The Power of Ohio State’s Positive Thinking: How a Formula Taught by Ohio State’s ‘Leadership Coach’ Sums Up a National Championship Run
The incredible ascent of Cardale Jones, Ohio State’s third-string quarterback who has carried the Buckeyes to the brink of a national championship, is as puzzling as any development in college football.
How does Ohio State have not one or two but three quarterbacks better than almost every other school’s? Why did it take so long for Jones to get any snaps? Could he really beat Oregon for the title next week and return to Ohio State’s bench next season?
But here’s the better question: How was Jones so prepared to play right away? The answer is that Jones, like every other Ohio State player, went through extensive emotional training over the past two years, studying a formula that he wears on a wristband on his throwing arm.
“E plus R equals O,” he said. “Event plus response equals outcome.”
This motto that Ohio State’s players have committed to memory comes from the Buckeyes’ “leadership coach,” a specialist who has won coach Urban Meyer’s ear, even though he won’t be found on the official football roster and his position doesn’t exist anywhere else in the country.
Tim Kight drilled Ohio State’s players over the past two years and redoubled his efforts with its coaching staff this season at Meyer’s request. His message—that a successful reaction isn’t impulsive but a skill that can be taught—has hit home with the Ohio State players who have harnessed a power of positive responses to every imaginable event.
“We focused a lot on how to respond positively,” Ohio State wide receiver Evan Spencer said. “That was one thing we harped on all off-season.”
Ohioans may roll their eyes, but Kight distinguishes what he does from similar practices across the sports and corporate worlds. “There are a lot of quotes, posters and best-selling authors that come in and talk to the team for a half-hour,” he said. “But what Coach Meyer has done with us is brought a systematic, disciplined way of building these skills.”
Kight’s presence around Ohio State is a radical twist on the typical motivational techniques in college football. But other coaches agree that there is only one way for outsiders to have a lasting impact on the players: They have to become insiders.
“Some places bring in speakers who are really good, but those speakers are gone,” new Florida coach Jim McElwain said. “Having somebody there consistently in your program on a day-to-day basis is as important as your offensive and defensive coordinators.”
Kight is around the Buckeyes all the time. He ate lasagna with Meyer on the night the College Football Playoff was announced. He spoke to the team in their hotel the night before they beat Alabama. Ohio State’s players have adopted Kight’s jargon as a result. To some of them, in fact, their guru is synonymous with his mantra. “Tim K.,” said safety Vonn Bell. “E-plus-R-equals-O guy.”
Kight, a consultant who is based in Ohio, met Meyer at a party in the coach’s home before last season. Meyer walked past a stranger eating hors d’oeuvres and wanted to know who he was and what he did for a living. He was intrigued by Kight’s answers, emailed him to follow up that night and invited him to Ohio State’s football facility the next morning.
After he worked with Ohio State’s players last season, which ended with two straight Buckeye losses, Meyer wanted him to do more this year. He asked Kight to concentrate on the coaches. Kight took them through an intensive series of workshops, some at 6 a.m., that went far beyond his work with any other organization. “Even our best corporate client hasn’t done it as well as Urban,” he said.
It turned out that no team would have as many events to respond to this season as Ohio State. Starting quarterback Braxton Miller went down with a season-ending shoulder injury just before the season started. His replacement J.T. Barrett fractured his ankle in the second half of the last game of the regular season. In the Sugar Bowl, the Buckeyes trailed Alabama by 15 points, a lead that Nick Saban had lost only once in the last eight years.
“Our guys were trained for this,” Kight said. “If you asked the one thing that has powered this team’s resilience, they’d say it’s a brotherhood of trust, and we play for each other. They were taught that. That didn’t happen by accident.”
Still, few people could have predicted Jones would play this season, or that he would lead Ohio State into the national championship. But the quarterback who started as a backup to the backup—and hadn’t taken a meaningful college snap until last month—proceeded to pick apart Alabama’s defense for 28 straight points in the Sugar Bowl. Of all the explanations for his sudden stardom, Jones himself credited Kight’s formula on his wristband. “I haven’t taken it off since I got it,” he said.
Not everyone on the team has bought in as much as Jones. “It hits some people,” said All-American defensive lineman Joey Bosa. “I’m just here to play for the guy next to me. I don’t need all that extra stuff to do that.”
Meyer, though, is a true believer. Before last season, Kight’s son Brian walked up to a whiteboard in Meyer’s office and wrote out their philosophy in black and red marker. “He said he won’t erase it as long as he’s the head coach at Ohio State,” Brian Kight said.
