That locker room on November 9, 1974, was an absolute powder keg after BYU snatched a 21-18 victory against 16th-ranked Arizona State at the old Cougar Stadium. But what went down right after the final whistle wasn’t about the scoreboard. It was about how head coach LaVell Edwards, then an unproven assistant just a few years into the top job, moved his players in a way nobody expected. Dave Hanna, who was there working for the sports information office, watched it all unfold and it changed how he saw leadership forever.
The Silence That Shook the Locker Room
Hanna, a BYU senior in the fall of 1972, started working for the sports information department just as Edwards took over the football program. He was right there for Edwards’ inaugural season and stuck around for the next two while he was in grad school. His gig meant hitting the locker room post-game to grab quotes for the media. So, on that electric November night in ’74, after arguably the biggest win in BYU’s history up to that point, Hanna was in the thick of it. LaVell Edwards walked in to address his victorious team. But he couldn’t. Emotion just completely swamped him. He struggled, couldn’t get the words out, just gave his team a thumbs-up, and stepped back. What followed? Hanna said it was “the loudest ovation I have ever heard in my life.” The lockers became “kettle drums,” and the cheering, he thought, “was going to lift the roof right off the locker room.”
More Than Just a Win: Unassuming Leadership
For Hanna, that moment wasn’t just a reaction to a massive upset. Nah, it was a pure, raw reflection of the bond between the players and their coach, a testament to Edwards’ leadership style. Hanna was hooked. Even after he graduated with a master’s degree in organization behavior and left Provo in 1975 to start his career with Procter & Gamble and later as a global consultant, he never stopped following the Cougars. He even watched Holiday Bowl games at 3 AM from Germany. He absolutely reveled in BYU’s wins, including that 1984 national championship, but it was Edwards’ “unassuming, effective way” of leading that truly mesmerized him. Hanna advised and observed top business leaders worldwide, but he saw Edwards as their equal, “and then some.” This was a man who didn’t just follow the rules of leadership; he wrote a few of his own.
The Playbook Is Here
After Hanna retired in 2020 and moved back to Provo, he knew it was time to put his decades of observations down for everyone to see. The result, “LaVell’s Leadership Playbook,” hit shelves this month, just in time for another football season. In it, Hanna breaks down many of the Edwards era’s biggest wins, tying them back to eight fundamental business principles Edwards consistently used. We’re talking stuff like “Compete using your unique strengths” and “Instinctively follow the game plan.” If you want to dive into the mind of a true leader, you can find it on Amazon.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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