Tim Terry – Tying Together Winning, Football and Temple

The personification of Temple TUFF, Tim Terry has made it in the National Football League through hard work and dedication.

Terry arrived on Temple's campus as a teenager 30 years ago from Hempstead, N.Y. The 6-3, defensive end redshirted in 1992 before earning his way to captain by his senior season. Over his Temple career, he started 43 of 44 games played, logged 208 tackles and 11.0 sacks.

He signed as an undrafted free agent with the Cincinnati Bengals in 1997 and also played for the Kansas City Chiefs and Seattle Seahawks. Overall, he made 83 tackles, with 3.5 sacks and two forced fumbles in his NFL career. He played one season in the Canadian Football League with the Hamilton Tiger Cats and was part of the 1999 Grey Cup Championship team.

That might have been his first championship but far from his last. Terry began his career in player personnel with the Green Bay Packers in 2004. He was promoted to assistant director of player personnel in 2008. The Packers won Super Bowl XLV in 2010.

In 2017 he was hired by the Kansas City Chiefs as director of pro personnel. That same year the Chiefs used a first round draft choice on a quarterback named Patrick Mahomes and the rest is history. Since that time, the Chiefs have been in seven consecutive AFC Championship games, will be playing in their fifth Super Bowl, and are looking to become the first team to ever win three straight Super Bowls when they face the Philadelphia Eagles on February 9. Kansas City also won Super Bowl LIV in 2019 giving them three of the past five NFL Championships.

Terry carved out a few moments for owlsports.com in the week leading up to Super Bowl LIX.

What are your memories of Temple University?
"Oh, wow, I have so many stories. I think the biggest thing and the first thing I do remember vividly is my first night coming down for training camp. My parents dropped me off and we had dinner at Johnson Hall with all the freshmen. [Head coach] Jerry Berndt came in and he said, 'Well parents, we will take your kids away for a little while. You can say goodbye to them, and we'll see you later.' So in my mind, I'm just like, oh yeah, I'll see my parents a little bit later. But it was the last time I saw my parents until I went home for a vacation or break. I remember waking up the next morning after going to meetings at night, looking out - we were staying at Temple Towers - looking out in Philadelphia, like, man, I'm really not going back home. This is my life. I had a roommate at the time, Frank Carter, who became my roommate for my whole time at Temple, and we are really good friends to this day. I think that's the one thing, when I looked out into the city and just saw Philadelphia, and everything that was going to be lying ahead of me, that was one of the things that really still sticks with me. The reality of leaving your parent's home and entering a new world. Unbeknownst to to me at the time, I didn't realize how much Temple was going to change my life."

How has Temple shaped your life?
"A lot of the things that have made me who I am, starting with my parents obviously, but the lessons that I learned being at Temple and being on North Broad Street and Peabody Hall back in the day. I grew and developed through the adversity and the good times that we all experienced as a group, that helped me to be who I am today. I don't think I'd be where I am had I not developed the resilience and learned from the lessons I received at Temple."

What would you say to a potential recruit?
"I think to be good and to be able to thrive in the Temple culture, and in North Philadelphia in particular, is that you have to be invested and locked in and looking to develop and grow, because not everyone could be a Temple University student-athlete. You know, that's just the reality of it, particularly in today's NIL world. So, if you're looking for the money or the bag, as the young people say, that might not be the place for you. But you get the opportunity to play high-caliber college football, get some really good life lessons, and development. That's not only just going to carry you from the football standpoint, but I think from the life standpoint. That's where you want to go."

Have you asked Chiefs general manager Brett Veach, offensive coordinator Matt Nagy or passing game coordinator Joe Bleymaier, all Delaware graduates who worked for new Temple head coach KC Keeler about their former coach? What did they say?
"They all have really fond memories of Coach Keeler. The one thing they say to a man, is that he's a builder. He invests in his people, invests in his team, invests in his coaches. And he promotes that belief that you can do it, and there's nothing that's going to prevent you from being a competitor. He has a strong confidence in what he does as a program and what he brings to the players, and helps infuse that confidence in them, to see them to be the best versions of themselves. A lot of times, kids don't know what they can do, and it sometimes takes coaching and experience to kind of help them see that. From what I've heard, Coach Keeler is one of the people that helped to motivate people to be the best version of themselves."

How have you used what you learned here at Temple in your career?
"We had a lot of good players when I was there, and we competed at a high level. We didn't have the depth that we probably needed to sustain winning games, and so consequently, lost some games. But I will say the losses brought so many lessons for me that I still take to this day about the details of what you need to do from Point A to Point B. The hard work that it takes to see something through. It's easy to talk about what you want to be and what you want to do, what records you want to have, and all those things, but it takes detail and it takes diligence and takes the work to mentally, physically and emotionally that you need to invest in to be the best version of yourself.
"Temple, Philadelphia, the city itself – there's a lot of grit and toughness that comes out of that city, and that's something that takes you through the ebbs flows of this NFL season. Whether it be the job, or in life, there's highs and lows with everything. How do you handle those highs, and how do you handle those lows? So those are the things that Temple brought me.
"And I guess the one biggest thing I would say, is the drive to succeed. I always tried to have a chip on my shoulder, that I had something to prove. And playing in the Big East and playing against the Warren Sapps and all these different teams at that time, you want to prove yourself. And to this day, I still feel that way. No matter how much success I've had, or what I've accomplished, you always have stuff you want to prove. And I think Temple really prepared me for that."

Did you realize that while you were at Temple, or did you come to appreciate that much later down the road?
"I think once I left. Because that's all we really knew at the time. We had to work hard, and had to try to go above and beyond. You see how certain people in certain situations would fold under certain pressure, or couldn't handle certain things. And I knew that Temple built me a different way to handle those things. I think once you leave, you understand that not everybody can go to Temple University and thrive. It takes a special person to go to Temple to thrive at Temple, and once you go through that, you're a different person and it carries you throughout your life."

What qualities do you look for in a player?
"Obviously, everyone wants guys who can run fast, athletic traits and all those things. You notice once you look across the league and at college football players, there are players who have certain degrees of talent. The biggest thing that I enjoy doing, is getting to know the person, getting to know the why behind players. What's going to drive them and motivate them to be successful at this level. Some kids look for the money, and that's what their why is. That can only last you a certain amount of time, because you never have enough money, you never have enough things that can satisfy you, and you can ultimately lose your passion. But the people who love playing football, are hard workers, obviously talent that's what I look for. It's so hard to win a game in the National Football League, it's very difficult to sustain success. So the people who are able to do it, that's who we try to bring here. They're driven to succeed. And the why is the passion and love for the game, and the only way you can find that out is by spending some time with people and get to really see more about where they came from and the things that make them who they are, the people around them, all those things. So those are the biggest traits that you try to find with players. What's your why? What's your passion? Why are you passionate about this game?"

You've been in the business a long time and have seen a few Temple players on your rosters (including Shaun Bradley right now). Is there a common thread that you see in players produced by Temple?
"You can't really put your finger on it, but if you're a Temple person, you understand. It seems like there's a lot of hunger in the guys who come out of Temple. They want to do it, they have to succeed. There's a certain grit and a certain toughness about the players who have come out of Temple have exhibited. [Chiefs strength and conditioning coach] Spencer Reid [Temple, 2011] and I talk about some of the guys that we see, and if they would have been able to handle some of the things at Temple. It's a certain toughness and a certain degree of drive that I've seen from guys who come out of Temple over the last few years. It means more to them."

While Andy Reid gets most of the attention, you are one of many people in the Chiefs organization with ties to Philadelphia. Did you get much ribbing from friends who reside in Philly after beating the Eagles in the Super Bowl two years ago?
"No, no. Obviously, a lot of good friends who are still in Philly, and they're true, their blood really is green. A lot of them support me and want to see me succeed. So we separate those two things. If it was Philly versus anybody else, you know, it's all one way. But they just try to support me. And we don't go back and forth. I have a ton of respect for the Philadelphia Eagles and their organization, people who work there, play there, and we, you know, we keep it on the up and up. And my friends, they try to support me, even if they are Eagles' fans, so it was a win-win situation for most of them."

What would it mean to you for the Chiefs to win and become the first team ever to win three straight Super Bowls?
"I don't really look at it in that regard. I think each year is a separate year, right? So for me, and I think, collectively throughout the building, if you start to think about a three-peat, you can get lost and get off the focus of trying to win one game. I think when my career is over, maybe we can sit back and think about some of those things and the significance of it if we are fortunate to do it. But I think for now, I think it's just trying to find a way we want to go 1-0 because we're going against a really talented opponent. You realize how hard it is to win games, and particularly playoff games, and then the Super Bowl against a really talented and quality opponent, so you understand that part of it. So it's hard for me to really wrap my head around what it will look like after, until I'm probably done and sit back and get reflective. Right now, just really trying to find a way to help the coaches to prepare the best they can, and the players to be in the best position to prepare and go and play their best football. So I guess a couple years down, that might be a better question, if we're able to do it."

You've been there since the start of the Patrick Mahomes era. What makes him so special?
"One of the things that we talked about earlier, about what we look for in players, that's one of the things that really separates him for me, he's really passionate about the game. He loves his craft, he loves the process of the day-to-day to get the day-to-day increments of improvement that you have to have to build your quality of work on a Sunday. I've been fortunate, I've been around Brett Favre [in Green Bay], was there with Aaron Rodgers his whole career. I left to come here and you see similar traits and attributes [in Patrick] from a physical standpoint, but just really the passion for the game and the passion for learning. He's extremely coachable. I'd say our best players whether it be him, Travis Kelce, Chris Jones, are among our hardest workers. And he's a tireless worker. He wants to be good, he wants to be coached, he wants to continue to grow as an athlete. So that's one thing I think that really is making him so special, because he's super-talented, and it's easy to say, I'm just going to pull back here. No, he wants every rep, he wants to be coached, wants to be challenged. And I think it's been a beautiful thing to watch."

In closing, is there anything you'd like to add?
"I'm indebted to Temple. I remember when Jerry Berndt came to my house and offered me the scholarship. My dad was sitting there with the letter on Signing Day. It's one of the best decisions I've ever made. I have a lot of gratitude for the University and the City of Philadelphia for what they've helped me to become, been a part in my journey. So I'm glad to be an Owl and represent you guys well on Sundays, and Saturdays wearing my Temple stuff."

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Tim Terry – Tying Together Winning, Football and Temple

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