Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: NFL Legend Fran Tarkenton

I recently interviewed NFL Legend Fran Tarkenton on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam Mendler: Our guest today is an NFL Hall of Famer and one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. Fran Tarkinton played in nine Pro Bowls and three Super Bowls and set NFL records for all-time passing yards and touchdowns by the time of his retirement. Fran, thank you for joining us.

Fran Tarkenton: Good to be here. Thank you.

Adam Mendler: Fran, you grew up in the South. You were born in Richmond, Virginia. You went to high school in Athens, Georgia, and you stayed in Athens for college. You played ball at the University of Georgia.

Fran Tarkenton: Yeah, I was born in Richmond, Virginia, son of a preacher man. We moved to Washington, DC, when I was five years old. And at ten years old, I was playing in boys’ club leagues, basketball, football, baseball. When I was eleven years old, we moved to Athens, Georgia, of all places, and they had a good YMCA program there. And I got to play more basketball, football, baseball there. Hone my skills, if you will. We had maybe the greatest high school team in the history of teams. We won the state championship in my junior year and 13 games during the year. We shut out the opposing team for nine games. We scored over 50 points five times. It was an unbelievable year. Then I went over and played for the University of Georgia Bulldogs, and they weren't very good in the 50s, but we won the SEC championship in 59, and I was the quarterback, and then we won the Orange Bowl, and we didn't have playoffs back then like they do now. Then I went to Minnesota and started an 18-year career with the Vikings. I was the first quarterback that the Vikings ever had. We did go to three Super Bowls. I played in Minnesota for six years, then went to New York Giants for five years, came back for my last six or seven years with the Vikings. And that's when we had great teams and great players and great coaches, and we played in three of the first eleven Super Bowls. They haven't been back since then. And the last one we went to was back in 19, I guess, 1977 or so. But what is different from all of that is that I have worked all my life. I never had a teammate or players in the National Football League that really worked in the offseason or during the season. I had jobs when I was in Washington, DC. I had a paper out at seven years old. When I came, moved to Athens, I had summer jobs. I worked on weekends. When I didn't play sports. I learned how to work. I learned how to do business. I learned how to make money. I learned how to use money. Then I went to pro football. I think I was the only one that worked in the offseason, but I started working in 1961. I worked for a trucking firm, a printing company, Coca Cola company, and always worked every offseason. And when I was 25, I started businesses. I built 24 businesses in my lifetime. And we're building about two new businesses every year now. It's just exploding, and it comes from the experience and the foundation of really being a business person when I was barely able to walk and, Fran, we're.

Adam Mendler: Going to dive into your journey. The lessons you learned playing football off the field. You were drafted by the Vikings in the third round in the 1961 NFL Draft. The NFL was dramatically different then than it is today. The Vikings were a little bit different then than they are today. They were an expansion team. And as you said, you opened the season as the first quarterback for the Vikings. You were the backup quarterback. But in your first game, the Vikings first game of all time, you came off the bench and led the Vikings to a historic comeback win, throwing for four touchdowns, running for another touchdown. It was a major upset, and it was a defining moment in your career and a defining moment in NFL history. Can you take listeners back to that moment? What were the best lessons that you learned from that experience that you've been able to take with you for the rest of your career?

Fran Tarkenton: The best lessons I've learned all my life is from somebody else. I've never had an original thought. I worked on and made my mark in sports and in life by learning and listening to people with my ears and reading and asking questions. I played 18 years in the National Football League. I played that first Viking game, and I did complete 17 and 21 passes for 237 yards. We beat the Chicago Bears. Now, the uniqueness of the Chicago Bears is they were one of the great teams in football. Their coach was George Halas. Their general manager was George Halas. Their owner of the team was George Halas. The founder of the National Football League was George Halas. And so he dominated. And we're coming as a new expansion team, which means that we didn't have any veteran players to amount to anything, and no expansion team had ever won a game in their first season. Dallas Cowboys were expansion team in 1960 with Tom Landry, the Hall of Fame coach, Don Meredith, great quarterback. They didn't win a game their first year. We won three. And the reason that I had my success, I had some ability, but a lot of people have ability, but I told my coach, who was an ex-quarterback, Norm Van Brocklin. He was a Hall of Fame coach. He came off a year where he won the championship of the NFL for the Philadelphia Eagles. Brilliant offensive mind. Back in those days, coaches didn't send in plays. The quarterback called the plays. So you had to prepare before. So I told him the Monday before the game against the Bears, the first game the Vikings ever played, I said, I need you to coach me. I'm going to come to your house. We had projectors and we put on the tape of the teams that had played the Bears. So we got to look at the Bears defense. And he taught me their defenses, what they do, what their strengths were, what their weakness was, how to audible to a running play, to a passing play, or to a play that was not the proper play for that defense. He prepared me by that. Without that, I could have never done what I did that first game. And so we played them, who were 28-point underdogs. I didn't get into the game until the end of the first quarter. And so we put up all those yards, as you said, I ran for one touchdown, through for four, completed 17 and 21 passes for 237 yards. And it was all because of him. People can do work, quarterbacks can play. But in order to be able to play at a high level, you got to really be focused and you've got to be teachable and coachable. Because even today at my age and running businesses, I'm learning faster today at 83 than I did at 33. And because I understand I don't have all the answers. And when I've ever in my lifetime thought I had all the answers, I got hit right in the face and knocked down because we never have all the answers.

Adam Mendler: Fran, you shared so many important points there. The importance of being coachable. Before you can be a great leader, you need to be a great follower. One of the corp leadership principles of General Martin Dempsey, one of the early guests on 30 Minutes. Mentors the importance of lifelong learning the most successful leaders are lifelong learners. Another key theme, the importance of mentorship. Norm Van Brocklin, your coach, also a great mentor.

Fran Tarkenton: I've had many tutors and mentors in my lifetime. Sam Walton, who started Walmart. He started Walmart at age 51. He was a store manager for JCPenney, and he had an idea about Walmart, and he pitched that idea to everybody he could pitch it to and nobody would have anything to do with it. So he went out in Bentonville, Arkansas, and he built Walmart in a little bitty room, and in 21 years, that was at age 51, at age 72, he died. He died. Walmart and Sam’s Club were his company. Biggest employer in the world. Biggest companies in the world. And he did it in 21 years with no technology. He was one of my great mentors. We did so much business together and hung out so much together. He was a remarkable, amazing man. And he did it without technology. Today, if he were living today, my goodness, I don't know, he would do it 20 times better. But with all that said, the number one thing that I think it's critical to success in business and life, in sports, you got to be authentic. You got to be authentic. You cannot be what you're not. You cannot try to copy somebody else and be somebody else. You got to be authentic, and you got to do the things that are right for you, because if you're not right with yourself, how can you help somebody else? And I understand that, and I learn more about that every day of my life, Fran.

Adam Mendler: I love it. Authenticity essential to effective leadership. What do you believe are the key characteristics of the most successful leaders, and what can anyone do to become a better leader?

Fran Tarkenton: The great leaders. It's not about me. It's about the people. I'm leading I in playing quarterback in all those years, 18 years in the national football leagues, four years in college, four years in high school, I never chewed anybody out. I was their buddy. I was their teammate. I wanted to make them better, and I involved them in everything I did. When I was putting a pass pattern up, I would be talking to Ahmad Rashad and the other ends that played with me. What can you do? What would you like to do? Tell me what kind of pattern you want to run. If it's third and one. I had in Minnesota, I had this great big tackle named Ron Yeri. Hall of Famer Ed White was a guard, strongest man I've ever seen. So I had third down and one to go or two to go. I asked him, I said, boys, tell me, can I run inside of you or outside of you? Tell me what you can do. And they would call the play. They would call an off tackle play, a play off the guard's right shoulder or left shoulder. And I listened to them because they knew better than I did, because they're down there in the trenches doing it, and I'm back here not being hit like they're being hit. It's a matter of when. People think I've got all the answer. It's all about me. I don't believe in chewing people out even today. So somebody drops a pass, runs the wrong pattern, or they got beat by Deacon Jones and they tackled me for a loss. Were they trying not to succeed? No, they were trying. But you cannot win every battle. And the last thing they want to hear from me is how bad they are. Dumb they are, and incompetent. Never. They are my buddies. They're my lifeblood.

Adam Mendler: Fran, I'm with you 110%. Leadership is about putting others first, empowering those around you, much in the way you empowered your teammates. By listening, by trusting them, by allowing them to call the plays. You're the quarterback. You could call the plays. But you understood. I might be better off by allowing my teammates to call the plays. And it worked out well.

Fran Tarkenton: None of us have all the answers. Every time I thought I've got the answer, I failed. Every time I thought that I could win, and I didn't have to work at it. I didn't have to study after it. I lost. I today know so much more than I did ten years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, about how to be a better leader, how to be smarter about what I do, how to be me. I cannot be Billy Bob. I cannot be Tom Brady. Tom Brady cannot be me. And for all of us, all the people that are listening here, spend your time being a better you. You don't have to be somebody else. You're a unique, wonderful person. Be authentic. You can learn from other people. But to try to copy other people and want to be like somebody else, I don't think that's right. I don't think that's healthy, and I've never been there. Here's what I've got to do. I've got to be better today than I was yesterday. I got to be smarter tomorrow than I was today. It's not about me. It's about my teammates. It's about the people that I work with. It's about the customers I work with. When it's about those people and not about selfish me, I'm going to be a better person, a better leader, a better teammate, to be able to help you accomplish what you want to accomplish.

Adam Mendler: Spend your time being a better you. I love that. Study others. Learn from others. Thrity Minute Mentors is all about bringing on the most successful people across all disciplines. Hall of Fame athletes like yourself, fortune 500 CEOs, four-star generals, Olympic gold medalists. Learn from the best. Study those who have made it to the top. But at the end of the day, there is only one you. Be yourself. As a Thirty Minute Mentors guest told our audience don't try to be the second best version of anyone else. Be the best version of yourself. And that applies to every single person out there, whether you're trying to play quarterback or whether you're trying to succeed in the world of business, I would imagine that the very best quarterbacks in the NFL today, whose styles are much more similar to yours than they are to that of Johnny Unitas, are studying you. They want to learn - what did Frank Tarkenton do to innovate the quarterback position? What did Fran Tarkenton do to succeed as a scrambling quarterback? But they're not saying, “I want to be the second best Fran Tarkenton.” They're saying, “I want to be the best version of myself.”

Fran Tarkenton: Historically in the NFL, which is somewhat successful. Right. They do pretty good. The thing they don't do well is understanding what a quarterback is. About 10% of the first-round draft choices that were drafted as quarterbacks in the first round, only 10% really make it. They think that it's all about how far you can throw it, how high you can jump, how fast you are. You got to be 636465 with a cannon arm and so forth. So forth. That's so bush league. It's so wrong. You had a little guy named Purdy. P-U-R-D-Y. He was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers as the last person of the draft two years ago. They also had drafted the year before him, a guy that was played out, North Dakota State, I think, somewhere like that, Trey Lance. And they traded draft choices to get him. And he had the big arm, and he could jump high and run high. Well, Purdy beat him out. Quarterback is backing up somebody in Dallas, and he got a fifth-round draft score. The same people made the terrible mistake on him. And they were lucky with Purdy because they didn't realize what they got. And he is a top-six quarterback, top-seven quarterback in football in his second year. And it's about looking at quarterbacks and seeing not how big they are. All of them can throw. All of them are athletes. But are they the kind of people - they can take the hardest position in all of sport and understand it, be themselves? Because if you're being yourself, you have a chance to execute better than if you're trying to be something that you're not. And you don't have much of that happening in the NFL. So you've got 32 teams now. You may have five or six quarterbacks that you could depend on, and that's about it. And everybody thinks I can coach them up. You can't coach them up. Coach them up to be themselves. And Tom Brady, how'd he do? He was picked in the 6th round. I think there were eight zillion quarterbacks pitched before him. And the reason Tom Brady playing in Michigan was picked in the 6th round, Bill Belichick. And the patient didn't think he could play. He comes to New England, he was the fourth-string quarterback. He didn't play his first year. Maybe the greatest coach in the history of pro football. Watched him practice all year. He's the one that dragged. Didn't play him. He doesn't play the next year. The starting quarterback got hurt. Then he put Brady in and he went to Super Bowl the first year. And he goes on to do the great things he did. It's not how big you are strong you are. Even if you went to Harvard or Princeton, you got this great college degree and you got a business degree, that's not going to make you successful. What made Tom Brady successful? Bill Belichick didn't make him successful. Tom Brady knew himself and figured out how to play quarterback at the highest level that anybody else did. And that gets away from people. And because I think they think that the people that are evaluating quarterbacks to draft them, they look at the wrong things. They look at the physical things they can do rather than what kind of stuff do they have.

Adam Mendler: And that lesson that we can learn by studying the success that Tom Brady had by looking at Brock Purdy compared to Trey Lance, that can be applied to anything, that could be applied to hiring. You mentioned Harvard and Princeton. Not to pick on any schools, but so often employers look at where you went, look at what companies you work for. Look at your pedigree, rather than looking at your attitude, your work ethic. Are you team-oriented? Are you someone that is a self-starter? Are you someone that can figure things out?

Fran Tarkenton: There you are. Are you someone could figure things out. Where did Steve Jobs go to college? He started Apple. He went to one year of college, one semester of college, and dropped out because his parents wanted to send him there. He didn't want to waste their money. He dropped out. Bill Gates went to Harvard. He dropped out. These great leaders didn't learn how to be great business people by going to college. It's back to what we started off. Love yourself. You're uniquely you. Be authentic. Don't try to copy somebody else. You can learn from somebody else, but they're not. You learn from other people. As I said before, I've never had an original thought. I've learned from what I see, what I hear, what I read. I read a lot, I listen a lot, I ask a lot of questions. But it's got to be me that delivers that. It's got to be me that puts that into action. And not try to be Tom Brady or try to be Roger Staubach or try to be deacon Jones. He was a defensive lineman who tried to hurt me most of my career. But love yourself, but prepare yourself and learn from other people. That's really important.

Adam Mendler: You said you've never had an original thought, but I'm going to try to change that right now. You mentioned that you played for some great teams. You played for some awful teams. In your experience, what separates winning teams from losing teams? What separates winning cultures from losing cultures? And how can leaders build winning teams and winning cultures?

Fran Tarkenton: Pretty simple. You got to have great owners that understand all the things we've said. You've got to have a general manager and a head coach who understands the things I've said and puts them into practice. And then you got to hire the best coaches, you got to draft the best players, and you got to mentor and coach the best players in the proper way. All those things. If you don't win in two or three years in the NFL, they fire you. But you've got to have all those foundations. And I just said, if you don't have all of us, you don't win. And their teams, my team in Minnesota, the last Super Bowl was 1977. Detroit Lions have never played the Super Bowl because it's not easy to be successful at that level, and it's not easy to win at that level. In football, at the end of the day, there's a winner and there's a loser. The difference in that in business, Apple could be a great company, which it is. Microsoft could be a great company, which it is. Google could be a great company, which it is. Nvidia is an upcoming company that's just knocking the COVID off the. And so it's not just a formula. You've got to figure out how to get the right people in the right places and have the right products and the right services to be able to build things that customers want. That's what it's all about. It's not a magical coin that you can bring up and say, this is the one thing you need to do to be successful. There's no one thing to do. You got to do everything right, and you got to do the principles that we've talked about are the base of all that.

Adam Mendler: And a couple of important takeaways. You really need every area in your organization to function healthily. For the entire organization to thrive. Using the example of a football team, the owner needs to know how to own the team. If the owner is trying to coach the team, the team's probably not going to win. If the players are trying to coach the team, the team's probably not going to win. I did an interview with a hall of famer in another sport who told me owners own managers manage coaches coach players play. That's how you build winning organizational cultures, and you could apply that to any organization, have the right people in place, and when the right people understand their roles, the organization will operate a lot more effectively.

Fran Tarkenton: In football, you got 32 billionaires who own teams. They have to be pretty smart to build businesses, to be a billionaire, right? But they've never had anything to do with sports, with football. And so they've got to go out and they're not going to coach the team. They're not going to be the general manager. They have to pick a general manager that can do the job. You got to pick a head coach who can do the job, and it depends on them to hire the people. Not easy. Not easy.

Fran Tarkenton: Hard for them to understand that because team 32 is talking to the owner, team one. You think the owner of team one is going to give him a good answer? He's the competitor. Is he going to tell you what you should look for and who can really be a good coach or a good quarterback or a good this? No, it's a unique thing. The only guy that really has a football background in the ownership today is Jerry Jones. He's a lineman, good lineman at Arkansas. He really understands football. Linemen probably know more football than anybody, even quarterbacks, and he's a really good owner. He hadn't had much success lately because it's hard, but he's been doing pretty good this year. But he's won Super Bowls and he built the dynasty in Dallas, but he had at least the opportunity to play high school football, college football. I don't think he played pro football, but he played a national champion, Arkansas, and he had that background. The other owners don't have that background. Smart people. It must be because they have done awfully well in business, and now they've got to be able to choose somebody to lead a team of sport that they've never played at the highest level. That's a hard thing to do, and that's why it's a difficult thing for people to be successful in the game of football. Financially, it's the greatest business in the world because you got 32 teams and you can finish last, you can win no games, and you're going to make as much money as the guy that wins the Super Bowl. How about that?

Adam Mendler: Not a bad business.

Fran Tarkenton: Well, if you want to just make money, if you're an older national football league, I don't think the teams are going for 6 billion now. Next year there'd be seven or 8 billion. The Vikings started out in 1961, and I think their fee was $300,000. 6 billion. So if you just want to make money, I think probably the best investment a billionaire could make is an NFL team, because they don't have to win to make money.

Adam Mendler: You mentioned Jerry Jones, owner of the Cowboys, former lineman from Arkansas. Earlier in the conversation, you mentioned one of your most significant mentors, a man as synonymous with the state of Arkansas as anyone, one of the greatest businessmen in American history, Sam Walton. What is the single best lesson that you learned from your time spent with Sam Walton?

Fran Tarkenton: I didn't learn a single lesson. I learned everything. I walked the stores with him. I'd go to open his stores with him. I'd go to his meetings on Saturday morning when he had everybody there, and I watched everything he did. He was humble. He talked to the people. We'd walk around the store and he'd say, hey, Mary Sue, what can I do to help you? How's this product doing? How's that product doing? What can I do? And then he came to this one guy, and the guy says, I want to raise. He said, you want to raise? So he calls over the store manager at Walmart. He says, I can't remember the name, but let's say it's Bobby. Bob, Bobby. This guy over here says he wants a raise. I want you to give him a raise, but then I want you to be talking to me later. If he's not earning the raise going forward, cut him back to what he is now. He operated not on the 50th floor of a high rise. He was down on the ground floor with the people. He was out of the marketplace with the people. He was a humble guy. He came from nothing. But he figured out every day. He never got to the point that I've got it figured out. I never heard him say to me, we do everything right, and I got it figured out. He was always searching to do it better, learn more, and find out what success was for Walmart. And he didn't go to Harvard Business School. He didn't go to the Ivy League schools.

Adam Mendler: Fran, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to develop a winning mindset?

Fran Tarkenton: Here's what they can do. Be authentic. Don't just listen to this conversation. Go have more conversations. Go talk to more people. They'll make you smarter. When I played football, I was tutored by Hall of Fame quarterbacks. I found them Y.A. Tittle was a great Hall of Fame quarterback. I spent so much time with them. There was a guy named Otto Graham who played for the Cleveland Browns. There was a guy named Sid Luckman. I searched them out. Tell me how you did it. Tell me what you didn't do and tell me what you did. But you cannot do that just one day and never do it again. I do it every hour. I do it every minute. I've got my ears open. I'm searching and I'm talking and I'm listening and I'm asking questions and I'll go and listen to the news. But I look at the business news. I don't want to look at the politics news. I look at the business news. I want to see they have business guys on talking about how they did it and what they did right, what they did wrong. That's how we learn. Learn and we never have the total answer. I'm learning faster today at 83 than I learned at any age that I've ever lived. And if you're not progressing and if you're not learning, then you're going to go the other way.

Adam Mendler: Fran, thank you for all the great advice and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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