‘Great leaders listen’: How new Duke football coach Manny Diaz is rebuilding trust

Manny Diaz gave Maalik Murphy, a transfer quarterback from Texas, the number 57 on the first day of Duke spring training.

Murphy would’ve preferred six, which he wore as a Longhorn. The message from head coach Manny Diaz was clear.

“I guess I got to work for my number,” Murphy said with a laugh.

The same could be said for Diaz when it came to earning trust after taking over at Duke last December.

Doubt punctuated the ten days that separated Mike Elko’s departure for Texas A&M and Diaz’s hiring. So before Diaz could implement his renowned defensive philosophy — a fast, creative and aggressive style of play — he was tasked with rebuilding a culture of dependence.

The main message he wanted to convey? He was there for them.

“Anytime there’s a coaching change… you don’t know what’s going on,” Diaz said. “There’s a lot of rumors and this, that and the other.”

Diaz knew, in the transfer portal era, the Blue Devils had the right to leave. He had to quickly connect with as many players as possible.

That was the case with redshirt senior safety Jaylen Stinson, who entered the portal in December before deciding to return to Duke.

“We really didn’t know where this would go,” Stinson said. “When Manny got to come to the front and talk to us, tell us his plan, what he had planned for this team, it just built confidence in us as a whole as far as the locker room.”

Upon being hired, Diaz quickly arranged Zoom sessions with current players, as well as recruited players committed to Duke, and then the parents. Once Diaz was in Durham, he called Blue Devils into his office, one by one, to chat.

He said his first question was always, “What can we do better?”

“Great leaders listen,” Diaz said, later adding, “We all as humans have the need and desire to be heard.”

Murphy said Diaz often picked his brain in their early conversations, flipping the tables and seeing what the quarterback wanted from the program.

“He was really making it about me,” Murphy said, breaking out into a smile. “Now that I think about it, that’s a good thing to do as a head coach, you know, being like a sponge and absorbing all the information you can get from a player that you want coming out of the portal.”

Justin Pickett remembers entering his one-on-one with a sense of confidence. As a returning starter on the offensive line, the redshirt junior felt a responsibility to explain to Diaz “what Duke football is.”

And how did he feel after the meeting?

“I felt impressed,” he said. “I felt ready to go. Ready to get on the field and put a helmet on. I was excited.”

Diaz said he’s learned “so much” about Duke in the past seven months. And the players, like graduate wideout Jordan Moore, clearly appreciated this listen-first approach.

“Some coaches might want to come in and force their agenda without even talking to the players first,” he said. “But he was really respectful and really cognizant of our culture and what we think of our program. He was able to implement what he believes and we can fuse it together.”