls telling the team. No player did (although Hill, sitting in a corner, said he raised his).

Healy then told his new players that he picked them. Because of that, he didn’t assume he’d automatically inherit their trust and affection. That would be something he would have to earn.

“He was like an open book, almost,” said senior linebacker Jeff Gemmell. “He’s young, so having somebody who’s closer to your age, you feel like you can trust him more. So I’m thinking he’s probably got a lot more in common with me than I know. There was some built-in trust, I feel like. He’d never had (an FBS) job, so I felt like he was going to work as hard as we would.”

Healy had come from Austin Peay, where in three seasons he had transformed the Governors from perennial laughingstocks into a solid, respectable program in the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision. Austin Peay, with players mostly recruited by Healy, advanced to the quarterfinals of this season’s FCS playoffs.

“I felt like him saying that he was picking us was more of a challenge he was making to himself,” said senior defensive end Tyriq Harris. “He’s going to show he really cares for us, even if we didn’t necessarily select him. He wants for us to feel like we would have picked him from the jump.”

Healy’s way of doing things was different than anything the 49ers had experienced before. It’s mandatory for players to shake hands with people after practice (which are open to the public), as well as around campus and in class. His insistence on positive, energetic practices has become ingrained — cameras recording body language make sure of that.

“Coaches always preach that kind of thing, but they don’t to the extent that coach Healy does,” said junior receiver Tyler Ringwood. “It’s a cliche, but when you see it with him, it’s contagious.

“But he’s well balanced. He’s a serious coach when he needs to be. He hones in on us, locks us in.”

Culture becomes natural

The 49ers opened this season with a 2-1 record, winning easily against Gardner-Webb and Massachusetts, and acquitting themselves well in a 56-41 defeat against now nationally-ranked Appalachian State. But then came a four-game losing streak.

Healy said he thought the culture he was trying to create — a winning atmosphere, based on trust and enthusiasm — was being taken for granted. He hammered his point home during the week before a 30-14 loss against Western Kentucky.

They haven’t lost since.

The next week, the 49ers rallied from a 14-point halftime deficit and beat North Texas 39-38 and a winning streak that’s grown to five games was underway.

“It took us a while to really get it,” said senior Ben DeLuca, who suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in the Appalachian State game. “He really got into us, saying there are things we want out of our culture, but we’re not doing it. If it’s not our culture, who’s culture will it be?

“Our coaches tell us to live it when they’re around, we’ll be all right, we’ll be a solid football team.

“But the great teams enforce themselves and do those things when no one else is around. That was the next step for us.You talk about having a culture, but culture is something that becomes natural.

Bahamas Bowl

Charlotte (7-5) vs. Buffalo (7-5)

When: Friday, 2 p.m.

Where: Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium, Nassau, Bahamas

Watch: ESPN

Listen: 730-AM

This story was originally published December 19, 2019 at 5:41 PM.