FRISCO - New Dallas Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer was a star quarterback and team leader in high school, played the same position at the University of Florida where even as a backup he was involved in play-calling duties, and has been around the NFL game his whole life as the son of his late legendary father Marty.
So he walks with confidence. Or maybe even struts with confidence.
And he also talks the talk in the sense that a locker room and a football field can be a place where trash talk and profanity reign supreme.
And so as part of his obsession with being the best on the way to winning a Super Bowl? "Schotty,'' at age 51, is proudly sincere and proudly authentic.
And - horrors! - he uses dirty words.
Schottenheimer is putting his uniquely energetic brand on "America's Team'' with a surplus of what he calls "juice'' as he works during these OTAs here inside The Star.
He's got no problem talking Super Bowl (see below) ... and he's got no problem talking (expletive), either.
“If we’re not into it, not running around, not talking (expletive), then the players aren’t going to do it,” he said of his personal energy. “They’re going to follow our lead.”
Schotty does a lot of moving around here ... and in our observation of the three OTA workouts open to the media, his players are responding.
He's in constant motion, greeting, hugging, barking, laughing, scolding .. coaching.
Oh, and talking (expletive).
“The way we practice and the way I act at practice, my father is looking down from heaven going, ‘What are you doing? That’s not how you practice,” Schottenheimer said with a laugh. “But my father also coached a long time ago.''
Marty, passed away in 2021 at age 77, wasn't necessarily a trash talker. But "locker-room language''?
Yes. That. Where do you think Brian learned it from?
"When we show (the players) that we're going to let our personality shine, then they're going to do (the same),'' Schotty said in our media session of his philosophy ... before he trotted out to the practice field here at The Star to presumably talk more (expletive).