Arms crossed and eyes intently looking into the camera, he fires off one answer after another. His youthful appearance notwithstanding, the camp routine is all too familiar to Nathaniel Hackett.

For the second time in three days, Hackett finds himself in front of a television camera answering questions about fall camp and what led him to Syracuse. He’s visibly fatigued from a typical long day, but answering questions about his dual role as quarterbacks coach and offensive play caller in his first season at SU keeps his adrenaline pumping.

The dog days of camp haven’t fazed him. Not after all these years.

‘Camp has been great,’ Hackett calmly says with a smile. ‘It’s exciting. I would definitely say this is one of the better camps I’ve been involved with.’

For Hackett, that’s saying something. As the son of longtime college and NFL coach Paul Hackett, camp is now second nature to him. Whether it was intently watching the likes of Tom Landry or Joe Montana as a young boy or Jon Gruden as a member of his staff in Tampa Bay, Hackett hasn’t missed a camp since he was 5 years old.

Along the way, he’s been mentored under the tutelage of some of the most brilliant and successful men in football. From his youth to coaching stints of his own, Hackett, now 30, has been exposed to the game his entire life. And now, Hackett will put all of it together as he prepares to take over the reigns of the Syracuse offense.

Each year, with each system he’s been involved with, Hackett keeps mentally downloading additional information. He keeps adding to the personal database inside his head that has drawn rave reviews from his peers.

‘With his exposure to the profession at such an early age, he can really observe the game,’ said Dartmouth head coach Buddy Teevens, who worked with Hackett at Stanford. ‘He’s a really intelligent guy who watches and listens. He’s always observing.’

Hackett isn’t fazed by the long hours or the mentally draining rigors of strategizing and film sessions. For him, it’s simply another way to stay sharp, to absorb information. Another way to increase his ever-expanding knowledge of the game he grew up with.

‘Growing up in the profession and seeing who the really good players and coaches are and how they did it was really a big thing that I was able to see and learn about,’ Hackett said.

‘The great ones are truly great for a reason.’

***

For Hackett, coaching wasn’t always in the plan. Despite growing up around the game and playing linebacker at UC Davis, he had aspirations of eventually going to medical school and becoming a doctor.

Majoring in neurobiology, physiology and behaviors, and inspired by his grandmother, a nurse in Haiti, Hackett endured the grueling task of juggling football and 10-hour labs.

Said Hackett: ‘If you would have asked me eight years ago when I was in college if I would go into coaching, I’d say, ‘Heck no.”

It wasn’t until his longtime mentor and linebacker coach, Mark Johnson, prodded Hackett to come and ‘hang out’ while voluntarily coaching the linebackers during the spring of his senior year. The opportunity sparked some intrigue.

‘Here was this guy that I worshiped and now here I was coaching with him,’ Hackett said. ‘I got to see this whole other side that I had always seen, but it was as a coach’s kid. I was now a part of it. And it was awesome.’

When an entry-level offensive assistant internship position opened up at Stanford, a member of the UC Davis staff called then-Stanford head coach Buddy Teevens and made the recommendation. Hackett made his way up to Stanford. Five minutes later, Teevens said, ‘I want to hire you.’

‘Sometimes you see these guys who you think are going to go a long way in the profession for any number of reasons,’ Teevens said. ‘He’s definitely one of them. He’s got a good sense of people and what needs to be said at the right time, and he impressed me as a young guy with that.’

From there, a passion for football re-emerged. Connections in the coaching world were re-established. And Hackett’s apprenticeship began.

Hackett stayed on staff as the recruiting coordinator for a year after Stanford transitioned from Teevens to Walt Harris. And it didn’t take long for Harris to see some of the same things Teevens saw in his star pupil.

‘With his father, he’s had a great mentor,’ Harris said. ‘But although (Hackett) has a great football background, and mind for the game, I think the biggest thing about him is his enthusiasm and his work ethic. That’s really how he’s been able to continually add to the knowledge he grew up with.’

***

A dark office. Candles burning. Six computer screens. Headphones on.

Tyrone Wheatley couldn’t hold back. After visiting Hackett scheming in his office in Tampa, the nickname ‘the mad scientist’ was born.

‘My first reaction is, ‘What is he cooking up now?” said Wheatley, now the running backs coach at SU. ‘The guy has always got something brewing.’

After three years at Stanford, Hackett was now in the NFL. His father, Paul, was now the quarterbacks coach in Tampa Bay under Jon Gruden. When the offensive quality control coach position became available, Gruden asked Paul if Nathaniel might be interested.

The position required all the little things that nobody on staff wanted to do. It was behind-the-scenes work, and Hackett was the low man on the totem pole. He didn’t care. The opportunity to be reunited with his father and to be mentored at the right hand of Gruden was too good to pass up.

The apprenticeship continued.

‘Being with a guy like Gruden, who really, really bombards you with a lot of stuff, he was the one who had to decipher a lot of it,’ Wheatley said. ‘He was in the room drawing up plays and had to decipher exactly what Gruden wanted. For someone to do that, his learning curve had to be steep, but also fast.

‘Really fast.’

Hackett fit in seamlessly because of his ability to communicate with and instruct the world-class athletes he associated with every day, his father said.

‘Nathaniel’s strength is his ability with people,’ Paul Hackett said. ‘His ability to get along with all kinds of people, particularly athletes and the really, really talented football players and coaches that he’s been around his whole life.’

Hackett said the teaching tools he gained from both Gruden and his father are tools he expects to carry with him to Syracuse. He still uses a lot of those old Buccaneers tapes.

‘Anytime you see it done right, that’s what these guys need to see,’ Hackett said. ‘That’s how they understand what you’re talking about. That’s what Gru taught me. I mean, he was unbelievable.’

Eager to learn a new system after two years in Tampa, Hackett moved his young family to Buffalo, N.Y., where he worked for two seasons in the same capacity with the Buffalo Bills.

‘He’s always motivated to learn,’ Teevens said. ‘And when you see a curious mind, that’s the nature. He will always try to expand and increase his awareness and understanding of the game and find different ways to do different things.’

***

In Hackett’s words, the past year had been ‘one of the roughest years of my life.’ It was his second year in Buffalo. The environment, Hackett said, was ‘really bad.’  

The Bills had fired their head coach, Dick Jauron, in the midst of a losing season. The rest of the coaching staff was called to a 9 a.m. meeting on Jan. 4, during which the front office informed them that they too were being replaced. Hackett’s two years in Buffalo had come to an end.

‘I guess some other people are looking for a job, too!’ Hackett recalls the notoriously outspoken Terrell Owens saying, as his one-year stint in Buffalo had also abruptly come to an end.

The future for Hackett, his wife and two kids was uncertain. But not for long.

‘I sat there and, no kidding, I’d say an hour and a half or two hours later I received a phone call from (Doug Marrone),’ Hackett said.

Marrone had received a similar cold call from the New York Jets in 2002, where Hackett’s father was the offensive coordinator. Marrone came to New York to fill the open offensive line coach position. Eventually, he became acquainted with the younger Hackett.

Now, eight years later, it was Marrone making calls as the Syracuse head coach, and it was Hackett’s son on the receiving end. Syracuse had dismissed its spread offense whiz and offensive coordinator, Rob Spence, in late November. For more than a month, Marrone had yet to find the right guy to complement the version of the West Coast offense he had come to know working in New York and with Sean Payton in New Orleans.

With his knowledge of the offense that his father has run throughout his coaching career, along with his two-year experience tossing offensive ideas back and forth in a similar scheme with Gruden in Tampa, Hackett appeared to be a natural fit. There was commonality there.

As the two became reacquainted and exchanged pleasantries over the phone, the conversation quickly turned to football.

‘He’s like, ‘I don’t know what your situation is there, but why don’t you come in and just talk football,” Hackett said. ‘It was such a great feeling because it wasn’t like, ‘Hey, I want to interview you for this.’ It was just, ‘Let’s talk some football. Let’s get to know each other on a different level other than Paul Hackett’s son.”

Two days later, Hackett was in Syracuse talking football with Marrone, discussing his coaching philosophies, his vision for what a good, successful program should be, and his approach to teaching the game. It was here where his years of preparation really paid off.

‘It was great because the things I was saying were the same things he felt,’ Hackett said. ‘And we just kind of clicked.’

And suddenly, after two months of Marrone searching for a play caller, a connection was made. Marrone called Hackett the next day and offered him a position to coach the SU quarterbacks. Soon after, Hackett made the move from Buffalo to Syracuse to start another chapter.

‘You’re talking about someone who’s highly intelligent, both from an academic background and a football background,’ Marrone said. ‘And he has the ability to call plays, so now that’s one aspect of the offense I don’t have to worry about.

‘It was a natural fit.’

***

When spring practice began in March, Hackett immediately took control of the quarterback position. Gone was Greg Paulus. Returning were the unproven pair of Ryan Nassib and Charley Loeb.

For weeks, Hackett constantly referred to Marrone to make sure he had the intricacies of the offense perfected. Hackett made sure he and Marrone were inseparable in their philosophies about how the offense would run.

The results were evident during SU’s spring game, when Nassib and Loeb totaled 400 yards and four touchdowns through the air with Hackett calling the plays.

Credit the success to an additional year in the system. Credit it to the quarterback competition the two players had going in the spring. But the cohesiveness with which Marrone and Hackett now orchestrate the offense was on full display.

‘(Hackett) and Coach Marrone are really close in their idea of what the system should be,’ Nassib said. ‘So Coach Hackett does a great job of teaching us exactly what Coach Marrone is looking for in his offense. There’s really no gray area there.’

When fall camp opened on Aug. 9, Marrone officially handed the play-calling duties to Hackett indefinitely. And with it, Marrone also handed his trust to his ever-perfecting young protégé.

‘He may be a young guy,’ Loeb said, ‘but he has an extensive amount of football knowledge. He’s constantly showing us things that help to simplify and improve upon what we’re doing as an offense. He wants everything to be done perfectly, done the right way.’

One day during the second week of camp, Hackett was leading the offense through its progressions when he witnessed a glitch. With his hands resting calmly on his hips, he instructed the offense to run the play over again, temperately shouting, ‘It’s gotta be perfect! I need three perfect plays in a row!’

That’s the mentality Hackett’s bringing to Syracuse. The coaches who have mentored him wouldn’t have it any other way.

From coach’s son to equipment boy, from offensive assistant to low man on the NFL totem pole, Hackett’s football journey now comes full circle at Syracuse as he embarks for the first time as a full-time position coach. With the pedigree and tutelage he’s had, Hackett’s now ready for the next chapter:

From apprentice to master.

‘He wanted to move up and become a full-time coach,’ Gruden said, ‘and now that he has this opportunity at Syracuse, I look forward to watching him to see how he responds.’

A student of the game his entire life, after 25 years, the reigns come off Saturday.

‘Up until this point in my life, it has definitely been a ride, and it has been a great ride,’ Hackett said. ‘It’s an exciting time in my life, and I’m very excited for the opportunity I have here.’

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Published on September 1, 2010 at 12:00 pm