With two Super Bowl rings and 14 years coaching in the National Football League, Manheim Central High School graduate Matt Nagy has reached the heights of glory in a sport that propelled him to stardom as a record-breaking high school and college quarterback.
But his life in football remains incomplete.
That feeling drove him to do extra study in the offseason, not in the film room dissecting plays or on the field assessing players, but attending leadership training. It’s also shaping how he interacts with college coaches recruiting his youngest son, Tate.
The now 46-year-old Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator’s first stint as an NFL head coach ended dismally in Chicago in 2021. And even as the Chief’s first preseason game this Saturday occupies his full attention, Nagy finds time to work toward his long-term goal — a second shot as an NFL head coach, one that will wipe away the disappointment in Chicago.
Still something to learn
“It was good for me to get back into that and get back into growing mentally,” Nagy said of the leadership summit he attended in Nashville in May.
It wasn’t solely about football. There were chief executive officers and business managers. There were military generals and colonels. There were football head coaches and position coaches. Some had lots of experience. Others not so much.
The mental challenge was part of what Nagy said was helpful, “And applying that to my experience as a head coach (in Chicago) where I went wrong, where I went right. … prepping hopefully for another opportunity to be a head coach. That’s important to me.”
Nagy’s time with the Chicago Bears got off to a fast start with a playoff appearance in his first year as head coach. He worked the team into the playoffs again before unraveling to a 6-11 record in 2021. He was fired in January 2022.
The experience has left him hungry to learn how to do better with a second opportunity.
The hunger has pushed Nagy beyond formal learning like the summit. He’s found himself very purposefully working to learn new leadership strategies from the many college head coaches who have been recruiting Tate, a high school senior who recently committed to playing at nearby University of Kansas next year.
Nagy said he’s taken special note of “How they (college coaches) do their jobs in terms of different CEO-type of leadership styles. I have a ton of notes that I’ve taken and listened to. I’ve soaked it all up.”
At Kansas, Tate will join big brother Brayden, who attends school there while also serving as a recruiting assistant for the football program.
“Brayden is actually doing an internship right now with the Chiefs,” Nagy told LNP — LancasterOnline in late July, at the start of the Chiefs’ training camp, held at Missouri Western State University.
“We’re one of eight (NFL) teams left that still go off-campus for training camp,” Nagy said.
That’s long been a staple for Chiefs’ coach Andy Reid. When Reid was the Eagles coach from 1999 to 2012, Philadelphia held its training camps at Lehigh University.
Nagy was at those, too, when he began his coaching career in the NFL with the Eagles in 2010. Sons Brayden and Tate were youngsters back then. They’ve since become battle-tested as their father’s coaching career has taken the family from Philadelphia to Kansas City to Chicago and now back to Kansas City.
