Minnesota coach Fleck insists nothing he does is an act

First-year Minnesota football coach P.J. Fleck doesn't mind standing out in a crowd.

He wore the loudest jacket during his debut at Big Ten media day and called it a tribute to longtime Twin Cities columnist Sid Hartman. He recently rowed a boat across the infield pond during a promotional appearance at a horse track in Minnesota.

One thing that seems to bother Fleck, though, is when anyone suggests he's trying to be different.

"I am just me. I'm the same guy as Year One at Western Michigan," Fleck said Tuesday at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place. "Go back 10 years and see what I was like. Go back 20 years and see what I was like. I haven't changed a ton. I've always had a lot of energy, I love life and I love to be a part of something that isn't necessarily easy to accomplish and hence that's why we're here."

The Big Ten coaching fraternity includes a wide variety of personalities. There's the rightfully smug Urban Meyer at Ohio State, spotlight-craving Jim Harbaugh at Michigan, ultra-enthusiastic Pat Fitzgerald at Northwestern, quiet, but recognizable Lovie Smith at Illinois. There are a few guys, like maybe Paul Chryst at Wisconsin, who could walk down the street in most communities and never get stopped for an autograph.

But there's no one quite like Fleck, the former Northern Illinois wide receiver and Kaneland High School graduate. Energetic, outgoing and quirky are just a few adjectives that fit.

Fleck will have his own reality miniseries, titled "Being P.J. Fleck," on ESPNU. The first episode airs Aug. 2.

After a successful run at Western Michigan culminated in an undefeated regular season and Cotton Bowl appearance, Fleck decided to take his game up a level and accepted the head job at Minnesota. Fleck was no secret to the Gophers. Every player in the locker room knew what the new coach was all about.

"It was like, 'This guy's going to be crazy. The workouts are going to be fun, going to practice is going to be fun,'" defensive tackle Steven Richardson said. "All those held true.

"Coach Fleck is always on. I don't think he sleeps. Very energetic coach. I've never seen anything like it, not even on TV."

Fleck even referenced his old stamping grounds in the far western suburb of Sugar Grove when making the point that nothing he does is an act.

"If you go back and talk to my friends on Carriage Hill Lane, they'll tell you I was the same way," Fleck said. "The same guy in boxing, me against you. They always gave me the left-handed boxing glove. Why did they love giving me the left-handed boxing glove? Because I was fun to beat up and they loved watching me get my butt kicked because I just wouldn't quit and eventually, I'd just wear you down."

OK, so maybe not every group of neighborhood kids uses one-gloved boxing as a means of recreation, but the experience fit Fleck's personality. He was an undersized receiver who led Kaneland to back-to-back Class 3A state championships in 1997 and '98, willed his way into a scholarship offer from NIU and even spent a couple years playing for the San Francisco 49ers in the pre-Harbaugh era.

Fleck showed up at the Big Ten event with his head mostly shaved, both at the request of his wife Heather and the result of losing an unspecified family bet at Disney World.

"I kind of had a peninsula going a little bit," Fleck said. "She said, 'Listen, I really want you to shave that before it becomes an island.'"

Fleck isn't facing a massive rebuilding project. The Golden Gophers have played in bowl games the past five years and went 9-4 under Tracy Claeys last season. Claeys took over the head job midway through the 2015 season when Jerry Kill resigned for health reasons.

"What is a culture? It's connecting people," Fleck said. "When you hire a new coach, he has a different way of doing that than other people. That's not to say one's right and one's wrong. It's just, I have a different way of doing that."

Richardson listed some of the details Fleck put into the new culture at Minnesota.

"I'd say the music and the energy,"Richardson said. "He hits on so many levels, it's unbelievable. When we walk into the (football) complex, there's like a different scent in every room. It's crazy. You smell vanilla in this room, then you smell eucalyptus in this room. Then there's music always playing, so you're just always energized. … The culture he brought in, we all love it."

Fleck also has a thing where everyone in the program uses "elite" as a preferred adjective. Becoming elite is something that's taught and practice, the theory goes. Asked how he's feeling Tuesday, Richardson's answer was "elite."

"At first it was like awkward," he said. "Now it just rolls off the tongue."