THE HEISMAN TROPHY PODCAST

Coach Curt Cignetti on Developing a Heisman Winner

A Conversation with the Head Coach of Indiana Football

Host: Chris Huston

CHRIS HUSTON: This off-season, the Heisman Trophy podcast is exploring what separates Heisman winners and other elite performers from regular athletes. We want to find out how that talent is first discovered, how those key developmental attributes are first brought together with that unique athleticism, and why these players are specifically wired the way they are. To that end, the man who coached the most recent Heisman Trophy winner is sure to have great insight on those matters. So we welcome Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti to the Heisman Trophy podcast. Welcome, Coach.

CURT CIGNETTI: It’s great to be here. Hope you’re doing well.

HUSTON: Definitely am. You’ve described your evaluation process as “production over potential.” When you watched Fernando Mendoza’s Cal tape, what specifically did you see that fit that standard? And was there anything that gave you pause?

CIGNETTI: No, the talent was unmistakable. He had the size, the mobility—he could run, he had a whip. I mean, he’s got a strong arm, and he was a playmaker. Now, he played on a team that was in a lot of close games and fell short. He took a lot of sacks—41 sacks, I think. So patience in the pocket, footwork, processing—those things needed to be developed once he was here. But the talent was unmistakable, and we had the younger brother. So I understood where the family came from, how he was brought up. It’s a family of high achievers. Fernando wanted to be a great player. He made that quite clear. He wanted to be developed. We had a history of development at that position, which attracted him—and his brother, who was behind us and wasn’t too thrilled that Fernando was coming, because the brother wanted to be the guy. But he could vouch for the program and how the quarterback is coached. The one thing about Fernando is his idol was Tom Brady, and he wanted to be great. He did everything within his power to be the very best he could be. Whether it was VR technology—which the Washington Commanders were using, where you plug in a defense and your plays and it’s like a game—I’d see him after practice on Thursday working on footwork, and it was organized and structured smartly. Great use of time. But I think what you’re really asking is what separates good from great. There are a lot of good players. To be a good player at this level, you have to be consistent. You’ve got to have good habits, strong commitment, discipline, work ethic, resiliency—be able to handle success and failure. But the great ones have a special discipline, a special commitment. They are always striving toward the end goal, whatever that goal may be. In Fernando’s case, it was to be the best he could be—process-oriented. And look, you’ve got to have a special ability, too. Let’s not kid ourselves. I saw it on tape. He was without a doubt our number-one guy. We were thrilled to get him. There were no reservations. We had to fight off Georgia and Miami to get him. He needed work once he got here, but you couldn’t slow that guy down.

HUSTON: You’ve mentioned that you can sometimes tell a lot about a player just from a handshake. What did you notice about him the first time you sat down with him?

CIGNETTI: I felt like I knew him already, even though we had never met and had only talked very briefly on the phone—knowing the background of the family and the younger brother. He’s a great-looking guy, great eye contact, extremely intelligent. He can go really deep on a lot of different subjects. He’s got a lot of facets to his personality. I guess the one thing I didn’t know about him—because he’s such a nice guy, and sometimes he can come off a little geeky—is what kind of competitor would he be? He competed at Cal, but then you get him here and you tend to forget some of the things you saw. But I’ll tell you what: that guy was a lion. A ferocious competitor. Take a hit, jump back up, lay it on the line. He was really respected by his teammates because of the way he competed, the way he prepared, and the way he treated people. Such a team-oriented guy. I can’t say enough great things about him.

HUSTON: Of course, he had a lot of other things going on. He got his degree early, was doing internships, has a lot of different interests. When you’re a coach evaluating a player for the first time, is having disparate interests something you don’t want to see, something you tolerate, or—as in Fernando’s case—something that adds to the full picture of what he has to offer?

CIGNETTI: There’s no doubt it added to the overall picture. Quite frankly, when they come on an official visit, you only have so much time. And Dad was very involved in the process, too. So the focus was more on the football side—the developmental part—during which Fernando expressed that he wanted to be a great quarterback. He wanted to be an NFL first-rounder. I knew what his goals were. I didn’t really realize how multifaceted he was until after we had him.

HUSTON: He had the big play in the championship game—the 12-yard touchdown run, which I think might be the greatest individual play ever by a Heisman Trophy winner, given the setting and the stakes. I’m sure at that point you weren’t necessarily surprised at what he did, but was there a point in the season where he went beyond what you had expected—in terms of how he rose to the occasion in incredibly high-pressure moments?

CIGNETTI: Yeah. We’ve had great quarterback success following the same trajectory: early-season success in game two or three that they really build on. Fernando was Mr. Clutch in tight games—fourth quarter, last drive to win the game. That’s when he was money. Iowa—what a dogfight. A lot of house blitz, a lot of big hits on the quarterback. Some great throws with people in his face. He makes the big 50-yard touchdown play at the end of the game. Oregon, the very next week, he throws the pick when we’re up. I believe it tied the game in the fourth quarter. It’s always on the quarterback a little bit, but the protection wasn’t what it needed to be. He didn’t have the opportunity to set his feet. The receiver should have flattened the route. And so you get an interception. He comes off on the sideline—never lost support from his teammates. I just gave him a little pat on the back and said, “Aren’t you having fun yet?” And then he makes all the plays at the end of the game. Penn State—unbelievable. Two-minute drive starting at the 25-yard line. No timeouts. Minute forty left. Sacked on first-and-10, so now it’s second-and-17. Three straight series we’d done nothing but go backwards, and he’d gotten hit every time he dropped back. He makes an unbelievable throw—a fastball, hit as he’s throwing it, doesn’t even get to step into the throw—and it’s on the money, every play, down the field. Then a great throw and a great catch by Omar Cooper.

That’s really when—I’ve been doing this a long time, and I think a lot of us coaches don’t believe the hype. I’m talking about our own team now, because you know what the concerns are every week, where you might get exploited. But when we pulled that one off—when he pulled that one off, and everybody on the team did—as I walked across the field, it had to flash in your mind: this could be a team of destiny.

HUSTON: You talk about his tremendous athleticism, all the physical attributes. Those jump off the tape. But those plays require something else, something that separates them. What do you think that is? And is it something you can develop, or do you have to find it? Do you have to get lucky?

CIGNETTI: The ability to play your best when the pressure is on—when you’re fully prepared, you have that ability. And when you buy into the process of playing one play at a time—six seconds of play, playing every play like it’s nothing—you’re not affected by the circumstances of the game. Except that he’s stepping up because he knows it’s crunch time. They need him. And he’s got confidence he can make the plays—with his arm or his legs, which was a huge plus. There are some guys at that position—when the chips are down, they play their best football. That’s what separates the great quarterbacks of all time from the guys who just had great statistics.

HUSTON: I saw his old high school tape, and you could still see the athleticism, the talent. What do you think evaluators were missing back then? Is it often the case that you hear too much buzz about a player beforehand and it influences you going in, so you tend to invent what you want to see?

CIGNETTI: It could be. Quarterback recruiting nowadays happens so early. You see guys going into their junior year and most of them are committed already. I never saw his high school tape. I was at James Madison then, and we weren’t real heavy in the Miami area at the time he came out. We went into Miami the following year or two years later and got his brother. The first time I saw Fernando on tape—because I’m a tape junkie, I’m always watching in the off-season—was probably the first year he played some significant minutes at Cal. And I said, “That’s Alberto’s brother—he’s pretty good.” Then the next year I saw even more. So the talent was always there. Whether he was a late developer, I can’t really say. But the fire burning in his belly to be great was always there, based on what I’ve read.

HUSTON: Does your first impression of a player on tape usually end up being the most accurate?

CIGNETTI: I think within the first five plays you’ve got a pretty good idea. It’s not always 100 percent correct, but you’ve got a pretty good idea.

HUSTON: Is it something where you try not to get an opinion on a player before you look at them, or do you research them beforehand?

CIGNETTI: We make our own evaluations. In the portal, the benefit is you can Google a guy, get the ESPN stats, see what his production numbers are—at all positions. But we make our own evaluations. We don’t listen to other people. That doesn’t mean we won’t ask a high school coach, “What do you think of this guy?” We do that. But we’re not into stars and rankings and all that kind of stuff.

HUSTON: You’ve now coached a series of great quarterbacks—first at JMU, then Connor Bazelak and Kurtis Rourke at Indiana, now Mendoza. All of them outperformed their recruiting profile. Is there a common thread in how you develop quarterbacks specifically, or does it change from player to player?

CIGNETTI: They’ve all been different. We’ve had the true pocket passer, the true dual-threat, and the in-betweeners. You’ve got to adjust to the quarterback’s strengths—what he does best—and then tailor it around your personnel. Start with the offensive line: how well can you run the football? Because that helps every quarterback. Then it’s what you’re going to do in the passing game, and whether you’re going to utilize the guy’s legs or not. We’ve had great staff continuity with Mike Shanahan as offensive coordinator. He and I have been together a long time. I’m a quarterback guy and very involved in the offensive meetings. We’ve got some coaches on the offensive side who aren’t as young as they used to be because they’ve been with me a long time. We’re all on the same page, and I think that really helps the development of all the players—that the whole staff is on the same page and the players are hearing the same thing throughout.

HUSTON: I’ve argued that Fernando’s career was the full expression of what a modern college football player can accomplish. He earned his degree, did his internships, experienced the full college experience at two great universities, and still earned his money. But it was also a throwback to the old amateurism ideal—at least the concept of it. Is he a unicorn, or is he the harbinger of more athletes wanting to follow his path?

CIGNETTI: Maybe a little bit of both. Maybe he’s a unicorn who will lead others down his path. A very well-rounded guy who was dedicated to his craft but had other interests and could speak on a lot of things. When football ends, he can do whatever he wants. He’s going to write his own ticket. He really is probably the most special person—when you consider everything in his toolkit—that I’ve ever been around.

HUSTON: Well, that’s some great insight. Coach, thanks again for coming on the Heisman Trophy podcast. We look forward to seeing what you have cooked up for the Hoosiers in the fall. Congratulations again on the national title, and we’ll see you in the fall.

CIGNETTI: Thanks, buddy.

Lincoln Riley on Coaching Three Heisman Winners

A Conversation with the Head Coach of USC Football

Host: Chris Huston

CHRIS HUSTON: There are only four head coaches in college football history who have coached at least three Heisman Trophy winners. The late Frank Leahy of Notre Dame coached four. Nick Saban of Alabama coached four as well. Pete Carroll coached three at USC. And the only active coach on that list is Lincoln Riley of USC—he coached two at Oklahoma and one at USC. Welcome, Coach, to the Heisman Trophy podcast.

LINCOLN RILEY: Thanks, Chris. It’s good to be with you.

HUSTON: What we’re trying to do this off-season is figure out what separates these individuals from other players. Are there certain characteristics that are common across them—a through line, whether athletic or mental? So let’s go through your guys. Baker Mayfield—what was the first thing you thought about him when you first saw him play?

RILEY: I could tell that he really had a flair for the big moments. Some people shy away from the big stage as it gets bigger and bigger in this sport. And then there are people who are meant for it—the bigger the stage, the better. Baker always had that characteristic. He played with a lot of moxie, a lot of energy. He was an incredibly decisive player, a very smart player. There was always that flair for the dramatic, and you just never felt that any of it was too big for him—that he was made for it. As time went on, he got better and better as a player. You matched up that God-given mentality with skills that really developed and a great football mind, and the end result was one heck of a football player.

HUSTON: Each of the three guys is a different test case. Baker was a walk-on who took a few years to marinate before he reached his peak. Kyler Murray was a big-time national recruit—goes to Texas A&M, transfers over, wins it as a junior. And Caleb Williams is one of the more unique situations—going with you from Oklahoma to USC. How much of it is the circumstances each one of these guys was in, versus something innate? Is it a mix of everything that ends up making them special?

RILEY: I think there’s certainly a mix, but these are guys who took their circumstances, whatever they were, and found the advantages in them. Whether it was Baker coming in as a walk-on, or Kyler transferring—and that was back when you actually had to sit a year when you transferred, which seems ages ago now. So Kyler sat a year, then was a backup for a year, because Baker ended up getting an extra year. It wasn’t until that third year at OU that Kyler really got on the field. He had to persevere through that stretch, and he had to have some patience. That’s not easy when you’ve been as decorated a high school player as he was. You talk about a guy who may be the greatest high school player of all time. He had to have a lot of patience and trust and had to keep developing behind the scenes, so that when his opportunity came, he was ready. Caleb’s opportunity came midway through his true freshman year in the OU–Texas game—one of the biggest games there is. He was ready for it and finished that year strong. Then he came with us out to USC and had to do it with a new team as we were restarting a program, really starting from scratch during his Heisman year. He had to show a lot of leadership and help the program along, because everything else about it was new. I look back on it now and think: what if Baker had been in Kyler’s situation? Or Caleb in Baker’s? Knowing all of them, I honestly believe any of them would have made any of the situations work, because that’s how they were wired. They were super competitive. They weren’t going to make excuses. They weren’t going to let anything be their crutch. They were going to find an advantage no matter what. And they had the self-belief, the drive, and the work ethic to match it. That’s what made them special.

HUSTON: Do you think there’s a point in a player’s development arc where it has to be there or it’s just not going to happen? Baker didn’t get many scholarship offers. Did that readiness for the spotlight show up later? Was it always there? Was it dormant? Did people discount it because of other factors?

RILEY: I think you’ve got to explain it on a case-by-case basis, because there’s so much that goes into it and each guy’s scenario is so different. But I do believe you have to have some innate traits. Chief among them, for me, is you’ve got to have an elite confidence and self-belief. If you don’t, you’re going to get challenged at some point. Something’s not going to go your way. It’s so competitive at this level. And all three of those guys had instances where they could have backed away or let their confidence wane.

Playing quarterback is a lonely position. Everybody watching a game—rooting for you, rooting against you, or just watching—everybody watches the quarterback. Even people who don’t have a clue about football watch the quarterback. They’re going to see your successes, but your failures are going to be on display for everybody too. You really have to believe in yourself, and you really have to have a true confidence about you. I think that’s something that’s a little hard to teach.

RILEY: I do think some of these guys had skill sets that showed up later. Kyler is a great example. He believed in himself as a quarterback, but a lot of people know he was a phenomenal baseball player. When we started recruiting him, the plan the whole time was that he’d try to play both sports in college and then go on to be a professional baseball player. Part of that thinking was: are you really going to have a 5’10” quarterback in the NFL? A lot of us were just coming out of that era where even 6’2” was still considered a little short for the position. As his career developed, he was doing well in baseball and certainly improving on the football field for us at OU. Then he gets drafted number nine overall by the A’s. Everything’s going according to plan.
 

I remember we sat down midway through the year that he started for us, during a bye week—just a little progress report, catching our breath. And I said to him, “Hey, I know you just went number nine overall in a professional draft, which is remarkable. But I want you to know, based on what I’m seeing, you could play football for a long time too.”
 I think that was one of the first times he really thought about it seriously. He loved football, but it was like—is that really going to be a true path? He was developing. He was having success. His confidence was growing. And then he ends up going number one overall in the NFL draft, which is remarkable. One athlete going top ten in two professional drafts tells you how unique he was.

There’s got to be some innate qualities, but there’s got to be development too. Nobody has it all. And if they think they do, they’re probably not going to work as hard as they’d need to develop those skills. You need both. But the inner belief—without that, you can work as hard as you want. If you don’t believe in yourself, it’s a tough thing to do.

HUSTON: A little chip on the shoulder, right? For Baker, because of being the walk-on. For Kyler, being shorter, being a guy who was also into baseball—maybe not being taken as seriously in football because of his height. That’s got to be a good motivator.

RILEY: It is. They all kind of found that edge. Baker’s was more outward. Baker had a chip on his shoulder the size of the state of Texas—he still does. That’s just him. Kyler had one too, but it was more internal. Even Caleb—a lot of people don’t know this story. When we were recruiting Caleb at Oklahoma, we had it down to two guys for the quarterback position that year. The other kid surprised us and jumped on and committed. I’ve always been a guy who says, if someone’s committed and says he’s coming, I don’t recruit anybody else at that position. So I called Caleb and his dad and told them, “I’m sorry, but this guy committed. I’m not going to be able to recruit you right now.”

They weren’t happy about it. And just to show how much Caleb believed in himself—they flew out to a game on their own. I told them I wasn’t even going to meet with them, because I was trying to show loyalty to the other kid. And they said, “Well, the hell with it. We’ll just walk on.”

That edge—“I’m going to go prove it. You don’t think you’re going to take me? I’m going to prove to you one way or another that I’m the right guy.” As fate would have it, the other kid ended up staying closer to home. We immediately pivoted back to Caleb. And after going through that situation, deep down I was like, “All right, that told me everything I need to know about this guy.”

HUSTON: When you first saw Kyler, it must have been very early in his high school career. When the physical talent jumps off the tape and then you have to sit down and talk to him—is there a danger in squinting to hear what you want to hear because you’ve already convinced yourself the tools are so good? Is that a challenge when you’re evaluating these types of athletes?

RILEY: One hundred percent. I think we’ve all, as coaches, gone through that—made decisions that ended up great and decisions we wish we had back. Talent is a tempting thing. You turn on the tape and see what somebody can do, and that’s tough to ignore, tough to say no to. The best decisions go back to having priorities and knowing what you’re looking for. In Kyler’s case, I knew what he was doing at Allen High School and the legendary run they were on. I saw him play and I thought he was as good as anybody I’d ever seen. He made the game look easy in big-time Texas football, where the competition is off the charts. He’s playing against really good teams and players and coaches, and it was just different. I’ve tried, especially with the quarterback position, to stick to this: I want to get excited about what I see on tape, but I want to feel equally excited about the conversations we have and about working with the person. If I’m really excited about both, that’s been my inner barometer—okay, this is somebody who meets the criteria and can really work. That’s maybe helped me avoid a few through the years where the talent was tempting, but maybe a part of the personality or the work ethic wasn’t the right fit. I’ve got to be pretty excited about both. And all these guys were great examples—the talent was there, but you loved what they brought along with it.

HUSTON: Caleb comes along in a completely different era from those first two guys—the NIL era. He’s already got a brand, he’s got his charity work. I was talking to Neil Everett about Fernando Mendoza, about how Fernando is interested in all kinds of things—the NBA stuff, the LinkedIn presence, the internships. Someone said, “Well, if he hadn’t won, people would have said he spent too much time on other stuff.” Is there a worry that a player gets caught up in all of that? Or is it that you have to figure out whether this is the kind of guy who can handle it—plus the pressure of playing the position?

RILEY: I think it’s something that’s evolved through the years. For so long, these athletes were just viewed as athletes—that was their identity, that was all they did. As time has evolved, a lot of great athletes have used their platform to enter into different interests, whether personally, professionally, from a business standpoint, or to help set up what they might do once their playing career ends. How many great athletes are there who, when their career ends, kind of lose their identity? They don’t have that next plan or next thing set up. I think that development has been a huge positive. It’s helping guys learn more than just the game. They’re able to have interests outside of it and still develop not just as a player, but all around—and to have something there when the game’s gone, whether through retirement or an unfortunate injury. With that, colleges like us and professional organizations have had to learn how to support it and help guys not lose too much focus on the day job while still managing the outside things they want to do. A guy like Fernando seems to have a good grasp of how to prioritize his time and keep the main thing the main thing without having to completely shut off outside interests. He’s a good role model for a lot of guys on how to do it well—how to build a great reputation on top of also becoming a really productive football player. Whether it’s someone like Caleb at the beginning of the NIL era or someone like Fernando now, the more good examples we have, the better it’ll be for the next generations. This thing will continue to evolve, and hopefully guys like that can continue to set a great example.

HUSTON: Finally, Coach, you’ve got a great quarterback right now at USC in Jayden Maiava. He was on the show last year. What are some characteristics or traits that remind you of one of your other guys?

RILEY: He’s a really resilient, team-first guy. He’s really competitive. The team being successful, the team winning—that’s the most important thing to him, and it was the same with those other three guys. He’s a little on the quieter side—not quite as outgoing as a Baker or a Caleb. Somewhere in between all of them, I’d say. But he’s really found his voice and his confidence here. He’s got a little bit of that flair for the dramatic in the big moments and the big games. He’s certainly not afraid to go in there and let it rip and make the big plays. He’s one of those guys who wants that and craves it. And that’s one of the things I like about him the most—it reminds me of those guys.

HUSTON: Lincoln Riley is the coach of three Heisman Trophy winners, the only active coach with that many to his credit. Thanks, Coach, for coming on the Heisman Trophy podcast. Really appreciate you taking the time.

RILEY: Anytime, Chris. Really enjoyed it.

THE HEISMAN TROPHY PODCAST

Kristi Yamaguchi on Greatness, Pressure, and Giving Back

A Conversation with the Olympic Gold Medalist and Heisman Humanitarian Award Winner

Host: Chris Huston

CHRIS HUSTON: This off-season, our podcast is asking a few simple questions: where does greatness come from? How do we identify it? And how does it develop? Today’s guest is one of the best answers to those questions that American sports has to offer.
 Kristi Yamaguchi was born with bilateral clubfoot. Her doctor suggested skating as therapy. She took to the ice at age six, was rising at four in the morning to practice before school by sixth grade, and never stopped. She is the 1992 Olympic champion and two-time world champion. In winning that gold medal in Albertville, she became the first Asian American to win gold at a Winter Olympics.
 

Off the ice, her Always Dream nonprofit has spent nearly three decades getting books into the hands of children from low-income families—work that the Heisman Trust recognized in 2019 when it named her its Humanitarian Award winner for her service and dedication to underprivileged youth.

Kristi was in Milan recently to work NBC’s Olympic coverage, and with Alysa Liu just winning the first individual women’s Olympic figure skating title for the United States in 24 years, there’s plenty to talk about on that front as well. Please welcome Olympic gold medalist and 2019 Heisman humanitarian Kristi Yamaguchi to the Heisman Trophy podcast.

KRISTI YAMAGUCHI: Hello. Thank you so much. It’s my pleasure to be here.

HUSTON: The pleasure is all ours. Let’s talk some Olympics right off the bat since it’s fresh in our minds. Alyssa Liu just won gold in Milan, the first American woman to do so since Sarah Hughes in 2002. You’ve been watching this sport for decades. What did you see from her that reminded you of what it takes to get the gold?

YAMAGUCHI: Alyssa has such an amazing story—retiring at 16, coming back, taking a couple of years off to find herself and find her own voice, and then deciding that she still had something in her. There was a competitive itch that needed to be scratched. She came back, won her first world championship last year, which set her up as one of the favorites this year.
 

She’s always been an incredible competitor. She always pushed herself to be her best version. But she also infused joy and love of the sport into her performances. From a young age people said, “Oh, of course she feels no pressure—she’s 15, 16, and it’s fun to watch her with her bubbly personality.” But this year, under the incredible pressure of the Olympic Games—which is a whole other animal—she still had that gamer attitude, that effervescent joy. A lot of us who’ve experienced that Olympic moment were watching and thinking, “I don’t know how she’s doing it.” I think at the core it was a certain confidence she had in herself. You have to have that when you’re competing at that level.

HUSTON: Conversely, Ilia Malinin came in as the heavy favorite and finished eighth. As someone who has felt the pressure of being the favorite, what do you think happened with him?

YAMAGUCHI: Physically, we knew he was the one to beat. Technically, he’s dominated the last three years in men’s figure skating and really taken it to another level. But it was more of a mental issue—maybe the preparation wasn’t there for handling what Olympic pressure is really about. He’s been so dominant. I wouldn’t say the last three years were easy for him, but he’d had the confidence of riding that wave of changing the sport.
 The expectations, I think, were what ultimately got to him. When he stepped on the ice to compete, the expectations were overwhelming, and maybe he wasn’t quite prepared for how to deal with that—how to channel the positive side and convince yourself, “I’m going to be okay.” Because it’s hard in that moment.

HUSTON: How did you handle that? How did you get yourself to block all that other stuff out and get out there with the eyes of the world upon you?

YAMAGUCHI: I wouldn’t say serenity in that moment. It’s mentally trying to find that positive place you can be in, because it’s terrifying. I was like, “No, I don’t want to go out there.” We all know what it’s like. It’s just convincing yourself: I’m ready. I’ve put the work in. Let your body do what it’s trained to do. It’s definitely playing mind games with yourself, because it’s easy to think, “What if I don’t feel good? I feel shaky. I don’t feel strong. I’m going to get tired.” It’s easy to let those thoughts infiltrate your head. You just do your best to push them out. “No—I’m ready. I’m rested. This is the moment.” It’s keeping yourself pumped up and as positive as possible.

HUSTON: I was talking to Joey Cheek about that—the speed skating gold medalist from 2006. He was talking about how there are people who are favorites to win and then don’t come up with their best performance. It’s almost like a curse of bad luck—something happens and it snowballs during the routine. If you’re someone who didn’t come through in that moment, do you tell yourself, “I can still be considered the best—I just couldn’t do it in that moment”?

YAMAGUCHI: That is the thrill and the heartbreak of sport. The winner isn’t necessarily always the best person or the best team. It’s the ones who can compete under the pressure and do their best in that moment. That’s why there’s so much excitement and heartbreak at the Olympics—the best person or the favorite doesn’t always win. I’m hoping that isn’t the final chapter for Ilia. He’s young. He can come back in four years, and I think he’ll have that fire to prove himself.
 

Nathan Chen is a good example. His first Olympics, he was one of the favorites but put himself out of the competition after mistakes in the short program. He came back four years later, ready—mentally ready—with a different level of maturity and confidence. Sometimes you need those challenges and roadblocks to be able to build on them and figure out what was missing. The people who eventually end up winning are able to figure that out.

HUSTON: With both of these great athletes—one who succeeded and one who didn’t in this particular moment—they seem to be doing a lot as ambassadors of the sport. Where do you see American figure skating headed over the next Olympic cycle?

YAMAGUCHI: I’m very optimistic and encouraged about the future. Alysa is planning to stay for another four years. It only took her a year and a half or two years to get to Olympic champion. Who knows what she can bring back? She was the first U.S. woman to land a quadruple Lutz in competition. Maybe she’ll bring that back, or the triple axel, which was in her repertoire before she retired at 16. I don’t think she’s hit her peak yet.

Same with Ilia—he’s only going to get stronger, better, and more commanding on the ice. And there’s a lot of young talent behind them from U.S. Figure Skating. When you see Ilia and Alysa being the leaders—both incredible ambassadors, not just as champions but as examples of sportsmanship—there’s always a reason to be optimistic. What I saw in Milan from both of them, in how they handled their individual situations, was pretty extraordinary.

HUSTON: Going to your origins—you started skating as physical therapy for clubfoot, is that right?

YAMAGUCHI: Actually, I wanted to start it and asked the doctors if that would be okay, and they said, “Yeah, that would be great.” So they didn’t recommend it—I wanted to try, and they gave the go-ahead.

HUSTON: At what point did it stop being a hobby and start being something you couldn’t live without?

YAMAGUCHI: I loved it from the beginning and just wanted to go as much as possible. I started competing around eight years old, and by 11 or 12, it was like, “Oh, there’s more to this than we thought.” Now I could represent the West Coast. And as you get higher in your levels, from the West Coast you go to the national level. The progression was gradual—it snowballed slowly, but there was always motivation to keep going. By middle school, it was, “Okay, I want to put more into this.” I dropped all my other activities—which were minimal anyway, basketball and a few other things—and focused on skating. At that point it was five or six days a week, going before school, sometimes after school, traveling on weekends for competitions.

HUSTON: The whole upbringing of a skater is famously rough—the early mornings, the gruff coaches. You had to have a lot of discipline to get through it. Did that discipline come from you, your parents, or your coaches?

YAMAGUCHI: I definitely learned discipline from my family—my parents, even my grandparents—and my coach. But it had to come from within. You can teach someone discipline, but if they don’t apply it, then the athlete is responsible. The discipline and the determination were huge factors in the progression, the learning, staying on track, and getting through the tough times.

HUSTON: Were you always competitive in everything you did?

YAMAGUCHI: Kind of, yeah. I’ve chilled out a lot more now, but for sure. I always bring up the example of Easter egg hunts with my brother and sister when we were little. I wanted to be the fastest one out the door and collect the most eggs. Little things like that. As a kind of timid, scrawny, uncoordinated kid, having that competitiveness served me well.

HUSTON: You were competing in both singles and pairs simultaneously at the elite level, which is almost unheard of. What made you decide to drop the pairs and go all-in on singles? And how scary was that—to bet on yourself?

YAMAGUCHI: I had always skated singles. I picked up pair skating when I was 11, with Rudy Galindo. We skated together for seven years. In that time, we won two national U.S. pair titles and were fifth in the world twice. As any relationship does, it evolved and changed. The last year we competed was challenging. We had lost our pair coach, Jim Hulick. We were in limbo with training and coaching. Our goals started to be different. The partnership was in a difficult place. I competed in both singles and pairs at the world level—my second world championship doing both—and at the time we were still doing compulsory figures. So I competed five days in a row, which was exhausting, and I didn’t skate well in either event. The writing was on the wall. We were a strong U.S. pair team, but we weren’t breaking into the top three at the world level. The Soviet Union was dominating, along with the Germans, the Czechs, the Canadians. An international skating union official—who was also American—approached me and said, “You’ve done something amazing competing in both at the world level. But it’s too much pressure at this level to do both. You should think about choosing one discipline. We think you should go the singles route, because that’s where the potential is.”

It was shocking, because Rudy and I always thought—our idols were Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner—and we thought we’d have this lifetime of competing together. It was like going through a really tough breakup. We were still kids—I was 18, he was 19. But deep down, I think we knew it was probably the right decision. It was putting all my eggs in one basket, but at the same time, I knew I was always going to compete in singles too. It just streamlined things.

Luckily it worked out—and for him as well. He went on to do great stuff too.

HUSTON: You mentioned Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner. Dorothy Hamill was your idol growing up, and she actually found you backstage in Albertville right before your free skate and told you to go have fun. What was going through your mind at that moment?

YAMAGUCHI: First, I was like, “Wow, what is she doing here?” But obviously it was a thrill to meet her in person. She gave me a little good-luck present, and I was almost speechless. It was a really special moment.

She was the last American woman to have won a gold medal—in 1976, sixteen years earlier. I never imagined that I could be the first one since my idol to win it. And that’s what ended up happening. That was pretty cool.

HUSTON: Figure skating is judged, not timed. How do you prepare mentally for a competition where the finish line is someone else’s opinion?

YAMAGUCHI: I have a really specific memory of one of my first competitions, when I was maybe eight years old. My mom and my coach told me, “Your goal is to go out there and do what you can do. That’s all you have control over. The judges will judge.” My parents used to say, “Let the chips fall where they may.” As a kid, I didn’t know what that meant.
 But I learned early on that I only have control of my performance. If I go out there and fall three times, will I be happy even if I win? No—because I’ll know I missed things I can land. That always became the goal. And if you realize that when you’re eight, nine, ten years old, by the time you’re at the Olympics, you know how to play the game a little bit. You want to stay within a certain boundary where all nine judges will appreciate your choice of music and your interpretation. You don’t want to be offensive in a way that costs you a score. But at the same time, you have to go do your thing. If you don’t do your thing, it makes their job a lot harder.

HUSTON: As a competitor, do you hope your competition does their best and then you beat them at their best? Or if they fall, does your strategy change—do you get conservative? Is there a part of you that wants to go out and have your best skate regardless?

YAMAGUCHI: There’s always that little thing—you always want to win. I mean, why are you competing? But that can’t be your only motivation. In any sport, it’s going to be constant disappointment, because you’re not always going to win—unless you’re Tom Brady or something. You have to have goals that will still fulfill you.
 Every performance means something. In skating, a fall is pretty detrimental to your overall performance. So it’s going out there and skating as clean as you can in the four minutes you’re given. That was always the main goal. And I always knew: if I skate the way I know I can, I’ll be fine. Even if I come in second or third, it’s still a medal, still the podium, and it’ll motivate me to see what I need to work on to be first next time.

HUSTON: Those 1992 Olympics featured you, Nancy Kerrigan, and Tonya Harding—arguably the most talent-dense women’s field in the history of the sport. What do you remember most about the atmosphere in that arena?

YAMAGUCHI: The three of us were coming in having swept the podium at Worlds the year before. There was good energy. This was obviously before the whole scandal with Tonya and Nancy. We felt like we were a strong team and the ones setting the bar.
 We knew Midori Ito of Japan was the biggest rival for gold that year. She was also doing the triple axel—the one responsible for pushing women’s skating to a higher technical level. There was a lot of energy around who was going to land what, whether the triple axel was going to make the difference, who was going to stay on their feet under the pressure. But the U.S. team felt pretty confident, and we should have. We came away with three medals that year—two in the ladies’ event and a silver for Paul Wylie in the men’s.

HUSTON: Looking back, what separated the skaters who had the most talent from those who actually reached the top?

YAMAGUCHI: It’s always preparation. Being ready for the moment—mentally and physically. My coach, Christy Ness, always told her students that there’s no secret to success in sport. It’s plain and simple hard work. You will see results if you put the work in. I always took that to heart. I could see what my competitors did in practice, what their tendencies were. Sometimes that gave me more confidence, because I’d think, “I’m not sure they’re as ready as they think they are.” I don’t know—that’s something I could see, and it gave me confidence in competition. Even though you’ve prepared, it’s still 90 percent mental once you get to that moment.

You’ve got to put the work in. I always remember hearing how Jerry Rice was the first one on the field at practice and the last one to leave. We were huge 49ers fans—the team of the ’80s. Hearing things like that stuck with me. That’s why he’s the GOAT. That’s why no one can touch him. He puts the work in. And I wanted to be like that too.

HUSTON: You transferred that same drive into a lot of other things—Dancing with the Stars, for instance, which you won. And of course there’s your great nonprofit, Always Dream, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. You have two galas planned—the first in Honolulu on April 25th, the second in San Francisco on October 24th. Your Always Reading program has 40 school partners this year across Northern California and four Hawaiian islands, serving over 5,800 children and family members. Always Dream started broadly and then narrowed its focus to early childhood literacy. What drove that decision, and what does the research tell us about why that window matters so much?

YAMAGUCHI: It was about 2012, and my kids were at that learn-to-read stage—four and six or so. I had just written my first children’s picture book, Dream Big, Little Pig. And I was exposed to literacy everywhere—going to libraries, visiting schools, doing story-time readings. I loved it. Seeing the joy on a kid’s face whenever you told a story was awesome. That’s one of my favorite memories as a parent—bedtime reading, picking out books, having their favorites.

As we were diving into early education and the importance of reading, I was realizing how shocking the literacy statistics are in the U.S., considering what a great country we are and the resources we have. Over 60 percent of families in low-income areas have zero age-appropriate books in the home. That’s heartbreaking—there are kids out there who go to bed without a bedtime story.

That motivated me to provide access to high-quality, age-appropriate books for as many kids as possible, and then to pair that with family engagement—helping family members at home understand how important it is to sit down and read to their children. Connecting with your child over books makes a tremendous difference in the foundation of their education, which is going to carry them through their educational career and into contributing to the community.

HUSTON: Obviously you’re a football fan. When the Heisman Trust called with the humanitarian award, what did it mean to you to be recognized by an organization so identified with football and college sports?

YAMAGUCHI: At first I was like, “Wait—is this right? I’m a figure skater.” But it was a tremendous honor. Looking at the past recipients and seeing that Mia Hamm was the only other woman honored with the Heisman humanitarian award at that time was amazing. So many of my heroes had been honored, and seeing the great work they do in the community—it fuels you to do more and keep at it.

I’m honored and proud to be part of such an amazing legacy that stands for excellence, and also for what the Heisman Foundation represents—what it means to care, to be part of your community, and to make an impact. I think it’s really great that they recognize and support that.

HUSTON: I love it too, because I get to talk to people like you and Misty Copeland, which is off the beaten path from who I usually get to talk to. You got a taste of that Heisman weekend—being around a bunch of football people, old and new. What’s that like compared to the skating scene? Is it all the same—all elite athletes sharing the same mentality—or is it a totally different vibe?

YAMAGUCHI: It’s a little different vibe. In 2019, when I was honored, I was like, “Okay, I’m adding some feminine energy here,” surrounded by these 250- and 350-pound football players. But obviously I’m a huge football fan, so in some ways it was familiar. There’s a mutual respect for each other’s accomplishments in our respective sports. I think we learn a lot from each other and gain a lot of inspiration from each other. On the Heisman humanitarian award side, a lot of the football players are also there as Heisman Trophy winners. There’s a brotherhood among them that’s incredible to see—a camaraderie that’s nice to see in any sport.

HUSTON: Kristi, can you let our listeners know the best way they can get involved with Always Dream?

YAMAGUCHI: You can visit our website, alwaysdream.org. There’s information about our program, where we serve, our events coming up—including the galas in April and October. And how to get involved. We’re always looking to tell our story more, and we’re passionate about what we do. The more people know, the more impact we can make.

HUSTON: You are always welcome to come on here and talk about what you’re up to. It’s been a major honor to chat with you, Kristi. Congrats again on a brilliant career. We at the Heisman wish you continued success. We’re proud you’re part of our family.

YAMAGUCHI: Thank you so much. I’m honored as well.