The 49ers' new coach gleans football insight from books on business management, once hired a special warfare expert as his team's sports science coordinator and sought coaching advice from a cognitive psychologist. He requires players to submit a urine sample every morning.
He doesn't seem to care much for huddles, either.
There are almost as many questions about Chip Kelly, recently fired by the Philadelphia Eagles after three seasons, as there were empty seats at Levi's Stadium this season. But in one regard, Kelly, who was hired last Thursday to become the 20th head coach in 49ers history, seems an ideal match for his new employer: One of the great innovators in football has come to the land of innovation.
Silicon Chip is a headset-wearing mad scientist with a New England accent, iconoclastic bent and raging curiosity. He doesn't think outside the box. He lives there.
"He has always asked about the why, always asked about the how," said University of New Hampshire coach Sean McDonnell, who has known Kelly for decades. "He's always searching to make something better."
Kelly, 52, talks fast, thinks fast and plays even faster. His warp-speed offense, created at New Hampshire and made famous at Oregon, revolutionized college football and has influenced the NFL.
But Kelly's unique approach extends beyond mere X's and O's, all the way to Zzzzzs.
Convinced of the benefits of sports science, Kelly hired a former Navy SEAL conditioning coach to oversee the Eagles' training. Players wore GPS devices during practice. Their heart rates and nutrition were monitored. Sleep patterns were examined. Urine samples were reportedly taken daily.
"Football gives him the avenue to converge information, technology and research on a physical field of play," said former Oregon coach Mike Bellotti, whose decision to hire Kelly away from New Hampshire in 2007 changed the sport forever.
SEEKING AN ADVANTAGE
Kelly will explore any angle that might provide an advantage and has a team of academics on his speed dial. He consulted with Harry Edwards, the Cal sociologist, when Eagles receiver Riley Cooper used a racial slur. He once brought in K. Anders Ericsson, a specialist in cognitive psychology, to discuss expert performance, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Kelly's core philosophy, The New York Times noted, traces to two management books, "Built to Last" and "Good to Great," by author Jim Collins.
"The only thing I've never accepted is, 'That's the way it's always been done,' " Kelly said before a 2014 tangle with the 49ers. "Give me a better reason than that."
Bellotti compared Kelly to former 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh. Born one month apart late in 1963, both can be blunt and dismissive. Both are relentless in their pursuit of success and have little patience for anyone who cannot help them succeed.
Harbaugh once joked that if you were to drill a hole in his skull and peek inside, you'd find a football. Kelly's footballs are in his closet. His mom, Jean, has given him one for Christmas every year since Kelly was a kid, according to the Oregonian.
"They believe in what they do," Bellotti said of Kelly and Harbaugh, "and let's just say they're adamant in that belief."
Kelly is loath to discuss his methods, whether it's his approach to play-calling or the details of his sports science program. His personal life is off limits, as well. Close friends and family members don't talk to the media -- they have been "sworn to silence," longtime coaching pal Mike Zamarchi told the Washington Post.
That same Post article, which focused on Kelly's shrouded side, revealed that he was married for seven years; dislikes green vegetables but loves beer; once ran with the bulls at Pamplona during an offseason; has been compared to Elon Musk, the inventor and Tesla CEO, by one NFL player; and is a fan of music from "The Lion King."
"There's plenty of weirdos in the NFL," one of Kelly's former players told the Post. "He's just a different kind of weirdo."
'HE REALLY WORKS'
We also know that Charles Edward Kelly was born Nov. 25, 1963, in Dover, N.H., and grew up in Manchester. That his father, Paul, was an attorney. That Kelly has three brothers. That he played hockey, football and ran track as a kid; was a quarterback and defensive back for the University of New Hampshire; and took his first college coaching job in 1990, at Columbia.
"He always wanted to coach," McDonnell said. "But he would have been good at whatever he did, because he's smart and he works. He really works."
Kelly returned to New Hampshire in 1994 for what became a 13-year run as an assistant coach and offensive coordinator. Midway through his tenure, Kelly went about the business of devising a new offense.
It was 1999. The Wildcats had just lost star tailback Jerry Azumah and needed a system to maximize the skills of the returning players. Kelly visited several college staffs, leaned on nuggets of wisdom collected over the years from clinics and conversations and devised a plan:
New Hampshire would spread the field to create space for playmakers, dispense with the huddle and play at a tempo never before seen at that level of football.
In order for the players to snap the ball quickly, the system needed to be simple, and the players had to be expertly conditioned.
"He's smart, he listens, and whenever he does something, he investigates fully what the outcome will be," McDonnell said. "Whether it was recruiting or study hall hours, he always had a good idea how it would work."
Kelly's connection to a member of the Oregon coaching staff led to an interview with the Ducks for their offensive coordinator position in the winter of 2007. Bellotti was sold but had to persuade Kelly to leave his alma mater for the Pac-12.
"One of the things I liked was that at New Hampshire, he had to do more with less," Bellotti said. "He thought about what you had to do to make players successful: 'How can we focus on our strength and mask our weaknesses?' "
SPEEDING UP THE GAME
As Kelly's offense took hold, and Oregon stocked its roster with players recruited for the system, the tempo increased -- no team ever played faster. That speed is a natural result of Kelly's analytics study. The faster the pace, the more plays and larger the sample size, giving the team that's in better condition an advantage.
More plays also give the offense greater margin for error: The deleterious effects of a bad play are reduced incrementally.
Bellotti stepped aside in 2009, and Kelly took over. He played loud music in the office early in the morning, won 46 games in four years and became the hottest coach in college football -- not only because of the victories but also the methods.
NFL scouts raved about the efficiency of his practices. Recruits flocked to Oregon to play in the cutting-edge system. He stared down coaching tradition by routinely going for it on fourth down and attempting two-point conversions instead of extra points.
On more than one occasion during his college career, Kelly was summoned to Foxborough, Mass., to discuss strategy with Patriots coach Bill Belichick.
"When Chip took over," Oregon assistant Don Pellum told the Oregonian, "a lot of the (Oregon) coaches were like, 'OK, we have to go look at what other programs have.' Chip was not real into that. Chip wanted to go visit Google and Yahoo.
"His deal was, 'I'm not worried about X's and O's. I want to go see the best environments.' "
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