The Military Officers of America, Tallahassee Chapter, honored Florida State head football coach Mike Norvell on Monday night and from the reaction of the crowd, he delivered the equivalent of a T.E.D. leadership talk.

“After hearing him speak tonight, I have no doubt he’s capable of leading this team back,” one retired officer said to another as they left the meeting.

“Nor do I,” the fellow officer responded with certainty.

In many ways it was your typical Norvell speech, beginning the dinner hour with solemn discussion of the tragedy on campus Thursday and the quick response by law enforcement as well as his signature hearty, “Good Morning!”

One gentleman replied: “You mean Good Evening!” To which Norvell explained he always starts each meeting with Good Morning! no matter what time of day it may be, "because it is always time to wake up and get focused on the task at hand.“

"I start off my meeting every day with 'good morning' whether it is 6 in the morning or 9 at night,” Norvell explained. “I start with 'good morning' because we are going to start with the right mindset. I am sure with you all in different branches of the services you learned to get up and get your mind right. Correct?”

The crowd responded to the affirmative.Oorah!

“As a young man I can’t say I always loved mornings,” Norvell said. “Playing the game of football you have to do things you don’t always enjoy and you have to develop an understanding and a respect for why those things are so important.”

The audience of officers, experts on this subject matter, listened intently.

“I’m fortunate because I get to lead 18-to-22 year olds, to help them build habits, to help them develop a mindset,” Norvell said, “and to learn how to deal with the success this game will bring and the failures that come with playing the game. But one of the things I get to help them understand is you get to make the choice. No matter what the circumstances are around you, you get to make the choice of what your attitude is going to be. You get to make the choice of what your attention level is going to be. When (our players) hear 'good morning,' it is just a reminder that it is now time to make the choice. Now you don’t know what is going to be put in front of you but you get to make the choice in how you are going to respond in those situations. It is just about trying to help them build positive habits.”

Mike Norvell had to make a lot of choices during what was an unlikely rise to become the youngest head football coach when he was hired at Memphis.

Norvell explained that he was born to an unwed, mid-teenage mother and was the oldest of four brothers and sisters. Working multiple jobs to feed the family, his mother found a Pop Warner coach who was willing to watch her son in the afternoons. Mike, who was 5 at the time, was not yet old enough to play.

“I would stay with my Pop Warner coach a couple of nights a week,” Norvell said, noting the coach had younger sons. “He didn’t have to do it. He just wanted to give of himself to make a difference. He was one of those coaches who would come around and tell me the things I could do, regardless of the path. ‘Don’t let anyone come up to you and tell you what you can’t do, because you can. When it comes to the work ethic, the determination, the resiliency, you can overcome, you can push through. You can become anything you want to become.”

Imagine you are 5 to 10 years old and without a stable father figure in your life and you have a football coach eager to guide you and you'll understand Norvell's compulsion to coach.

“One thing my mom always made sure of from the age of 5 is that I was always able to play or coach football,” Norvell said. “I have always been a part of this game. This game has always meant so much to me. It really wasn’t about the jersey or the position I played, it was because of the men I was fortunate to be around who truly cared about me. They saw an opportunity to help guide a young man. For 38 years this game has still been very special. It has always provided a family culture for me that has given me so much.”

The football coach became his father figure and the team became his family.

“There were so many life lessons at the age of 8, 9, 10 as a young football player,” Mike said of the relationships. “In those moments that a man spoke into me of what I could do, it truly stuck. It was something that inspired me throughout my life. At that moment, there was no question what I wanted to be. I had no other choice but to become a football coach. I have never had a plan B.”

While Norvell had a successful high school career outside Dallas, Texas, the 140-pound receiver wasn’t offered the next step to college by anyone.

But Norvell didn’t dwell on what he couldn’t do. Instead he chose to focus on what he could do.

“With the help of a coach, I went to the high school and asked if I could stay in high school for another year,” Norvell explained. “I wanted to train and get bigger so I could fulfill my dream of playing college football. The high school made the decision to let me be an assistant coach because my eligibility had run out, so I got to be a junior high coordinator… my first coaching experience.

"I woke up every morning at 5 o’clock. Was in the weight room by 5:45. Did all my training beforehand. Every training shake you can imagine, I was putting it in my body because I had a purpose.”

“I was always tied to my coaches. I wanted their relationship. I wanted their affirmation. I wanted their challenge,” Norvell said.

During his junior year in college there was an incident on the football team that not only taught him an important coaching lesson but also inspired him to choose coaching at the collegiate level over the high school.

The moment came when a couple of his freshmen teammates missed the bus after having too much fun on Thursday night. They were important starters and Norvell was furious with them, when he marched into his position coach’s office demanding to know how the freshmen could do this to the team. “Don’t they know how important this was?” he wanted to know.

His coach said, “Mike, you have to remember they are 18 years old and this is the first time they have ever been away from home," Norvell recalls, as if it were yesterday. “In that moment, it sparked my driving desire to be a college coach because he was right. Eighteen-year-olds leaving home for the first time. Decisions that are made from 18 to 22 years, during those college years, are going to impact the next 40 or 50 years of their life.”

While Norvell said high school coaches have been very important in his life growing up, he suddenly realized there’s a need for a coach at the college level, too.

“When a player leaves a high school practice, where are they going?” he asked rhetorically. “They go home and whatever the values of that home are will be poured into them."

Some kids need their high school coach. They need the structure which he acknowledged he did. But what happens when they get to college?

“If I am somebody who wants to make an impact on their journey and I am in college (coaching) now I get a chance to make an impact when they leave their homes,” Norvell said. “When they are not going home every night to see their family, when they are putting their trust into a program, into a coach they hope will continue to develop them into the men they are trying to be.”

At that moment Norvell said “This is my path. This is what I want to be.”

Whether as an assistant, a coordinator, or a head coach, Norvell aspired to “help young men build their dream of playing in college but also making sure that we are preparing them for everything that’s beyond. Because you get one shot."

While it was his junior year when he chose to be a college coach, it was in his sophomore year when he made a choice that would lead to his first career opportunity. Norvell made the good decision to introduce himself to a practice visitor, who turned out to be a high school head coach named Don Strubie. Each year, Strubie would visit practice and make time to say hello to the skinny wideout.

A couple of years later, while Norvell was a graduate assistant at Central Arkansas, Strubie called Norvell to introduce him to a former high school coach named Gus Malzahn, who was the co-offensive coordinator at Tulsa and looking for a graduate assistant.

Small world, right?

Norvell mentioned that so much of life is who you know and not what you know. "I knew nobody," he said, noting he had no family or contacts in the coaching business, until he shook that stranger’s hand.

Norvell didn’t talk specifics about next year’s team, instead inviting the officers to ask questions, which turned out to be exclusively about the transfer portal.

How do you continue to motivate kids who can leave you tomorrow?

"You have to pour everything into them not knowing what you are going to get back," Norvell replied. "You be true to yourself and honest to kids. That doesn’t mean they can’t leave. I get asked all the time if I have to recruit our own roster? Not with a speech. It’s how you show up every single day. But with NIL and transfers, and money, all the other things out there, there are going to be choices made. There’s been guys go that I didn’t want to go but there’s also been opportunities for guys to come in that have been great for FSU and for them."

"It must be frustrating," a man replied.

“It is,” Norvell said. “I have grey hairs because of it.”

It must be frustrating for younger players

Another retired officer asked about the 3-, 4- and 5-star players who come in and have to sit patiently to play, only to transfer out after FSU brings in a proven transfer player. It has to be very discouraging for those young men, the man said, to see their playing time taken by a veteran transfer.

Norvell pointed to two players — Josh Farmer and AZ Thomas — who came in as true freshmen, developed and who will be drafted this week. While Jordan Travis transferred in from Louisville, he was just a redshirt freshman when Norvell arrived, but he is another example of a QB who chose not to go pro after 2022 and came back for the 2023 season.

Trying to build a roster without continuity must be tough, the man said.

“Some things you can control and some things you can’t control,” Norvell said. "You build a roster of competition.”

The Military Officers of America, Tallahassee branch presented Norvell with the following proclamation as well as a donation check made out to Maria Norvell’s family foundation CLIMB.

Whereas: Coach Norvell has earned the respect of the Military Officers of MOAA Tallahassee by unselfishly giving his personal time and knowledge to share the victories and challenges on and off the field.

Whereas: Coach Norvell has demonstrated incredible strategic tactical leadership both on and off the field, making his men be all that they can be as mimicking the duties military officers have endured during war past, without bullets and bombs.

Whereas: Coach Norvell has exuded unparalleled love for our community of veterans and families through the area, making him a friend for life

Whereas: Coach Norvell shall always be welcome to our circle and can be assured of our support when he is in need, short of officers playing football.

Therefore, be it known that:

Coach Mike Norvell has gone above and beyond to share his day with the MOAA Tallahassee Chapter and is welcome to our chapter anytime he chooses. On behalf of the Military Officers of America Tallahassee Chapter Major Cherry Walters

Signed this 20th Day of March 2025

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