The Commitment To Character Will Pay Dividends
Updated: Sep 2, 2022
By FRANZ BEARD
If Dante Zanders has the kind of season that Billy Napier believes he can have in 2022 he will be proclaimed as an overnight sensation, but like so many overnight sensations the path to success was filled with several detours and enough speed bumps that would have discouraged someone with lesser character.
He was a defensive end who had 20 sacks as a high school junior in Boca Raton. Switched to tight end as a senior, he was good enough to earn scholarship offers from Georgia, LSU, Kentucky and Virginia Tech before choosing the Florida Gators. He was a tight end at UF in 2018-19 then switched to defensive end in 2020. He remained at defensive end through the 2021 season, after which there were decisions to be made.
The coach who recruited him to UF – Dan Mullen – was fired. The new coach was Billy Napier. There were rumblings that a mass exodus of players was in the works.
“I can still remember when we got here and he walks in the office and he’s thinking about leaving,” Napier said at his Wednesday press conference.
Maybe it was the way Napier spoke about how things were going to change that convinced Zanders to at least delay a transfer until after spring practice. Whatever the reason, spring practice was life-altering. When injuries decimated the tight end room during the spring, Zanders was asked to switch positions again, this time back to tight end.
You wouldn’t necessarily say that a star was born since it was just spring practice, but Zanders looked like a natural in the practices and again in the Orange and Blue Game where he caught five passes for 56 yards. In the summer months, he transformed his body from the 291-pound defensive end to a leaner, more agile 262-pounder who goes into Saturday night’s season opener with Utah listed number one on the tight end depth chart.
“We had a couple injuries in spring ball,” Napier said. “He makes the move. He’s a very bright kid. He picks it up quickly. I think the guy’s got a future. He’s 6-5, 260-pounds. He’s heavy-handed, strong at the point of attack. He can run, he can catch and he’s smart enough to process it all. I think to play that position you have to be very intelligent.”
Zanders has embraced tight end and while going full circle to transition back to the position for which he was originally recruited to Florida, he has also embraced what Napier calls the 4D or four-dimensional player.
In the spring Napier described a 4D player as one who (1) knows what he is supposed to do, (2) knows what every player in his position room is supposed to do, (3) knows what every player on his side of the ball is supposed to do and (4) understands, comprehends and can discuss what all 11 players on his side of the ball are supposed to do as well as the 11 on the other side of the ball.
“Me, personally, I’m not at the 4D,” Zanders said Monday. “I understand what my job is. I understand like the other roles are around me.”
Being 4D fits in with Napier’s better people make better football players approach. It takes character and integrity, a rather selfless approach because the player who understands the role of all 11 players on either side of the ball on every play is one who is invested in the success of everyone on the roster.
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Amari Burney bought in to Napier’s better people approach enough to use his COVID eligibility year to come back for a sixth season. He’s listed as a starter at inside linebacker for the Utah game. Burney probably wouldn’t have hung around if he didn’t believe that being accountable, responsible and trustworthy are essential to each player being a better teammate. And, when you have an entire team that buys in to being better teammates and better friends to each other, the roadblocks to success are fewer and farther apart.
The way Burney sees it, you can’t be two different people – irresponsible off the field and then responsible and accountable to your teammates on the field.
“If you can’t do the right things off the field, then how can they [coaches] trust you to put you on the field and do the right things,” Burney said. “If you’re a good player, like we say, the little things, like picking up trash off the field; like in the locker room if you see trash, you pick it up. Just being a great human being off the field can really help you on the field. Like just do the little things, stand your gap, not jump offsides, just disciplinary actions on the field.”
He has embraced the concept of the 4D player although he says he’s not there just yet.
“I’m working my way up there,” Burney said. “I’m 3D right now – 1D is just like getting lined up, knowing your position; 2D is kind of helping the other guys lined up; 3D is knowing the people in front of you; and 4D is just knowing everything that’s going on on the field, even with the offense running.”
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Back during the dog days of summer, better known as August camp, it was Jeremy Crashaw’s turn to stand in front of the leadership team and talk about a word. His word was ownership and the example he used was the All Blacks, the New Zealand rugby union team famous for their black uniforms and pre-game haka ritual, not to mention the fact they are the standard of excellence for the sport.
Kids in Australia and New Zealand grow up dreaming of a day when they can wear the black uniform and perform on the world stage. For nine years, Crawshaw pursued a career in rugby, always dreaming of one day suiting up for the All Blacks, but he came to the realization that his career had plateaued, which led him to turn to Australian rules football. That’s where he learned to kick, which, in turn helped him land a scholarship to punt for the University of Florida.
So here he is, some 9,300 miles from home in New South Wales, Australia. He sports a handlebar mustache that should take on Rollie Fingers proportions by the end of the 2023 football season. He averaged 44.1 yards per punt as a freshman last year. He also had a 28-yard run on a fake against Vanderbilt.
He has adapted well to his new surroundings, but one thing is certain: You can take the young man out of Australia, but you can’t take Australia out of the young man. The accent is pure Aussie and the lessons of the All Blacks resonate with him to this day.
“One of the things they say is that better men make better All Blacks,” Crashaw said Monday.
Perhaps that is why Crawshaw feels a bit at home playing for Billy Napier. From the day he was hired to be Florida’s football coach back in December, Napier has continually stressed that better people make better football players. That is an unchanging core value for Napier, who stresses academics, self-improvement, being a better teammate and a better friend to your teammates.
“I believe that 110 percent,” Crawshaw said.
When it was his turn to speak to the leadership team, Crawshaw turned to the core values that make the All Blacks one of the great dynasties in all of sports. Starting with their 1905 tour of the British Isles where they went 34-1, the All Blacks have been the standard of excellence by which every rugby team mimics.
What sets the All Blacks apart to Crawshaw and rugby enthusiasts worldwide is their non-compromising approach to character. A team that embraces character is a team that embraces trust and the teamwork it takes to be successful.
“If you can show up, if you can have integrity, if you can stand up to your own word outside of here, you say, yeah, I'll help you, I'll do this, I'll do that, outside of football, you can bring it in here,” Crawshaw said. “You've already got that characteristic in here.”
In here is this Florida football team. There is chemistry with this bunch, something that may have been present when the 2021 season began but dissipated and all but disappeared sometime around the Georgia game. When returning players from that 2021 team talk about the meltdown that took place, turning a team that was ranked as high as 10th nationally into one that had to win its last two regular season games just to be bowl eligible, inevitably the finger points to discipline. A lack of discipline has this nasty habit of leading to the kind of meltdown we saw last year with a Florida team that had way too much talent to finish 6-7.
If you go back to 2021, game-by-game, it’s not all that difficult to understand how the Gators unraveled. With the exception of the Alabama and Georgia games, the Gators had more talent, yet they lost games they should have won. The Kentucky loss is the poster child. There were 15 penalties including eight false starts. The defense showed, the offense didn’t. The LSU loss the offense showed even though there were four turnovers, but the defense left its game back in Gainesville.
On and on it went until an unceremonious loss to UCF in a bowl so low on the importance scale that it was played prior to Christmas. Once that game was over, Napier took control. He probably sounded like a Baptist preacher as much as he did a football coach as he implored the Gators to embrace being the best they could be in their personal lives with the dividend of improvement in their football lives.
“I think the important thing now is that we control – you know, you spin an entire year to get your team equipped,” Napier said. “You try to create discipline, structure, culture. You work hard on each individual member of the organization, players and staff, their role, how they contribute to the team.”
When every player on the team embraces the idea that they should be and can be the best they can be every day of the week, good things can happen.
“I believe that I try to be the best man that I can be every day, and I hope that translates into football,” Crawshaw said. “I hope a lot of people can see that, but I definitely strive to be a good man all around.”
Billy Napier’s a few good men approach may not produce a championship team in year one. The journey begins Saturday night against Utah. Win or lose it won’t change the message that Napier will be preaching to his team. Better people will make better players. Eventually the better people will make the plays that win the big games and produce championships.
Character does indeed count.
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