Phillip Lolley is known for both his tireless work ethic and for being a man of his word.
From his time as the head coach at Stevenson (Ala.) and later North Jackson High School, through the last 10 years at Auburn University, those traits helped Lolley turn his passion for football into a championship career.
He learned about hard work as a boy tending to the family's south Alabama farm and later, as a teenager, helping with his father's construction company by climbing more than 100 feet to sandblast and paint water tanks.
Lolley took advantage of an opportunity through a baseball scholarship to not only become the first person in his family to earn a college degree, but he worked his way to an academic All America honor as well.
Because sports had opened the door to a better life, the kids Lolley has always enjoyed coaching most are the ones willing to take whatever talent they had and simply outwork everyone else.
That was the identity of Lolley's North Jackson team that won the 1993 state championship and, as he said earlier this week during Auburn's preparation for tonight's national title game, it's what has made this year's Tigers so special as well.
"We got here because this staff recruited kids who didn't just rest on their talent," said Lolley who has worked as everything from strength and conditioning coach, to Director of NFL relations and is now in his second stint as Auburn's secondary coach. "Since we began working out and getting ready for spring practice last year, this group has been willing to work and do what it takes to get better every day.
"We respected every team we played and stayed focused and now here we are. Oregon is a scary team with a lot of talent and anything can happen at this point and we're all real excited to see how our kids react."
When Auburn hired Gene Chizik two years ago, one of the moves the Tigers' new head coach was criticized for was retaining Lolley, a virtual unknown among more well-publicized assistants.
"People wondered why Coach Chizik would want an old high school coach on his staff," Lolley said. "But Coach had been here before and knew what kind of worker I was on the field and in recruiting.
"Me and [offensive coordinator] Gus Malzahn laugh about that a lot, how people questioned him when he first made the jump from coaching high school to college. Nobody questions him anymore because he's an offensive genius. I may not be that well-known, but I know football and nobody is going to outwork me or the guys who play for me."
Earlier this week, during a brief conversation as he made his way from one meeting to the practice field as Auburn prepared for tonight's national championship game, Lolley reminded me of something he said matter-of-factly just after signing day last February. It was just weeks after rival Alabama had claimed last year's national title, and as Lolley discussed Auburn's recruiting class, he said that the Tigers were narrowing the talent gap between the elite teams and were closer than many knew to being a championship contender themselves.
"Maybe I didn't know just how close we were myself," Lolley said with a laugh. "But after we all saw Cam Newton on the practice field, doing things none of us had ever seen a quarterback do, we knew we had a chance against anybody. I've seen Heisman trophy players before, but I've never seen anything like Cam at any level.
"But even before we realized how good he was, we knew what kind of kids we had around him. I recruited a lot of those guys and the way we got most of them was by me being straightforward with them - shaking their hand and giving them my word that they can believe what I say.
"I would never promise a kid playing time or that we'll win championships. But I tell them if they're willing to work, we can do some special things. They can look at me as proof of that."
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