The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
Q&A with Tight Ends Coach Bruce Chambers
01.21.2014 | Football
Chambers spent the last 16 years on the UT coaching staff and was a high school coach for 14 years in Dallas
Bruce Chamber is in his 17th season on the Texas coaching staff, including first under head coach Charlie Strong.
Chambers, who will continue to oversee the tight ends as he did for the previous 11 years, spent the last 16 seasons under Mack Brown.
He also served as the Longhorns co-recruiting coordinator (2005-12) and recruiting coordinator (2013) during his UT tenure. Chambers coached the running backs his first five seasons (1998-2002) in Austin.
Chambers has deep ties to the high school community in Texas having served as a coach at Carter High School in Dallas for 14 years.
Here is a Q&A with Chambers:
What is the feeling around the program now?
This is really an exciting time. It kind of reminds me when Coach Brown's staff first started. Just all of the excitement that was centered around it. It's kind of like a fresh start again.
Did you know Charlie Strong before he became the Texas head coach?
When I was coaching at Carter [High School in Dallas], he actually recruited three of my players. He signed two of them. He was at Notre Dame when he signed Alton Maiden and when he went to Florida he signed a kid named Damian Hill. I had totally forgotten about that but when I walked in and sat down in his office he looked at me and said, "Alton Maiden." I'm thinking to myself, "Alton Maiden, that's like 1995." Then it dawned on me that Alton went to Notre Dame while he was coaching at Notre Dame (Strong was the defensive line coach from 1995-98).
As a member of the previous coaching staff, what experiences can share to help the new coaches?
I can give them the lay of the land, especially in recruiting and meeting high school coaches and being a bridge for that. This place is so important to the high school coaches in this state and obviously vice versa. I've always felt like I was one of them and just being able to be that bridge for Coach Strong.
How has recruiting changed over the years?
When I was a high school coach I saw all these guys coming in and recruiting players. Now I'm one of those guys coming in. Recruiting has changed so much. It's so much faster, it's sped up so much with all of the social media and recruiting websites. Before it was the high school coach, he handled everything. Now you have all these recruiting services and the media driving recruiting so it's a lot different. That's some good and some bad. One of the things we want to do is get Coach Strong out there among the guys and those coaches. Some of those guys have never met him and of course you want to get him out and get those guys around him, a lot like what Coach Brown did. Being the flagship university in this state, it is true that everybody in the country comes into this state to recruit. It's kind of like staking your claim. You have to go out there and want to put your stamp on it. It's exciting.
What are your impressions of Charlie Strong?
He's very personable. He's a lot like Coach Brown. It was almost like Coach Brown never met a stranger. But he is a player's coach. I think he's a guy that gets out there and rolls up his sleeves. He's one of those people who says "do as I say and do as I do." I think he's a strong disciplinarian. Just listening to his message to the team there was a lot of good stuff in it. He's a guy that's a lot like Coach Brown when he first got here. One of the things that he wanted to do was continue those traditions and let's build on those things. Coach Brown used to use the term "getting the BBs back in the box" and now I think that's his mission. Usually when a new coach comes in, he tends to say, "I'm going to do my own thing." One of the things he said is that this team isn't broken. We're not rebuilding. I think that's a really good point that he made. I can feel the excitement and the buzz with the kids and the buzz on the street about him. It's a good time to be at Texas.
