michelle gardner, arizona republic
·5 min read
Much of last season Arizona State football coach Kenny Dillingham spoke of his team's lack of leadership and accountability — particularly on the offensive side of the ball. The other intangible he talked about was not being able to respond to adversity.
Now, Dillingham is looking to address both by putting a renewed focus on the most inspirational figure the program has every produced — Pat Tillman.
Like last year there are a handful of players assigned to a "leadership" group. This season that group has been rebranded as the Pat Tillman Leadership Council. The group will meet regularly with the coaching staff and give input as to what might be needed to further the team's performance both on and off the field.
Dillingham spoke to the media ahead of Wednesday's start of fall camp. He is looking for his players to draw upon the characteristics the former Sun Devil and Arizona Cardinal exhibited but is also hoping it will help keep the Tillman legacy alive.
"What I’ve learned is we’re getting in an era where kids are 16, 17, 18. That was a long time ago. How do we make sure people are still being educated on what he did," Dillingham said. "This is a way that it gives TV networks and it gives people an opportunity to then spend 20 seconds reminding the next future Sun Devil football fans, anybody who's watching us play, it reminds them and maybe teaches an 8-year-old who Pat Tillman was. It opens up an opportunity for people to continue his legacy. We talk about leadership and that’s what this is about and what better person to be the name of your leadership team than Pat Tillman. Some things make too much sense."
Dillingham said the move was approved by Tillman Foundation. The 12 players chosen will be easily identifiable by a patch that will go on their uniform.
"The purpose for that is when you create something like that, every single snap of a game, or some time within that game that TV crew is going to say, `What’s the patch?' And they’re going to put Pat Tillman on the screen and it’s going to be a way he gets honored in every single football game we play."
The players chosen were not selected by Dillingham. They were voted in by their peers. It will not be a set number and Dillingham said it depends on how many make sense according to where the votes fall. Dillingham also wants representation from each class as players tend to have different relationships with those in the same class or position group.
"We’ll always have a mix of youth and vets. That number will change every year. It will be decided by how tight the votes are. If two people are two votes apart between six and seven we’ll carry seven. If there’s a big gap between six and seven, then six is the stopping point. It's going to fluctuate year by year because I don’t think one vote should dictate if somebody is ruled as a leader or not," Dillingham said.
The dozen selected are senior quarterback Trenton Bourguet, freshman quarterback Sam Leavitt, senior center Leif Fautanu, sophom*ore offensive lineman Sean Na'a, senior running back Cameron Skattebo, senior wide receiver Melquan Stovall, junior safety Xavion Alford, junior linebacker Keyshaun Elliott, senior safety Shamari Simmons, freshman defensive back Montana Warren and sophom*ore defensive tackle C.J. Fite.
"It's good to know that my teammates trust me and coach trusts me," said Bourguet, who was also part of the leadership group last season. "I have been around for awhile — this is my sixth year — so I have been through just about everything and I feel like I can relate to everybody on the team because I was in their position whether that was as a walk-on, a starter, a backup."
Fite, who was pressed into playing last year as a true freshman and will likely be a starter in 2024, takes the vote of confidence seriously as well. He not only was voted into the leadership group but recently traveled to Washington D.C. as part of a Big 12 initiative dubbed "Big 12 Beyond Borders."
Two representatives were chosen from each school in the conference and they spent five days on Capitol Hill where they met with congressional leaders, visited museums including the National Museum of African American History and the United State Holocaust Museum and took part in a community service project.
Fite thinks what he learned can be applied to his position as one of the team leaders.
"It is about looking at different viewpoints," Fite said. "Not everyone has the same background, grew up with the same things, so just realizing where they came from and how they grew up and how that shaped who they are or how they see things that go on in their life. They kept us very busy but it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot."
Dillingham said a good group of leaders that can set the right tone.
"How do you get everybody to go to a unified head space and that’s the challenge of fall camp," he said. "How do we get everybody — good and bad — to go back to the same rallying cry where we’re all in in this together. We’re all thinking about the same things. If you can get that, you’re going to be a team that wins games and you’re going to be a team that responds to good and bad."
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona State football coach names leadership group after Pat Tillman
