Years earlier than he was an assistant quarterbacks coach for the Miami Dolphins, Chandler Henley was an all-state large receiver at Mullen Excessive Faculty in Colorado. After a 12 months at Choate Rosemary Corridor preparatory faculty in Connecticut, he focused an Ivy League faculty to proceed his enjoying profession.
He visited Yale in January 2002 and was assigned to a freshman host. Whereas enjoying video video games in his condo, the host instructed Henley just a few guys from the staff had been coming over. One of many gamers who walked in was instantly acquainted to Henley — an undersized large receiver from Colorado’s Smoky Hill Excessive Faculty, one in all Mullen’s convention rivals, whose title all the time appeared to look subsequent to his within the native newspaper.
Mike McDaniel.
McDaniel had enrolled at Yale the 12 months earlier than and walked onto the soccer staff, the place former teammates and coaches instructed ESPN he instantly displayed an acumen for the sport and talent to show that set him aside from his teammates.
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“He was all ball. And I feel that from day one, he simply ate the stuff up,” stated former Yale quarterback Jeff Mroz, who performed with McDaniel from 2002 to 2005. “You’ll be able to inform — both you have got a love for the sport or you do not. And it was apparent that Mike had an actual love for the sport. I feel that is form of the basis of what he is been capable of construct off of.
“There is a ardour, there is a love, and if he will dedicate his life to it, he is acquired to be all-in. And Mike, from once I met him, he is all the time been all-in.”
All instructed, McDaniel spent 4 years as a large receiver at Yale — two on the JV staff earlier than being elevated to varsity his junior 12 months. His title might not present up within the Yale stat ebook, however McDaniel established himself as a frontrunner, a player-coach, a movie room guru and, pound-for-pound, one of many strongest gamers on the staff. He attended the varsity and continued his soccer dream as a participant, however shortly realized he was a protracted shot to ever see the sector.
“I spotted, live-speed, the entire thing that I have been on the journey for — wasn’t completely in attain,” McDaniel stated. “I instantly turned to the higher athletes and instructed them issues that I noticed and thought, and fairly shortly had a pure capacity to convey issues in order that they may perceive. After which that form of gave me a transition to have a spot on the soccer staff with out being a serious contributor [on the field].”
McDaniel labored his manner up from being a Denver Broncos teaching intern in 2005, by stints with the Houston Texans, Cleveland Browns, Washington, Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers and even the Sacramento Mountain Lions of the United Soccer League.
As coach of the Miami Dolphins since 2022, McDaniel is targeted on ending the franchise’s quarter-century-long drought and not using a playoff victory, however his legacy at his alma mater lives on by the teammates, coaches and mates from his faculty profession. Listed here are a few of their favourite tales.
MCDANIEL’S COACHING CAREER did not start throughout an internship with the Broncos in 2005. As an alternative, it was simply exterior Yale’s soccer fieldhouse close to the Walter Camp Memorial, devoted to “The Father of American Soccer.”
Henley, who graduated as Yale’s third-all-time main receiver, credit McDaniel for serving to him obtain that success. Earlier than every sport throughout his senior season in 2004, McDaniel ran Henley by a 40-minute routine within the grassy space simply exterior Yale’s Lapham Area Home, roughly 2 miles from the Yale campus in New Haven, Connecticut. The exercise included drill work McDaniel picked up by watching movie of the Broncos.
One particular drill was impressed by former Broncos large receiver Rod Smith.
Whereas watching movie, McDaniel seen Smith basically “drop-stepped” after catching a ball on a comeback route, guaranteeing at the very least just a few yards after the catch. It was a basketball transfer however with clear proof of it engaged on the soccer discipline, McDaniel carried out it into his routine with Henley.
“Rod Smith would try this on a regular basis, and I simply seen, and it appeared like a drop step in basketball,” McDaniel stated. “So we began drilling that and that drill that I might do with Chandler earlier than the video games, after which finally we acquired the receiver coach to do it. That drill we nonetheless do immediately [with the Dolphins].”
McDaniel additionally discovered a strategy to practice Henley’s eyes and calm any pregame nerves throughout these periods.
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“He would run circles round me [throwing the ball] and I might catch every thing,” Henley stated. “It was simply this strategy to perform a little little bit of a trance kind of deal to get your eyes proper. After which it was additionally a strategy to form of blur, distract your self from occupied with the sport and all that.
“I used to be like, I am simply centered on this soccer proper now. Lemme catch the primary white stripe time and again and over and again and again. And that was kind of his thought to begin doing that, which I used to be pleased to do due to the entire nervous power factor.”
Their periods weren’t restricted to pregame.
After apply, teammates keep in mind seeing McDaniel run Henley by one other gauntlet of drills.
“I do keep in mind continuously strolling by and being like, ‘What the hell are they doing?'” stated former Yale quarterback Alvin Cowan, who spent two seasons with McDaniel in 2003 and 2004. “Chandler could be on the bottom and in his pads, and Mike would throw him the ball, and Chandler could be engaged on one-handed catches and s—. It was like, ‘The place is that this sport oriented? How is that this going to make Chandler a greater soccer participant?'”
However the finish justified McDaniel’s unorthodox means.
Henley was Yale’s “Odell Beckham Jr.,” in response to Cowan, who stated the wideout made extra one-handed catches than anybody on the staff.
When Henley made a powerful game-tying landing catch towards Princeton in 2003, Cowan started to see the larger image.
“Chandler went up and he high-pointed that factor and twisted his physique, which is all to say … perhaps they did know what they had been doing,” Cowan laughed. “Possibly Mike’s coaching helped Chandler make that catch that gained us that sport — I do not know. “I simply keep in mind pondering, ‘I do not know what the hell they’re doing.'”
One other memorable function of the work McDaniel did with Henley was their overly exaggerated walk-throughs the day earlier than video games.
“They’d line up form of in a formation … and they might run a play in sluggish movement — actually miming sluggish movement,” Cowan stated. “Chandler’s mouth could be transferring actually sluggish, and they might run the entire thing in sluggish movement.
“After which they might run it backwards, rewind it in sluggish movement. It was nearly like a stage play. It was like that they had organized and orchestrated each motion and all people was transferring in sluggish movement. And once you watched it, it was hilarious.”
McDaniel laughed when requested about his walk-through practices; he remembers these occasions fondly and acknowledges their influence immediately.
“I keep in mind the identical feeling that I get teaching immediately, the place I used to be making an attempt to give you issues that will higher instrument his imaginative and prescient within the sport and influence the sport,” he stated. “And when there could be a catch that he was slightly extra aggressive on primarily based upon one thing comparable that we’re drilling, it could give me validation and objective.”
BEATING THE ODDS has lengthy been a driving power for McDaniel, which is why his lasting 4 seasons with the staff was such a powerful feat to these in this system.
Most walk-ons do not final greater than a 12 months. The thought of enjoying faculty soccer is alluring, however McDaniel’s coach at Yale, Jack Siedlecki, stated many underestimate the workload of an Ivy League walk-on.
Additional complicating issues for McDaniel was the truth that his bodily limitations made him no slam dunk to be accepted into this system in any respect.
“Youngsters did not actually understand what the entire soccer expertise was,” Siedlecki stated. “Lots of people, I feel once they consider Ivy faculties, they suppose it is like Division III-level soccer — it isn’t. It is excellent soccer, and you have to be a soccer participant.”
Siedlecki stated Yale’s program on the time was “very selective” with bringing on walk-ons, and after watching McDaniel’s highschool movie, he did not view him as a Yale-caliber soccer prospect. However McDaniel was such a lovely candidate as a scholar that the varsity’s dean of admissions, Rick Shaw, pushed for Siedlecki to make room in this system.
“I imply he is 5-foot-8. I feel he [weighed] a couple of buck-40 and ran a 4.9 40 on a really sympathetic coach’s watch,” Siedlecki stated. “So I imply, in actuality, he wasn’t going to be a participant for us, however he was a child who needed to play soccer.”
As soon as on campus, McDaniel stated he by no means thought-about quitting the staff, regardless of realizing shortly he was a protracted shot to ever see the sector.
“I might been very well-versed in individuals telling me that I could not and I got here in,” he stated. “I used to be the smallest scholar on the staff and actually the tradition shock of being a Colorado child, which is similar to being like a California child, after which going to the prep faculty world and simply being a freshman and no matter — I wasn’t going to exit that manner.”
McDaniel stated proving the doubters flawed fueled his dedication to serving to the staff in a non-playing position, and helped him stick it out the place so many others would have give up.
“Discovering alternative ways to contribute week in, week out distracted me from one thing that was by no means within the playing cards for me,” McDaniel stated. “I wasn’t going to go and give up, as a result of it wasn’t the formulation that acquired me there. So it was most likely slightly too steep of an ambition, however that is how I might form of operated my complete life. … When individuals checked out me a sure manner and was like, ‘Yeah, you are not going to do that.’ I am like, ‘thanks.'”
WITH THE DOLPHINS, McDaniel has turn out to be identified for making self-deprecating jokes about his dimension relative to his gamers. However his energy throughout his enjoying days was one of many elements about his time at Yale that impressed his teammates essentially the most.
At 6-foot-5, 225 kilos, Mroz had prototypical dimension for the quarterback place. He was a staff captain and Yale’s second-leading profession passer when he graduated (now seventh). There have been loads of causes for gamers to look as much as Mroz; there was a hyper-specific cause Mroz appeared as much as McDaniel.
“I’ve all the time admired his glutes,” Mroz stated with fun.
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McDaniel weighed 143 kilos when he enrolled at Yale, and instantly started a six-day-a-week coaching routine to assist him catch up bodily together with his friends.
By the point he graduated, McDaniel was up into the 180s and had remodeled himself into one of many strongest gamers on the staff, accounting for dimension, in response to Mroz.
His specialty, Mroz stated, was the Nordic curl or glute-hamstring elevate — the place an individual kneels on each knees whereas a associate holds their ankles. The particular person then lowers their higher physique to the bottom and raises themselves again to their unique place, ideally with out utilizing their arms.
“Mike might go down and up with out touching the bottom together with his arms,” Mroz stated. “In all probability the one man on the staff that would try this. That was a reasonably cool bodily feat that I have never seen many individuals capable of do.”
McDaniel stated he acquired so good, he might do it whereas holding a 45-pound plate.
“I by no means for one second ever even thought-about quitting [the team],” McDaniel stated. “However I knew I needed to make a ton of good points within the weight room.”
“HUMBLING” WAS HOW McDaniel described his two years on the JV staff. However the expertise proved an necessary step on his eventual journey to turn out to be a coach.
Sophomores do not stay on JV. So in 12 months 2, as one of many oldest gamers on the staff, he took on a management position, which helped the youthful gamers higher acclimate to the school sport and have become, as one former teammate described, the quasi-coach of the JV squad.
“I’ve all the time gotten into the ebbs and flows of soccer,” he stated. “Usually, gamers naturally get very reactionary to detrimental stuff and it by no means made sense to me as a result of once you watch soccer, the ebbs and flows of each sport, each winner has a down level in a sport.
“So, I discovered it enjoyable to have the ability to form of encourage slightly bit in conditions the place guys had been form of down. That stuff by no means ever acquired me down. I all the time noticed it as like, ‘All proper, the story’s greater when you pull it off and are available again.'”
That willingness to teach his teammates carried over as soon as he reached the varsity degree.
One such occasion occurred on a drive towards Princeton throughout his junior season. Yale trailed by seven factors and began a possible game-tying drive by itself 8-yard line with 1:08 remaining within the sport.
“We now have to drive principally the size of the sector to tie the sport up and attempt to power extra time,” former Yale large receiver Ron Benigno stated. “And there is a half the place we have to get a play to even get into having the ability to make a shot on the finish zone. So, we’d like most likely like 15, 20 yards to achieve … [McDaniel] was actually in our coach’s ear screaming this play to run, as a result of even then, he is wanting from the sideline, and he can see one thing that can get us what we’d like.”
McDaniel’s loud suggestion labored.
Cowan accomplished a 19-yard go to Benigno to get the Bulldogs to the 22-yard line with 7 seconds remaining, and located Henley ultimately zone as time expired to tie the sport. Yale would finally win 27-24 in double extra time.
“I simply really feel like even at that age, he simply had a lot soccer information,” Benigno stated. “It is no shock actually to anyone that knew him that he is gotten to the place he’s at this level.”
BY THE TIME he graduated, Cowan was Yale’s all-time chief in passing yards and passing touchdowns. His 2003 season set a college document for complete offense with 3,429 yards. However one in all his most vivid recollections of the season got here courtesy of McDaniel within the Bulldogs’ first sport.
Cowan remembers each play of that Princeton drive; he does not keep in mind listening to McDaniel calling performs from the sideline however he wasn’t stunned by the story.
It was sample habits for the undersized walk-on.
Throughout Yale’s season-opening 62-28 dwelling blowout win over Towson, McDaniel made one other loud suggestion from the sideline; this one wasn’t so nicely acquired.
“You bought a 60,000-person stadium with perhaps 10,000 individuals in it — so you possibly can hear just a few issues,” Cowan stated. “We’re operating verify with me, which implies I principally have the playbook at my disposal and I hear ‘Ohio! Ohio!’ I flip in a second of pause and look, and there is Mike telling me to run Ohio, which is a reasonably base go-flat idea by a two receiver facet. “I keep in mind pondering on the time, ‘Who the f— is that this fourth-string large receiver yelling at me, the beginning quarterback, telling me what to run?'”
From Cowan’s perspective, it was infuriating for a walk-on receiver to inform him which performs to run throughout a sport. However wanting again, he appreciates McDaniel’s perspective.
“That early on, dude is already pondering, ‘How can I assist the staff?'” Cowan stated. “And with the advantage of reflection, I feel that is what he is all the time been about, proper? How can I assist the staff, how can we win? And he all the time had an ideal soccer thoughts, in reality, pretty much as good or higher than a few of the people who had been teaching.
“I keep in mind after the sport being like, who the f— does this man suppose he’s? Nicely, it seems that man’s the top coach of the Dolphins now, and perhaps I ought to have listened to what the hell he was saying.”
