The Carolina Panthers made waves on Tuesday, hiring former Baylor head coach Matt Rhule for the same position.
Rhule is seen as an up-and-coming young coach with a vast amount of talent on offense. The $60 million Carolina handed him is a prime example of just how much owner David Tepper and Co. value the 44-year-old Rhule.
In discussing the hiring on Tuesday, Tepper had a solid gold quote about his decision-making process.
”He dresses like (expletive) and sweats all over himself. He dresses like me, so I have to love the guy,” Tepper said, via ESPN’s David Newton. “I was a short-order cook; he was a short-order cook. Nobody gave him anything, nobody game me anything. He had to work hard for everything he got.”
Outside of dressing like rags, we fully understand where Tepper is coming from here. He came from almost nothing to build a net worth of $12 billion before purchasing the Panthers.
Rhule himself is no stranger to struggles earlier in life. Rhule’s father, a minister at the time, moved his entire family to a suburb of Kansas City during his childhood.
He did so without the gig paying a dime, taking odd jobs to make everything work for the family.
Rhule recalled this specific story upon being hired by Baylor back in 2017.
“He had to raise all his own money,” the new Panthers head coach said, via CBS Sports. “He took a job landscaping. He took trees to the 80th floor and put them up on roofs. He’s afraid of heights.”
In many ways, coaching searches like this come down to who the powers to be feel most comfortable with.
For Tepper, it was obviously Rhule as the newish Panthers owner made his first real big decision in that role.
Time will tell whether it pays off. But the relationship has gotten off to a pretty strong start.