David Shaw, Stanford Football Head Coach: Developing Players On & Off The Field

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My guest today is David Shaw, head coach of the Stanford football team. In this episode, he talks about what it’s been like to coach players like Andrew Luck and Christian McCaffrey at an elite academic institution like Stanford and lessons he’s learned working with guys like Brian Billick and Jon Gruden. Coach Shaw has been pursued by NFL teams and shares advice on how he thinks about his professional career, what makes him happy in life, and what one NFL GM said was the reason he pursued him.

We don’t discuss it in the episode, but last year ESPN did a segment on his brother’s battle against a rare, aggressive skin cancer, and the hail mary blood marrow transplant Coach Shaw was able to provide his him, which saved his life. It’s one of the most moving stories I’ve seen and I urge you to check the link in the show notes to watch and consider becoming a borrow marrow donor by going to bethematch.org.