With football in a nebulous position and the recruiting process in a relative holding pattern, we at Golden Bear Report are looking to do interviews wherever we can. This week, we got Cal offensive line coach Angus McClure on to discuss his path to knowing seemingly everyone in Northern California and what got him on the coaching path.

This is part one of an interview that has been transcribed and lightly edited for clarity.

Previous Installments: Justin Wilcox, Part One | Justin Wilcox, Part Two | Charlie Ragle, Part One | Charlie Ragle, Part Two | Peter Sirmon, Part One | Peter Sirmon, Part Two | Aristotle Thompson, Part One | Aristotle Thompson, Part Two

TT: What sports did you play growing up?

AM: Football, basketball, baseball, boxing, I was into gymnastics, travel soccer, and tennis

TT: Was that a case of doing everything you could get your hands on at that point?

AM: Yeah, I was a pretty active kid and my mom tried to pull me as much she could into activities, and sports fit my physicality and my mentality and competitiveness. I was the middle brother in the family so I had a lot of angst to get out. I liked to compete and I was very fortunate to have all these different avenues to go out and do it.

TT: Were there any specific coaches in your high school/formative years that continue to influence you today?

AM: Bob Muster (head coach at San Rafael) and our line coach at San Rafael High, Dave Wiley was a big influence, my basketball coach Bret Tovani and my baseball coach Keith Frazier, all of those guys, Muster and Tovani were at San Rafael HS for 30 years, and Frazier was there 20 years, those guys were my mentors growing up in high school.

TT: Did any of those guys, being tenured coaches, give you a nudge toward coaching?

AM: In my freshman year of high school I became interested in coaching. I started observing a lot of my coaches more in a different light, and I was actually talking to coach Muster about it, and he said, ‘you know Angus, if you’re interested in coaching, you’re a baseball guy and you should go down to your local Little League and volunteer coach.’

That’s exactly what I did, I started coaching my sophomore year and coached Round Table Pizza as an assistant coach, that’s when the sponsor was the name of the team, and I continued to coach baseball through my third year of college, I coached summer baseball every year and really enjoyed, I did not only Little League, but they used to call it Babe Ruth baseball, which I helped coach the Marin (team), and that was high school age.

TT: How did you end up at Sacramento State from there?

AM: As the recruiting process goes, I was looking at San Jose State, St. Mary’s, I was looking at UC Davis, and it really looked like I was going to go to Oregon State, but they had a staff change. It was also the year, this was 1987 that the NCAA had the reduction in scholarships, it was the first year they dropped down, I believe to 85. The coach that was recruiting me to Oregon State was let go, he got let go in late January. Then it really came down to UC Davis and Sac State, and the opportunity to go up to Sacramento State and meet coach (Bob) Mattos and Mike Clemons, at that time they were in transition to moving to division 1, and I felt really comfortable with those coaches.

TT: How much did that time at Sac State influence you as to what you do now?

AM: It was a huge influence, I had some great coaches, some great offensive minds, Greg Knapp was a young coach, he had gotten done with the NFL and he was still a camp quarterback with the Raiders and the 49ers, that was his summer job, but he was a huge influence on me. A guy named Clancy Barone, who has also been a longtime NFL coach, he was a young coach and he was my line coach my senior year.

Coach Mattos and coach Clemons were huge, it was a great atmosphere to play college football in. Times were different, but it’s like the times we’re in now, with guys going home in the summer, coming back in August and playing, that’s how it was, might be this year. But they were a huge influence on me and they inspired me to get into coaching. They were always there as mentors and gave me great advice in my career.

TT: After Sac State, what spurred you into the coaching field?

AM: I actually was down in Arizona for training camp (for the Professional Spring Football League), and the PSFL was the new USFL, four of the teams, the West Coast teams, we were training in Mesa, Arizona. We were using minor league baseball facilities to practice at, we were staying at a local hotel. Anyway, about a month into it, they pulled the plug, surprise, surprise, which tends to happen with these startup leagues, so I went back to Sacramento. I went in and saw coach Mattos, and he knew of a local high school, McClatchy High School, which was looking for a young coach to be an assistant. He set up an interview for me, I went down for an interview, and they originally hired me as a freshman coach at McClatchy.

After my first day of practice, the varsity coach came over to me and said ‘hey Angus, you’ve had enough freshman football, you need to come help me with varsity.’ So I moved up to varsity the next day. I really enjoyed my time at McClatchy high school, I learned how to do so many things as a high school coach, having an opportunity to work with the kids in the offseason conditioning program, and became not only an offensive line coach, working with the tight ends, and being the defensive coordinator at McClatchy and being involved with special teams. That’s the great thing about being a high school coach, you get the opportunity to work in so many areas to learn football. For young coaches, it’s a huge opportunity for them to learn.

From there, I started working on my teaching credential at night, and started substitute teaching. I had quite the life, I’d get up early, get my phone call, get my assignment for the day to go find out where I was going to substitute teach. I’d teach, and after school was over, I’d go to McClatchy, work with the kids in the weight room. After that was over, I’d go to National University, take my credential classes, get out of there at 9:30 at night. Then typically three or four nights a week, I would go work as a bouncer at Key Largo, which was a local bar in Sacramento. I would go bounce, and that was the life I had for some consecutive years there (laughs).

TT: That sounds like an absolute grind, how much sleep did you get on average, because that’s a four hour sleep schedule at best?

AM: Well it trained me to be a college coach, because that’s about what I get now (laughs). You know what, I learned how to take a nap in my car, twenty minute naps are good, and I really enjoyed it. I was learning so much at the time, and I enjoyed doing my teaching credential, and I felt not only that it was making me a better teacher, it was making me a better coach. I had some great instructors that were inspiring and I enjoyed it. I got into teaching and I was an active teacher for quite some time.

TT: Something I skipped over in the beginning that I wanted to ask was why did coaching stick out as a profession that you wanted to take on?

AM: I think growing up, I was always so involved in athletics, and competing in so many sports, that experience and meeting so many coaches, it inspired me, it gave me interest to get into coaching. Originally, my goal was to be a high school coach, those were my mentors, that’s what I wanted to do. Having that experience and being in all those different activities, I took those things that I enjoyed from those coaches, I made it part of my repertoire. If you watch me coach, sometimes we’ll do some drills that maybe aren’t football specific drills, but they help with development and things like that. Sometimes it’s drills that I’ve pulled from other sports.

TT: I think I’ve seen some of the boxing-type stuff you’ve done in that arena with regards to striking…

AM: Yeah, football is still hand to hand combat and you still have to be, as an offensive lineman, a great hand fighter. I like to, whether I’m coaching offensive line or defensive line, I want to initiate contact. Using your hands is a big part of playing in the trenches, and with my boxing background, we use certain boxing techniques when it comes to different protections, whether we’re quick setting or jump setting or slide setting. I want our guys not to be catching defensive linemen, but attacking them.

There’s a little boxing there, little MMA, I’ve worked with some MMA guys, used it quite a bit when I was a defensive line coach, and it’s very effective. It’s great offseason conditioning and training for linemen.

TT: You said originally you wanted to be a high school coach, when did that make the jump to being a college coach?

AM: I was working at McClatchy, working as a substitute teacher, and I was looking to make the move to being a fulltime instructor, and a coach, Larry Ghilardi, he was at American River College, he recruited me to come work at American River. It was an opportunity to be part-time faculty and have a more stable teaching situation. During that time, I was always working football camps in the summers, and I had worked the Nevada camp and got to know the staff well at Nevada. While I’d take the job at American River College, I’d started to have more professional talks with the coaches at Nevada.

They were going to go through a transition, when coach (Chris) Ault, who was the coach at the time, was transitioning to being full-time athletic director, they were going to elevate Jeff Tisdel to head coach, and I had a good relationship with coach Tisdell. During this transition, they were looking for someone like me, someone with offensive line experience and tight end experience. I got a chance to interview and got the job to be the tight ends coach, and also a graduate assistant. To be a graduate assistant, it was an ideal position because I got to coach my own guys, I wasn’t someone else’s assistant, and I jumped at the chance to coach division one football at Nevada. It was good to go to Nevada, at the time they were making the transition to division one and were having a ton of success. They were one of the first teams in the country to be running a one back offense, it was created by coach Ault, the Air Wolf offense, I had the opportunity to go up and learn it and teach it.

TT: When we talked before, you talked about it being a ‘three digit system’ and a derivative of the Wing-T…

AM: When you learn a system, you want to learn the nuts and bolts and where it comes from. The system came from a wing T offense which Nevada ran for quite some time with coach Ault. As he evolved to a one-back system, he kept that terminology and numbering system, which is a very simple system, but it’s also something where you can put tags on it for different variations of offensive plays. It’s the terminology he always used throughout his hall of fame career, he not only used it as a wing-T coach, but as a single-back coach, which a lot of people hadn’t done at that point in the 90s. That evolved into the pistol offense, which people are still using to this day and having success with not only collegiately but in the NFL. I was very lucky to rub elbows with coach Ault at multiple times throughout my career.

TT: From Nevada you had the opportunity to go back to Sac State, how did that happen for you?

AM: I got to know the newer coach at Sacramento State John Volek, he’s an offensive line guy by trade, and we had a mutual attraction on football and football philosophy. Sac State had just made the move to the Big Sky conference. Being a grad assistant, as much as I loved my position, you’re always looking for a full-time paid job. Being a grad assistant is a fulltime job, but you’re not paid the same. It was an opportunity to go back to my alma mater, and he wanted to emphasize running the football and using multiple personnel groups and tight ends. That attracted me to go back to Sacramento State.

TT: You played offensive line and have coached both sides of the line, tight ends, and special teams, but what in particular made your interest that varied?

AM: When I played at Sac State, I was a tight end, on the offensive line, and I played special teams. When I coach at Sac State, I was the offensive line coach and became the assistant head coach. I think when guys first get into coaching, they coach what they know. I think the more you coach and teach football, you realize there’s a lot of carryover to other positions. Having a great background in doing things in multiple sports and at multiple positions, it always attracted me to learn what the other side of the ball was doing, find out the latest trends so I can stay on top of my game. I just enjoy coaching the game of football, and having a football IQ and things like that.

TT: Carrying on in that topic, you’re a big tech guy when it comes to football, to the point where one of your interns at Nebraska ended up founding Hudl, what influenced that use of technology?

AM: I think finding and creating better ways to teach and to try to use the latest trends and tools to instruct and stay connected with the players. When I was at the University of Nebraska, I believe they were the sixth school to get Facebook. At that time, when Facebook came out, you had to have an ‘.edu’ at the end of your email to join. I was one of the first coaches ever on Facebook. I used that tool at that time to connect with my players, then it evolved into football recruiting, then it evolved into what it is today.

I started doing that at Nebraska, I started getting into telestration, where you could leave the drawings on the video, you could screenshot it, use it in your presentations, use it in your position manuals. We really were trying to move more and make the experience easier for the athletes. At that point, that was 2004, we were still giving binders out and giving DVDs for the players to watch film. At that time, digital storage was so expensive, so that’s the way we had to do it, but we wanted to make it easier for the guys to watch film. I think that’s where David Graff started getting the ideas of creating Hudl. It’s amazing, because all the stuff we were creating and developing and talking about in 2004 is what Hudl really turned into, it has been amazing to see the evolution of Hudl.

Part two of this interview will cover how McClure made his way from Nebraska, to Buffalo, back to UCLA, then to Nevada and Cal and the Bay Area at large