He’s not what he may appear to be: Kliff Kingsbury is driven, deep and disciplined

Talking to Kliff Kingsbury’s family and friends, there was much to discuss when he met The Athletic at the Cardinals facility to help provide a thorough understanding of the man hired to lead the team out of the cellar. For Part 1, it’s the football coach and how he arrived; Part 2, publishing Wednesday, delves into Kingsbury’s primary influences.

Let’s start with the picture. Because, really, if you’re not a Texas Tech football fan or a resident of Lubbock, Texas, the picture is all you think you know about Kliff Kingsbury.

It’s the summer of 2014 and Kingsbury is standing by a pool, his sunglasses on, his shirt off, his six-pack abs out there for all to see. Leaning into him are two bikini-clad young women.

It’s not the kind of photo for which, say, Bill Belichick would pose. Or, for that matter, most football coaches. They have wives or bellies. Either way, they’re not in that shot.

It was hardly a surprise, then, that the picture went viral and Kingsbury became more known for his looks than his coaching.

But what a picture isn’t worth a thousand words? What if it’s a moment in time but not a man’s lifetime?

What if it really isn’t Kliff Kingsbury at all?

Meet the coach

Three things you should know about Kingsbury, the 39-year-old Cardinals coach:

He does look like Hollywood actor Ryan Gosling.

“I had to go to a sorority with him one time,” said Cardinals wide receivers coach David Raih, who was on Kingsbury’s staff at Texas Tech. “He just had to walk in and say hi. Everyone was just screaming. It was like Bieber fever.”

The focus on his looks embarrasses Kingsbury.

As they left the sorority, Raih slapped Kingsbury on the back and said, “This is ridiculous, man.’

“Kliff’s got that big deep voice and he’s like, ‘D Raih, let’s just get back on the ball.’”

It was Kingsbury who halted the production of the “Our coach is hotter than your coach” T-shirts that popped up on Texas Tech’s campus shortly after he was hired.

“There were women wearing those all over the place,” said Klint Kingsbury, Kliff’s older brother. “He said, ‘You all have to stop doing this. It’s about the team. I’m not the deal here.’ He definitely does not like being the center of attention.”

Kingsbury watches game or practice video while listening to motivational strategy audio books.

“Some people listen to music. I like listening to books and learning things,” Kingsbury said. “Just trying to multi-task.”

That discipline was instilled in Kingsbury at an early age. He grew up in New Braunfels, Texas, about 30 miles outside San Antonio. Both of his parents, Tim and Sally, were teachers. Tim is a Vietnam War veteran and Purple Heart recipient, Sally was born on a farm and, said Tim, “knew all about hard work.”

“We grew up in a disciplined family,” Klint Kingsbury said. “There was never a question for us whether we were going to work hard in school. It was just part of what you did. It was just expected. I think that definitely contributed a lot to how we turned out as far being disciplined in our own lives. It was really good for our personality.”

Photo: Rob Schumacher / USA Today Network.

Kliff Kingsbury said his mother always woke up early, got a workout in, cooked breakfast for him and his brother and then made their lunches for school. Her example is why Kingsbury is an early riser as well. He’s often at the Cardinals’ practice facility by 4 a.m., has completed his workout by 6 a.m. and is already watching video when his assistants arrive; defensive coordinator Vance Joseph said, “Oh my God, we can’t beat him to the office.”

“I was kind of taught that if you want to be successful, get up before the crowd so I’ve just kind of carried that with me,” Kingsbury said.

The cost of those early mornings: Kingsbury said he’s in bed no later than 10 p.m. most nights.

“That’s the secret,” he said. “I go to bed early and try to get six or seven hours every night.”

Kingsbury’s parents didn’t have a lot of rules for their children but they had one steadfast philosophy: Do what’s right. It governed everything Klint and Kliff did, from school to athletics to the way they treated others.

Kingsbury never strayed far from that teaching – “We were for the most part pretty well behaved all through high school,” Klint said – because even as a young boy, he had a single-minded focus that left little time for distractions or shenanigans.

As he lay in bed at night, he’d toss a football in the air, convinced he was going to become the next Joe Montana, his childhood idol. When Klint and his friends were building a fort in the family’s backyard, Kliff would throw footballs into a trash can 50 yards away.

“I would laugh at him and say, ‘What’s wrong with you?’” Klint said. “But that was all, literally all, he ever wanted to do.”

Kingsbury’s obsession continued through high school. On Saturday nights, as his classmates and teammates at New Braunfels High socialized with friends, Kingsbury, by then the team’s starting quarterback, would go to the fieldhouse at the high school and throw footballs into a net.

“I just got such a thrill of playing that position and doing that I never felt like I was missing out on much,” he said. “Every now and then I’d take a date. She’d go run and bring the balls back. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Kingsbury’s fanaticism about the game didn’t spring from a sibling rivalry, as is often the case. Klint, two years older, was a talented athlete but Kingsbury never felt he had to outdo his brother. In fact, it was just the opposite. Kingsbury was so adept at every sport he played that he would trash talk Klint and his buddies.

“He’s got a natural competitive attitude that kinds of lend itself to a little bit of trash talking and that would lend itself to fighting with your older brother,” Klint said. “As the older brother, you feel like your little brother should succumb to you. You’re the leader. But with Kliff it was never that way.

“It was incredible. All my friends would want to come over and beat the heck out of him.”

Kingsbury ran track, played basketball and baseball as well as football at New Braunfels and in each sport he became known as much for his toughness as his talent. The trait was strongly encouraged by his father, who was New Braunfels’ football coach. Tim Kingsbury was shot in the jaw while in the jungle in Vietnam and sat through a dogfight for three hours before being rescued by helicopter. He often told Kliff that if a bone wasn’t sticking out, “You better get up.”

“That kid could take a beating,” Klint said. “There was one game I remember. We were playing Judson and at the time they were the best team in the state. Kliff got hit so hard just after halftime the guy almost knocked his head off. But Kliff jumped right back up, looked at the guy and went back in the huddle.

“After the game I told him, ‘That was awesome.’ He said, ‘Did we win?’ I said, ‘Yeah, you threw six TD passes.’ He said, ‘Man I can’t remember anything.’ He played the second half with a major concussion.”

Tim Kingsbury tells the story of Kliff coming in off the bench as a redshirt freshman at Texas Tech to play against the University of Texas: “He got roughed up pretty good and after the game his offensive coordinator called me and said, ‘Coach, I want you to come in here and look at Kliff. I don’t know if he’ll be able to play quarterback again.’

“He was black and blue, his chest, arms, everywhere. He looked like he had been in a car accident. But the next week he started at Oklahoma, came back and beat them. That showed his toughness right there.”

Football bonded Kingsbury and his father, but it was Sally Kingsbury who was the biggest influence in her son’s life. She was the one he could talk to when he was having a rough time. She was the one who encouraged him when he needed encouraging.

“His rock,” Tim Kingsbury said.

“My best friend,” Kingsbury said.

Sally was diagnosed with cancer in 2003. She underwent chemotherapy and radiation for a soft tissue sarcoma that had spread to her lungs but died in 2005, when Kingsbury was 26 years old and on his third NFL stop with the New York Jets.

Tim Kingsbury believes his son works as hard as he does because he’s trying to make his mother proud, an assertion Kliff Kingsbury doesn’t dismiss.

“She’s still a huge motivating factor in my life, trying to be successful, working hard and doing things the right way,” Kingsbury said.

One of the gifts Sally left her son was a desire to help others. While Kingsbury was at Texas Tech, he quietly made a $25,000 donation to 22KILL, an organization that offers helps to veterans and is named for the average number of veterans who commit suicide every day, according to a 2013 report by the federal department of Veterans Affairs.

“Kliff is one of those guys who does things for the right reasons,” said Jacob Schick, chief executive officer of 22KILL. “He doesn’t want recognition. He helps others — not to feel better about himself but to help them. It’s rare to find people like that. Kliff does it in a humble and gracious way to have a lasting impact on people’s lives.”

Zane Perry, the head football equipment manager at Texas Tech, said Kingsbury “went out of his way” to make sure medical expenses were covered for longtime administrative assistant Jennie Bailey, who died of a brain tumor.

“He was always helping everybody with lots of things that people don’t know about,” Perry said. “Kliff is the typical guy you want to be friends with. He’ll take the shirt off his back to help anybody out. And he doesn’t care if people have that perception of him or not. He doesn’t want that attention on himself.”

Football junkie

That kid who tossed a football into the air at night and thought he would be the next Joe Montana? It never happened for Kingsbury, whose professional career consisted of one year on injured reserve with the New England Patriots after being drafted in the sixth round in 2003, one year on the practice squad with the New Orleans Saints in 2004 and short stints with the Denver Broncos, Jets and Buffalo Bills.

After holding seven NCAA FBS records at Texas Tech, his NFL career stat line consisted of one completion for 17 yards.

Kingsbury’s failure to become the player he thought he would be is in part what drives him as a coach. He wants to make sure he does everything he can to help his players succeed.

“He’s the hardest working man I’ve ever seen,” said Jah’Shawn Johnson, a safety at Texas Tech from 2015-18. “He studies film like crazy and he’s one of the smartest guys I know. He takes everything seriously. He wants to be the best at everything he does. It’s the mentality he carries. … There’s nothing bad you can say about him.”

“He does have another life. He is single,” Tim Kingsbury said. “But he’s pretty much devoted everything he does to football. He loves it. That’s his passion. He’s always studying, always looking at other film and other teams. It’s what he loves to do.”

Joseph, the Cardinals defensive coordinator, believes those qualities will give Kingsbury instant credibility within the locker room.

“I think players respect a guy who can make them better,” Joseph said. “And you have to be honest and show your heart. That’s all players want. They don’t care about how you look or your experience. If you can help them get better and be honest with them, that’s what they want.

“Kliff has a great presence about him. It’s a quiet confidence and players will respect that.”

“The hardest thing in life is being consistent,” David Raih added. “If you want to be excellent, it’s about being consistent day in and day out. He’ll lead the whole staff in that regard and he’ll lead the team that way. That’s just who he is. He’s a man of his word and he’s totally straightforward.”

One last look

Back to the picture. It’s brought up late in the interview, an invitation for Kingsbury to talk about the public perception of him.

Almost imperceptibly, his body tenses, the movement suggesting that he’s tired of talking about it. If all people see are the sunglasses and the six-pack abs and the bikini-clad women, nothing he says will change what they think.

So why bother?

“I think people are going to say whatever they want about you but 99.9 percent don’t know who you are, how you operate, what you do or the level of work you put into it so, honestly, I’m not making this up, it doesn’t matter to me,” he says.

“I got over that a long time ago. Now it’s just about treating people the right way and working as hard as I can work and doing the best job I can for the job I’ve been given.”

(Top photo of Kingsbury with Cardinals president Michael Bidwill, left, and GM Steve Keim: Rob Schumacher / USA Today Network)