Vanderbilt footballcoach Clark Lea's father tossed a football around with two of his grandsons.
"Go deep," Clark Lea Sr. told one of them, while encouraging the other to try to cover him.
A few feet away stood the Vanderbilt football coach's sister, Eva Lea-Connelly, who was making small talk with some acquaintances early on a mid-November 2025 morning while her father played ball with her sons.
All four were flanked by football fields filled with players and coaches preparing for Vanderbilt's next game.
It was just another day at the Commodores' football practice facility, where Clark Lea is the maestro with a family-first disposition that bends college football customs to the point of exhaustion.
Every day is bring your kid(s) − or your father
or your sister or your brother or your spouse − to work day at Vanderbilt.
Some of those days include Lea's three children, other coaches' children. Players' children are welcome too.
"I'm a person first," Lea told The Tennessean. "As a person, I serve in a few different roles: I'm a husband. I'm a father. I'm a friend. I'm a coach.
"I'm not defined by any of those roles. They're all important. ... I don't think we need to compromise. The idea that we're going to make sacrifices as coaches and work long hours. ... We're not going to be victimized by that, nor are we going to circumvent the work that winning demands."
Last year's historical season is proof of that. Proof that a football family can bleed beyond players and coaches and staff and locker rooms. Proof that there's more than one way to win. Proof that a true-to-the-definition family approach can spill onto the field and help lead to success.
This year, without Heisman Trophy runner-up Diego Pavia and second-round NFL Draft pick Eli Stowers at their disposal, and with Jared Curtis, the nation's No. 2 high school quarterback on campus, that won't change.
"I get one-off comments that we operate a little differently," said Lea, whose team opens the season at home Sept. 5 against Austin Peay (6 p.m. CT, SEC Network+). "It's not strategic."
If not that, then why?
"The places I've been, it's not like family hasn't been a part of it, but the way the families are intertwined here is definitely unique," said Vanderbilt co-defensive coordinator Nick Lezynski, who also coached with Lea at Notre Dame.
"That all starts with Coach Lea. His family is around. His kids are around all the time. It's not like there's ropes around the field or caution tape around the meeting room or stanchions blocking kids and family off. His kids are in the meetings. My kids are in the meetings. There's kids running around the office."
'Coach Lea makes it comfortable'
The cartoon "Bluey" blaring in the background inside the running backs room at the Vanderbilt football facility isn't out of the ordinary.
At least when Adaleah Young is around.
She is the 2-year-old daughter of running back MK Young. And she like to go to work with her dad.
He watches tape. She watches cartoons. They are together.
"Makes it so much easier," Young said. "I can be free. It makes it easy because everybody is welcoming.
"There's times I feel like I fall short as a dad. ... There's so many resources that I use here. I'll talk about balancing the two, trying to wear that father hat and wear that leader hat here as well. It all ties into each other. Coach Lea makes it comfortable."
Even insisting that Adaleah be around more. Come to team cookouts.
"Just a testament to who he is as a person and what type of culture we are truly building here," Young said.
'You don't change who you are'
Lezynski, who also is the linebackers coach, has six children.
His wife, he said, could use a break sometimes.
So Lezynski gives her one.
In Vanderbilt's good times and in bad.
"Part of the difference in acting it out is doing it all the time, not just when it's convenient or when we win or in a celebration," Lezynski said. "I mean, (Lea's) family was in the locker room in hard times in 2023, when we were at our lowest. And his family was in the locker room in 2025 when we beat Tennessee.
"You don't change who you are, regardless of the result."
Vanderbilt offensive coordinator Tim Beck concurred.
His daughter Sammie, is a 21-year-old songwriting student at Belmont. She is a regular around the team, too.
She sang Darius Rucker's version of "Wagon Wheel" to the Commodores before they upset Alabama in 2024. The team sang along with her.
So rock me, mama, like a wagon wheelRock me, mama, any way you feelHey, mama, rock me
"It was cool to see our players get up and ... get into it," Beck said. "Pretty cool for maybe for that moment for them to kind of forget about everything else and just be into the song."
She also sang a song she wrote before the Commodores upset LSU last season.
"She wrote a song about kicking those Tigers' butts," Beck said. "I don't know exactly all the words, but it was very fitting."
"I wasn't too nervous," Sammie said about singing in front of the team for the first time. "I was more excited to sing with the team. ... The Vanderbilt program has been the biggest blessing to my family."
'We want to toe the line'
Clark Lea isn't all work, and he knows play.
And while it may seem like he lives in a 25-hours-a-day world, the truth is, Lea has mastered the art of balance, of priorities, of how those two things can complement each other.
He insists his approach is not strategic but rather organic.
"We give room for all of those roles to come together at times," Lea said. "And it's not all the time. There are certainly moments where we kind of close the door and get to work. But the more we have our kids around, the better I think we can function in our roles. The more we have our wives around, the more that feels like a partnership.
"We want to toe the line of being really serious about our work and really serious about playing good football, but we don't believe that means we have to strip away the human parts of this. I think the opposite."
But does that camaraderie, those precious (and sometimes difficult, real-life, non-football) moments translate onto the field on Saturdays?
'How do we strip away facades and come into this unguarded?'
Lea said he's not sure. He said that it can't hurt, though.
"We could make that argument that the relationships show up, especially in the hard moments," Lea said. "But I think when people feel seen and understood, I think they bring their whole heart to work. That's really what we're after: 'How do we strip away facades and come into this unguarded?'
"I don't see the world differently when I put my coaching hat on."
Or his son hat. Or his father hat. Or his brother hat.
Clark Lea coaches people, not just players.
And those people and their people are always welcome.
That's the new Vanderbilt way.
Paul Skrbina is a sports enterprise reporter covering the Predators, Titans, Nashville SC, local colleges and local sports for The Tennessean. Reach him at pskrbina@tennessean.com and on the X platform (formerly known as Twitter) @paulskrbina.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Vanderbilt football coach Clark Lea built unique family culture. Here's how | Exclusive
