First order of business for Stan Drayton: Build a strong alumni base and reinstate ‘Temple Tuff’

Stan Drayton pulled out a legal pad and pen while speaking with former running back Paul Palmer in his office. The newly appointed Temple coach scribbled down notes as Palmer spoke for an hour and 45 minutes about the Owls’ culture and his experiences in the program.

“I was appreciative of that,” said Palmer, a 1986 runner-up for the Heisman Trophy. “Because as much as coach Al Golden, Matt Rhule and Jeff Collins did, that was even more than what they had done, and what they had done was plenty.”

Since being hired on Dec. 15, 2021, Drayton has reconnected with former players to better understand the Owls’ traditions, and he’s incorporated standards based on those conversations. Whether it’s guys who played under Bruce Arians or Matt Rhule, he has emphasized an open door policy for all alumni.

The first step for Drayton was understanding the ‘Temple Tuff’ moniker. As a term that’s used frequently around Edberg-Olson Hall, it was easy for the meaning to lose its value, especially coming off a 3-9 season and four coaching changes in five years.

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When Palmer sat down with Drayton, he explained the “chip on your shoulder” mentality. Alumni — like Palmer and current Philadelphia Eagles Shaun Bradley and Haason Reddick — weren’t heavily recruited coming to Temple and felt like they had to fight for their spot.

While coaches instilled confidence in the team, the former players explained part of Temple’s culture is having leaders push the younger guys to compete for a starting position.

“I remember [Reddick] had brought me in,” Bradley said, “and a couple other guys to this cafeteria sat down like, ‘Yo, we need you to get the young guys on track. We need to keep them in line, so we can get this thing rolling.’ That was big because they saw me as a leader.”

Bradley was named a single-digit his junior year. Before that season, he looked up to Reddick, who was also a single-digit, because he was attentive at practice, efficient in the weight room and held the team accountable.

Drayton spoke with Reddick at the start of the spring practice season after he signed a three-year contract with the Eagles on March 18. Reddick also talked with the current players about his experiences and how he made it to the professional level.

Reddick’s story stuck with Drayton. He explained how he overcame two injuries in high school, stayed confident withoutany college offers on the table and decided to walk-on at Temple. Reddick’s perseverance earned him a full scholarship, and he was selected in the first round of the 2017 NFL draft.

“You’re supposed to work your tail off on a daily basis,” Drayton said. “You’re supposed to have the mindset to eliminate distractions. When they hear that coming from those players, it forces a sense of responsibility, you’re obligated to handle your business a certain way, you’re obligated to play this game a certain way not because I told you, because there was a guy that stood in front of you that is highly successful, that has made it in life that is doing great things.”

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Drayton plans to build a championship culture off Temple’s foundations and his previous experiences. He brought in staff from several programs with larger facilities, budgets and resources to aid in that process.

When Chris Fenelon was hired as strength and condition coach in January, Isaiah Graham-Mobley, who was a single-digit at Temple before he transferred to Boston College, recognized new member of the staff.

Fenelon previously served at Ohio State as an assistant strength and conditioning coach and worked with a couple current Boston College staffers. Graham-Mobley was familiar with the way they run the pace and tone of practices, which he believes will benefit the Owls’ program.

“Everything is very similar in terms of how everything moves,” Graham-Mobley said. “They’re trending in the right direction in terms of a strength program, because without a good strength program, you can’t really be a good team. That’s where you spend most of your time in the offseason, until the season starts, and then going into the season, you still spend time there, so you build all of your bonds within there.”

After Graham-Mobley left the program following the 2020 season, he said the previous staff didn’t make players feel welcome to return after transferring out. “You were no longer an Owl,” he said.

But when he came back to visit to get treatment this offseason, he met Drayton. The two spoke about why he left Temple, how he viewed the previous culture and what Drayton wants the program to look like going forward.

Graham-Mobley gave Drayton a mental picture of what Temple’s program should look like under his leadership.

Drayton wants former Owls to be involved in the process because they know what success looks like. Drayton said he’s not recreating the wheel. He’s simply reinstating values that have been in place in the program for generations.

“The whole meaning of ‘Temple Tuff’ is how I was raised,” Drayton said. “You’re going to fight through things. You’re going to treat people with respect. You’re going to have a chip on your shoulder and defeat all odds. That is what I’m bringing to Temple.”