Clark Lea's ally in Vanderbilt football's rebuild: Former NFL coach David Culley | Estes
The Sunday after the 2021 Colorado State game, Clark Lea’s first win as Vanderbilt football coach, the Commodores were taxiing out for their flight back home when Lea received a FaceTime call:
Lea was surprised. Not that Culley would reach out, but that he'd do it at that moment, on the NFL's opening weekend. Culley was about to debut as head coach of the Houston Texans.
“He’s in the tunnel about to walk out for his first game,” Lea said, “and he’s calling to congratulate me.”
They aren't old pals, really, these two former Vanderbilt football players from different eras. They struck up a friendship a couple of years ago, when Lea returned to Vandy and, about that same time, Culley was hired by the Texans. On a whim, Lea reached out. Culley responded.
They hit it off immediately, one an SEC coach and the other a coaching veteran of 44 years (28 in the NFL). With Culley having more time on his hands these days, that relationship is benefitting Vanderbilt's program.
“I told him anytime I could help him, feel free to give me a call," Culley said. "And he gave me a call.”
A Sparta native and member of The Tennessean's 1970s All-Decade Team, Culley was Vanderbilt's first Black quarterback. He returned twice to his old program in the past year, accepting Lea’s invitation to visit as an informal consultant. Culley quietly spent one week with Lea during the 2022 season and another week during this year’s spring practice.
During Vanderbilt’s spring game last month, the two stood side-by-side on the field.
“I’ve enjoyed it the whole time I’ve been there with him,” Culley said. “Basically, just being another eye for him. The fact that I’m so old and I’ve been around, he just kind of wanted to see if I had any knowledge worth giving him. I told him, ‘I don’t know if I’ve got any, but I’ll give you what I’ve got.’”
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'I was more disappointed than depressed'
Culley will turn 68 in September. He hasn’t coached – his choice, by the way – since being fired by the Texans after that lone 2021 season.
Houston’s decision was questionable then and remains so now, given how Culley held together the rebuilding 4-13 Texans. He won two of his final four games, and in the finale, his overmatched team kept fighting and pushed the visiting Tennessee Titans, who barely held on for a 28-25 win that secured the AFC’s No. 1 playoff seed.
Culley’s Texans didn't quit that day or during a lost season.
“I knew I had a football team that was all-in with me,” said Culley, looking back. That’s why he was so encouraged, he recalled, and confident in looking forward to another season: “It never even dawned on me that there was any chance that I was going to be fired.”
Culley doesn't sound bitter, but he loved that role with the Texans, he said. He wishes he was still doing it.
“I was so disappointed that I wasn’t able to show what I could or I couldn’t do,” Culley said. “To me, I was more disappointed than depressed about the whole deal. I got an opportunity. The first and only head-coaching job I ever interviewed for, I got it.
“And when I got it, I sat here and said, ‘OK, now I’m going to go show.’ Obviously, I didn’t feel like after one year that I was able to do that.”
As the Texans went 3-13-1 under Lovie Smith (another one-and-done hire) in 2022, Culley started taking time to do things he hadn’t in years: relaxing, playing lots of golf, spending more time with his family. Things he hadn’t done in four nomadic decades as a college and pro coach.
Culley said he has turned down opportunities from six different NFL teams in the past two years. Not long after being fired by the Texans, he briefly accepted one of them “and my wife looked at me like I was crazy.”
He called back to politely decline, saying he’d have to get a divorce if he took the job.
“There’s only a couple of people even in the NFL that I would coach for if they called me,” Culley said, “and I hope they don’t call me, because I don’t want to tell them no.
“But if they did call me, I would think about it.”
Leaving the door open
When Culley says he's good, it's believable. That he's enjoying his free time. That every day is like a Saturday. That he's getting used to that and would be OK with not coaching again.
And yet, he doesn't sound 100% retired. "The door is still open," he said.
You suspect that Culley isn't done with football, because he hasn't been. He has stayed around it. In addition to Vanderbilt, Culley said he has made similar visits to programs at Colorado and Penn State, where he reconnected with ex-Vanderbilt coach James Franklin, a former intern of his.
It’s different, though, when it’s Vanderbilt. His school.
Culley is a fan of the Commodores. And he has become a big fan of Lea.
“He understands the inter-workings of what Vanderbilt is all about,” Culley said. “He’s also homegrown. He’s from Nashville. … He knows what it takes, and he’s got a good staff there. He’s had some guys come and go, but he’s got a good staff there that understands, ‘Hey listen, this job is not for everybody.’”
Culley and his wife Carolyn still live just south of Houston in Missouri City, but they have a house and family in Sparta. They return every other month or so.
This past season, Culley spent South Carolina week as a fly on the wall with Vanderbilt’s staff. He’d show up for early meetings and often stay until late in the evening. As Lea pointed out, “Those aren’t hours of someone who is sitting back and enjoying a week.”
Two lasting memories of that South Carolina week: One, Vanderbilt was dealing with controversy over a social-media comment by an assistant coach that appeared to defend antisemitism. And two, the Commodores lost the game, 38-27, making five consecutive defeats that season and 26 in a row in the SEC.
It was a low point, in hindsight.
And that helped make the impact of Culley’s advice and support at that time something that Lea said he "really will always remember." Culley told him to stay the course, to keep doing what he was doing, to trust that he had Vanderbilt on the right path.
“It’s one of those points in time where, as a leader, it’s really easy to dig yourself a hole and to start just second-guessing and questioning,” Lea said. “I felt like David’s perspective really served to strengthen what my belief was – that we were on the right track, and we were looking for a breakthrough moment. That gave way to (winning) the Kentucky game and then the Florida game.”
When Culley returned this spring, he told Lea that he was impressed at how far Vanderbilt had progressed in a short time since last fall.
Lea hopes to keep these visits routine. He doesn't want to burn Culley out on them, of course, but he’d love to bring him back in the preseason, he said. That’s assuming Culley isn’t back in the NFL.
“He’s a special type of leader,” Lea said, “and he deserves an opportunity to run a program again, to run an organization. I’m anxious for him to get that chance. Obviously, I know he’s enjoying some down time. … I just don’t want him to get too relaxed, because the coaching world needs David Culley.”
Reach Tennessean sports columnist Gentry Estes at gestes@tennessean.com and on Twitter @Gentry_Estes.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: David Culley has been helping Clark Lea rebuild Vanderbilt football
