jcblanco22
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I posted about his legendary detailed notebooks in another thread and went on the hunt for the original article. This offers good insight into the guy's passion for organization and football if nothing else.
From www.sanjosemercurynews.com:
San Jose Mercury News (CA)
January 2, 1997
Section: Sports
Edition: Morning Final
Page: 1D
TAKE NOTE OF THIS AN OBSESSION WITH DETAIL HAS HELPED DOM CAPERS CLIMB THE COACHING LADDER.
MICHAEL MARTINEZ, Mercury News Staff Writer
This is how the story begins: In 1981, when he was in his formative years as a college football assistant, Dom Capers received a Christmas present from his father. The gift was a leather-bound notebook used for recording appointments and personnel memos, the kind of thing most people put in a drawer and forget. But Capers kept it. He took meticulous notes on virtually everything that happened to him, day after day, month after month, year after year. And when each December passed into January, he bought a new book.
This is how the story continues: On Sunday in Charlotte, N.C., Capers, the Carolina Panthers coach, will stand on the sideline at Ericsson Stadium knowing he has prepared for every detail in his team's playoff game against Dallas.
Nothing is left to chance. Capers, 46, is structured and thorough and even obsessive about his life - descriptions he does not dispute - but he is never unprepared.
In only their second season, the Panthers won the NFC West title with a 12-4 record and qualified for the postseason faster than any previous expansion team. Free agency and the NFL salary cap were crucial factors, but so was Capers, a former defensive assistant with New Orleans and Pittsburgh who installed a blitzing zone defense and an attitude that spared the franchise of the usual growing pains.
''One of the key strengths relative to a football coach is the ability to create chemistry,'' said Lynn Stiles, vice president of player personnel for the Kansas City Chiefs. ''You can have all the talent in the world and still have a loser. But the great coaches have the capacity to bring out the best in their players in a positive way, and Dom has been able to do that.''
Capers' obsession for detail is nothing new. Even as a boy growing up in Buffalo, Ohio, he would mow neighborhood lawns and finish the edges with a fork. ''It's the only way I know how to do things,'' he has said.
And those who knew him during his early coaching days saw it, too. Capers climbed the ranks slowly but decisively, and his path took a distinct Bay Area route:
(box) In 1977, he was Stiles' defensive-backfield coach for one season at San Jose State.
(box) In 1978 and '79, he was an assistant at Cal under Roger Theder.
(box) In 1980, he was recommended to Johnny Majors, at the time the coach at Tennessee, by Vic Rowan, the longtime coach at San Francisco State.
''I enjoyed my years there,'' Capers said. ''As a young college coach, I grew up in the Midwest, and the philosophies there were a little different than on the West Coast. So my growing years gave me a little more exposure to the passing game. Bill Walsh was at Stanford, and it was a different approach to football than what I'd had.''
But everything seemed to register in his mind, Capers has said, and the lessons he learned along the way - from graduate assistant at Kent State and Washington to stops at Hawaii, SJS, Cal, Tennessee and Ohio State, then the USFL and NFL - stayed with him. It's the way he has always been.
''He had a great admiration for (ex-Washington Coach) Don James,'' said Theder, who hired Capers to coach the team's secondary. ''He talked about how Don took notes as a head coach and the work ethic Don portrayed to him. He was that way when he came to us - very focused.
A plan for his career
''Dom was one of those guys who was always doing the right thing to get where he wanted as a coach, like he had a plan his whole career.''
If he did, Rowan helped. At Rowan's suggestion, Majors interviewed Capers, then 29, for a position as the Volunteers' secondary coach. Majors was impressed, not just by Capers' demeanor but also by his attention to detail.
''I always had a rule: Don't come to any meeting without a notebook and pen,'' Majors said. ''Dom was always taking notes. He was a student of the game, very observant. He looks you in the eye when you're talking to him. He acts like he's interested in what you have to say, and quite evidently he is because he's been a fast learner and very efficient wherever he's been.''
Rowan, who said he sometimes acted as a pipeline to Majors, noticed Capers at SJS and Cal. What he saw was the same thing everyone saw: a fervor for coaching and thoroughness.
''I'm attracted to coaches who listen and take notes at every meeting, and then talk to you - not down to you - and swap ideas,'' Rowan said. ''I could see a lot of Bill Walsh (in Capers) in terms of attention to detail (and) techniques, understanding what the game is all about, looking at the next step, looking at why people do certain things.''
Capers, who was the Steelers' defensive coordinator for three seasons before being hired at Carolina, hasn't changed. He has elevated his note-taking to an art form, and his obsession for working overtime has become legendary. He is known to put in 18-hour days, usually sleeps on a foldout sofa in his office two or three nights a week and typically starts his day by 5:30 a.m. His wife is a flight attendant who arranges her work schedule so that she's gone on the nights Capers doesn't come home. They have no children and, therefore, fewer distractions.
One office is 'The Cell'
One of the two offices Capers keeps at Ericsson Stadium is downstairs near the players' locker room. It's called ''The Cell,'' and it's the place Capers retreats to sleep or work in private.
''I've got a radio down here, a shower, a john, a foldout bed and a desk,'' he told the Charlotte Observer. ''I've got everything I need. I could move right into a minimum-security prison and not miss a beat.''
It has been said Capers shuts himself off to the outside world during the season, intent on preparing for the Panthers' next opponent and sometimes oblivious to current events. When his assistants rushed to a TV set to watch the verdict in the O.J. Simpson murder trial last year, Capers wondered where everyone had disappeared.
''I really don't know what's going on outside, which is kind of the way I like it,'' he said recently. ''Then I can zero in on what I have to. That's what we try to do in terms of the team when they're in here.''
It comes down to detail, which is part of the reason Capers continues taking precise notes in his journal about everything from his meals to his jogs to the movies he sometimes sees. He is so meticulous that his autograph isn't an autograph at all; he prints his name in tiny letters that look as if they've been typewritten.
''Dom writes so small, it's just amazing how he can economize a single sheet of paper,'' Steelers Coach Bill Cowher once said.
Best way to avoid mistakes
Why? Capers insists that detail is the best way to avoid mistakes, that his notebooks serve as important reference material for the things he does.
''There's such a fine line between winning and losing in this league,'' he said. ''We talk all the time about whether you're an 8-8 team or a 10-6 or 6-10 team might be the difference in two plays in the season. It can swing your record one way or the other. Getting 11 guys on the same page takes a lot of attention to detail and a lot of coordination.
''I believe it's a game of detail and a game of little things that takes a tremendous amount of focus and concentration. What happens out there on Sunday for three hours is a reflection of what's gone on during the week.''
That's why he is always prepared. Always.
''I guess the best way to describe it,'' Stiles said, ''is to say that the same way Marcus Allen was born to be a running back and Ty Detmer was born to be a quarterback, this guy was born to be a coach.''
From www.sanjosemercurynews.com:
San Jose Mercury News (CA)
January 2, 1997
Section: Sports
Edition: Morning Final
Page: 1D
TAKE NOTE OF THIS AN OBSESSION WITH DETAIL HAS HELPED DOM CAPERS CLIMB THE COACHING LADDER.
MICHAEL MARTINEZ, Mercury News Staff Writer
This is how the story begins: In 1981, when he was in his formative years as a college football assistant, Dom Capers received a Christmas present from his father. The gift was a leather-bound notebook used for recording appointments and personnel memos, the kind of thing most people put in a drawer and forget. But Capers kept it. He took meticulous notes on virtually everything that happened to him, day after day, month after month, year after year. And when each December passed into January, he bought a new book.
This is how the story continues: On Sunday in Charlotte, N.C., Capers, the Carolina Panthers coach, will stand on the sideline at Ericsson Stadium knowing he has prepared for every detail in his team's playoff game against Dallas.
Nothing is left to chance. Capers, 46, is structured and thorough and even obsessive about his life - descriptions he does not dispute - but he is never unprepared.
In only their second season, the Panthers won the NFC West title with a 12-4 record and qualified for the postseason faster than any previous expansion team. Free agency and the NFL salary cap were crucial factors, but so was Capers, a former defensive assistant with New Orleans and Pittsburgh who installed a blitzing zone defense and an attitude that spared the franchise of the usual growing pains.
''One of the key strengths relative to a football coach is the ability to create chemistry,'' said Lynn Stiles, vice president of player personnel for the Kansas City Chiefs. ''You can have all the talent in the world and still have a loser. But the great coaches have the capacity to bring out the best in their players in a positive way, and Dom has been able to do that.''
Capers' obsession for detail is nothing new. Even as a boy growing up in Buffalo, Ohio, he would mow neighborhood lawns and finish the edges with a fork. ''It's the only way I know how to do things,'' he has said.
And those who knew him during his early coaching days saw it, too. Capers climbed the ranks slowly but decisively, and his path took a distinct Bay Area route:
(box) In 1977, he was Stiles' defensive-backfield coach for one season at San Jose State.
(box) In 1978 and '79, he was an assistant at Cal under Roger Theder.
(box) In 1980, he was recommended to Johnny Majors, at the time the coach at Tennessee, by Vic Rowan, the longtime coach at San Francisco State.
''I enjoyed my years there,'' Capers said. ''As a young college coach, I grew up in the Midwest, and the philosophies there were a little different than on the West Coast. So my growing years gave me a little more exposure to the passing game. Bill Walsh was at Stanford, and it was a different approach to football than what I'd had.''
But everything seemed to register in his mind, Capers has said, and the lessons he learned along the way - from graduate assistant at Kent State and Washington to stops at Hawaii, SJS, Cal, Tennessee and Ohio State, then the USFL and NFL - stayed with him. It's the way he has always been.
''He had a great admiration for (ex-Washington Coach) Don James,'' said Theder, who hired Capers to coach the team's secondary. ''He talked about how Don took notes as a head coach and the work ethic Don portrayed to him. He was that way when he came to us - very focused.
A plan for his career
''Dom was one of those guys who was always doing the right thing to get where he wanted as a coach, like he had a plan his whole career.''
If he did, Rowan helped. At Rowan's suggestion, Majors interviewed Capers, then 29, for a position as the Volunteers' secondary coach. Majors was impressed, not just by Capers' demeanor but also by his attention to detail.
''I always had a rule: Don't come to any meeting without a notebook and pen,'' Majors said. ''Dom was always taking notes. He was a student of the game, very observant. He looks you in the eye when you're talking to him. He acts like he's interested in what you have to say, and quite evidently he is because he's been a fast learner and very efficient wherever he's been.''
Rowan, who said he sometimes acted as a pipeline to Majors, noticed Capers at SJS and Cal. What he saw was the same thing everyone saw: a fervor for coaching and thoroughness.
''I'm attracted to coaches who listen and take notes at every meeting, and then talk to you - not down to you - and swap ideas,'' Rowan said. ''I could see a lot of Bill Walsh (in Capers) in terms of attention to detail (and) techniques, understanding what the game is all about, looking at the next step, looking at why people do certain things.''
Capers, who was the Steelers' defensive coordinator for three seasons before being hired at Carolina, hasn't changed. He has elevated his note-taking to an art form, and his obsession for working overtime has become legendary. He is known to put in 18-hour days, usually sleeps on a foldout sofa in his office two or three nights a week and typically starts his day by 5:30 a.m. His wife is a flight attendant who arranges her work schedule so that she's gone on the nights Capers doesn't come home. They have no children and, therefore, fewer distractions.
One office is 'The Cell'
One of the two offices Capers keeps at Ericsson Stadium is downstairs near the players' locker room. It's called ''The Cell,'' and it's the place Capers retreats to sleep or work in private.
''I've got a radio down here, a shower, a john, a foldout bed and a desk,'' he told the Charlotte Observer. ''I've got everything I need. I could move right into a minimum-security prison and not miss a beat.''
It has been said Capers shuts himself off to the outside world during the season, intent on preparing for the Panthers' next opponent and sometimes oblivious to current events. When his assistants rushed to a TV set to watch the verdict in the O.J. Simpson murder trial last year, Capers wondered where everyone had disappeared.
''I really don't know what's going on outside, which is kind of the way I like it,'' he said recently. ''Then I can zero in on what I have to. That's what we try to do in terms of the team when they're in here.''
It comes down to detail, which is part of the reason Capers continues taking precise notes in his journal about everything from his meals to his jogs to the movies he sometimes sees. He is so meticulous that his autograph isn't an autograph at all; he prints his name in tiny letters that look as if they've been typewritten.
''Dom writes so small, it's just amazing how he can economize a single sheet of paper,'' Steelers Coach Bill Cowher once said.
Best way to avoid mistakes
Why? Capers insists that detail is the best way to avoid mistakes, that his notebooks serve as important reference material for the things he does.
''There's such a fine line between winning and losing in this league,'' he said. ''We talk all the time about whether you're an 8-8 team or a 10-6 or 6-10 team might be the difference in two plays in the season. It can swing your record one way or the other. Getting 11 guys on the same page takes a lot of attention to detail and a lot of coordination.
''I believe it's a game of detail and a game of little things that takes a tremendous amount of focus and concentration. What happens out there on Sunday for three hours is a reflection of what's gone on during the week.''
That's why he is always prepared. Always.
''I guess the best way to describe it,'' Stiles said, ''is to say that the same way Marcus Allen was born to be a running back and Ty Detmer was born to be a quarterback, this guy was born to be a coach.''
