10 Questions with Andy Boyd

2/14/2010

Andy Boyd is entering his second year as director of high school relations with the University of Toledo football team. The Whitmer graduate previously spent four seasons on the staff, as defensive backs coach in 2008 after guiding the outside linebackers from 2005-07. Boyd, 31, was a four-year starter at free safety at UT from 1998-2001. He was a team captain on the 2001 team that won a Mid-American Conference championship and the Motor City Bowl, and finished his career with 331 tackles and 10 interceptions. Boyd was a walk-on in 1997 and earned a scholarship in the spring of 1998.

1. What are your day-to-day responsibilities in your position at UT?

It heavily involves the recruiting of high school kids — film evaluation, creating recruiting boards, organizing the weekly communication with those kids. The best way to put it is I'm a co-recruiting coordinator with [tight ends coach] Alex Golesh.

2. How do you go about putting together a highly rated recruiting class?

It starts at the top, of course. It's the philosophy and the vision that coach [Tim] Beckman has with recruiting and with the future of this football program. Everything that we're doing gets funneled through him. And it's the energy and the hard work that our coaches put into it. You have to have a passion to recruit.

3. How much did the new Fetterman Training Center help in the recruiting process?

I don't think you can put a price tag on how important that thing is. The facilities are eye-candy to a recruit, and it's going to give our kids the opportunity to play football year round.

4. What was the transition from playing to coaching like?

Coaching is the next best thing to playing. When you love the game of football, it's in your blood and you just can't shake it. I've been blessed many, many times over again to have been born and raised in this town and lucky enough to play in front of my friends and family and then coach at my alma mater.

5. What are some of your best memories from your days at Whitmer?

I've been going to Whitmer games for as long as I can remember. I'm talking about the days when they had a great streak going in the late '80s and I was 7, 8 years old going to those games drinking hot chocolate in the stands with my dad and my brother and my mom. Whitmer football has always been a proud tradition.

6. What was the rollercoaster of emotions like going from the 2000 season, when your team was one of best in the country not to make it to a bowl, to the next year when you won the Motor City Bowl?

If you're lucky enough to win 20 games in two years, your junior and senior year, that's awfully, awfully special. Looking back on the Penn State victory [in 2000], that was a great accomplishment for our program, and I think we if we played Penn State 10 times, I think we would have won six or seven times. Our team was that good..

7. Do you have a favorite Tom Amstutz story?

I don't know if one story comes to mind, but just the overall attitude that he had is what I remember the most. He was a fun-loving guy, and you knew and understood as a football player that he had your best interests at heart.

8. What have learned while working under Tim Beckman?

Coach Beckman has a tremendous passion to succeed and to positively influence the kids that he's coaching.

9. What's the best part of your job?

I don't feel like I go to work everyday. It's never felt like a drag to get in my car and come to work. It's not something many people have the opportunity to do.

10. Where would you like to see yourself in thefuture?

I would love to continue my career at the University of Toledo. This is home for me, and you can't put a price tag on what that means to my family, what that means to me. My goal would be to become a position coach again and just continue on the path that I'm traveling on – and that's to help kids make their way in the world.

— Zach Silka