How LSUs Dr. D.F. Arnold became one of Brian Kellys most important hires

BATON ROUGE, La. — He keeps his old college transcripts in the new office. He doesn’t want LSU football players coming in acting all formal, thinking he’s Dr. D.F. Arnold. No, no. When a player comes in with an issue, he makes it clear: “Oh, you don’t like school? Me neither.”

He then pulls out his transcripts, the ones showing back-to-back semesters with a GPA under 2.0, the ones with constant classes skipped that left him dismissed before his senior season. Suddenly, they are looking at him, asking, “How did you graduate?” That’s when he gets to say, “Yeah, and now I’m Dr. D.F. Arnold. Look at the degree.”

Advertisement

So much of his job is about relating, getting on an even level and reframing the way players think. That’s the entire story of this first season under Brian Kelly, to change the way LSU football thinks and operates.

That’s how a guy kicked out of two high schools who nearly ruined his football career became director of player development — one of the most important hires in LSU’s rebuild. It’s how an author and leadership trainer who spent 17 years running student-athlete academics at Grand Valley State in Allendale, Mich., starting the year after Kelly left the school, somehow ended up talking with Kelly every day in Baton Rouge, trying to get to the bottom of the players’ needs. It’s all a story, one Arnold uses to help LSU athletes.

The narrative of Kelly’s rebuild has been about changing the culture and accountability, all the buzzwords used when turning around a program that went from a national title to 11-12 the past two years as seemingly countless players missed games with academic issues and drug-testing related suspensions.

The changes are already showing.

On one of Arnold’s first days in Baton Rouge, as he walked toward the players lounge, he saw senior linebacker Micah Baskerville walking with a teammate. Arnold’s eyes homed in on Baskerville. “He had this angry kind of look, not trusting,” recalled Arnold.

In turn, Baskerville likely saw in Arnold a former running back (who doesn’t reveal his age) oozing positivity, with black-rimmed glasses and tight dreadlocks. Arnold stopped Baskerville.

“I see the look you’re giving me, bruh,” he said. “You’re like, ‘Who is this dude?’ I see it.”

Baskerville laughed, just a bit. And Arnold explained that he understood. He was the same. Different people come into your life, and you try to figure out what they can bring.

Advertisement

“But I’m gonna tell you,” Arnold said, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to help you. The change is going to be difficult, because the only person who likes change is a baby with a dirty diaper. We struggle with change. So I get it. But I’m going to be here for you.”

As time went on, Arnold learned about Baskerville, how academic issues led to his suspension for the spring of 2021. He was also set to be suspended for the first two games of 2022. Here was a supposed senior starter at a crossroads, much like Arnold in college.

Arnold made a deal: “If you promise to come see me once a week, I’m telling you, I’ll give you some tools that will help you.”

And Baskerville did.

He made plays all over the field on Saturday. I am proud to present the game ball to Micah Baskerville. pic.twitter.com/0oDJexsgMa

— Brian Kelly (@CoachBrianKelly) September 11, 2022

He showed up every week, Arnold said. They became close, to the point Baskerville called one day as something was wrong. Arnold asked if Baskerville was OK. “Yeah, Doc, it’s just hard.”

“The reason it’s so hard, Micah, is because this new self has been inside of you the whole time wanting to come out,” Arnold said. “The reason it’s so hard is because that old self is trying to keep you where you are.”

Therein lies the thesis of nearly every message from Kelly’s first year. In order to change, one must accept the challenge.

A few months later, three days before the LSU season opener, Baskerville won his appeal. He was ruled eligible for the entire season as his academic performance had improved, and Saturday, Baskerville broke out against Southern with a blocked punt and an interception return for a touchdown.

When it was over, Kelly awarded Baskerville the game ball.

Arnold liked to get into fights when he was young. He wasn’t a leader, he said, but somebody who wanted to be liked. “A lot of fights over this pride thing and not wanting to be disrespected,” he said. He grew up in a single-parent household in Cleveland without a strong father figure, and his mother, Denise, sacrificed and moved him to California to try and build something new.

Advertisement

Arnold was kicked out of the two high schools, much in part from the fighting and not showing up to class. His last chance came in an alternative school. There, he connected with a young teacher who explained how it worked. The students had packets to complete, and then teachers would help correct the packets in class. That’s how they got credits, but most students never did it and never got their diplomas. Arnold came back the next day with the entire packet done. He stuck out the next few months to graduate on time.

Did he learn his lesson completely, though? No. Entering his senior year at Chico State, he was dismissed from the university for his poor grades. The only way he could get back on the team would be to pass one four-credit math class.

He found a tutor named John who told him, “I can help you pass math, but a lot of times football players say they’re coming, but they don’t show up. … But if you come every day, I can help you pass math.”

Sound familiar?

Arnold showed up. Yet during a session together, Arnold could see John close to tears.

“I just want to thank you,” the tutor told Arnold.

“Thank me for what? I’m the one who’s about to be eligible,” Arnold recounted.

“I just want to thank you, because we’ve developed such a good friendship and I can talk to you about different things. The football guys you’ve introduced me to, I see them on campus and they’re like, ‘John!’ The basketball guys, ‘John!’ Even girls are saying hi to me.”

Arnold saw how tutoring could change an athlete’s life, and he understood his own secret power. He could help John with developing and cultivating relationships. This blend would become a career for Arnold.

“I want to be in a position to where I can help athletes understand that you can make both football and education work, and it’s important and imperative you make them both work,” Arnold said. “Because the NFL stands for Not For Long.”

Advertisement

Arnold earned two master’s degrees and a doctorate in education administration from Washington State, where he worked in diversity and inclusion. His dissertation on the African-American student-athlete experience at predominantly White institutions required him to interview student-athletes. It led to him becoming an informal part of the athletic department, with football players practically living in his office. Athletics started using him for leadership development.

In 2004, the same year Kelly left for Central Michigan, Arnold became director of academic services at Grand Valley State. He spent the next 17 years in Allendale, becoming a key figure for future NFL players such as Charles Johnson, Dan Skuta and Tim Lelito. When Johnson needed to pass a speech class, Arnold was there. When Skuta wanted to finish his degree during the 2011 NFL lockout, Arnold was his guy. When Lelito couldn’t figure out why kept getting injured, Arnold helped him focus on his academics.

Arnold created his own company working with admissions counselors, speaking to charter schools, developing teachers working with at-risk students. After going through an NCAA program teaching minorities how to become athletic directors, he learned leadership training was another passion, so he started working with CEOs on speaking with purpose. The NFL came calling, enlisting Arnold to work with its rookie transition program.

Though he had left Grand Valley State, Kelly stayed close. It’s where he won 118 games and two Division II national titles in 13 years, where he met his wife, Paqui, and where both sons, Patrick and Kenzel, attended. His name is on the Kelly Family Sports Center indoor facility. Arnold knew Kelly a little, but he became close with Patrick and Kenzel and spoke to Paqui quite often.

So when Kelly took the job at LSU, Arnold told Patrick, “Hey, tell your father congratulations.”

“Why don’t you tell him?”

Well, Arnold didn’t have that kind of relationship with Kelly, but he decided to send a brief text message … and a 15-second video.

Advertisement

Kelly, as Arnold told it, started going through Arnold’s videos on his social media.

Beth Rex, Kelly’s chief of staff, called. She asked Arnold about himself, and he told his story, about how he came out on the other side dedicated to maximizing young athletes’ performance. He spoke for maybe five minutes.

“What is it going to take for us to get you down here?” Rex asked.

Arnold’s life was going well. He didn’t need to start over at LSU. Rex sold him on using his background and skills to make the player development role into something all-encompassing.

He spoke to mutual acquaintances, like Walt Holliday, Executive Director of the Cox Communications Academic Center for Student Athletes, and others in LSU’s department.

“Oh my God, Doc,” he said they told him. “This opportunity for you, it’s going to be hard, but these dudes need you so much. You’re going to have to help create a different culture, because all they know is football.”

By the time Ed Orgeron was fired, LSU’s culture had gone from national title team to disastrous. Star players were opting out. Locker room tensions rose. Academics and injuries were major issues. LSU played the Texas Bowl against Kansas State with just 39 available scholarship players.

Kelly was hired to fix that culture. People like Arnold are the ones on the ground making it happen.

Kelly, Arnold said, popped into his office Thursday, talking about a player, taking the temperature of the roster. Kelly leans on Arnold for help with players, and players lean on Arnold for help with Kelly.

Sometimes he’ll have a player come in stressed about a situation with Kelly, and he’ll suggest things like, “Have you thought about this when you’re having a conversation with BK?”

Explaining Arnold’s job feels reductive and impossible: He’s a mix of mentor and academic adviser and mental health expert and community service guide. Players and coaches are walking in his office seemingly every 20 minutes for something. He’s often the person Rex will go to when she and Kelly need a task done.

Advertisement

“There is no average day,” he said. “I’m here to serve, so whatever that entails.”

When he first arrived in Baton Rouge, he quickly set up community service projects. Down the road at McKinley High, 55 players took part in a literacy event. Some did work at Lady of the Lakes hospital, and 120 players served at the food bank. They have Thursday night bible study for the whole team and Friday night chapel at the team hotel.

But his job is also about relationships. Baskerville, after his breakout game Saturday, said, “It’s been a challenging experience. I’ve been through a lot of things here, but I just use that as motivation. I’ve got great people here, Dr. Arnold, that they put in place that we can talk to.”

Kelly set up “SWAT” teams with 10 LSU leaders drafting teams that they hold accountable, with points earned for certain tasks and lost for others. Arnold held five dinners — two teams at a time — to explain who he is, what he does and how he can help. Slowly but surely, word spread, and players came to him.

“Dr. Arnold is one of the most positive people I have ever encountered in my lifetime,” LSU special teams coordinator Brian Polian said. “Not in football, in my lifetime. He lifts the energy level of every room he walks into. He consistently directs that energy to our players, and they are better off for it. They know he loves them, and he will work tirelessly and selflessly to support them.”

When he arrived, Arnold insisted on not judging the last staff. When he sits down with a recruit on a visit, he doesn’t look up his bio or star ratings. He wants to evaluate the person in front of him.

But it’s been a process.

“We knew the culture was not what we want it to be, as far as our standards,” he said. “So we knew we had to continue (the process). It’s not overnight.”

Advertisement

That’s also the fun part. If he’s not graduating 100 percent of players, he has work to do. If he still sees bad habits, he has a job to do. That’s the part he loves, working through the toughest parts to come out stronger.

He sees the leaders now doing the things he used to have to do, defensive lineman Ali Gaye talking to other players about expectations. Same with defensive lineman Mekhi Wingo and quarterback Garrett Nussmeier.

“The great thing is watching it. We’re watching how they’re changing,” Arnold said. “We’re watching how they’re buying into the standard.”

Arnold has been invaluable, those in the program say, one of the most influential parts of LSU football.

He’s proof of what the Tigers want to build. He’s Dr. Arnold.

(Top photo courtesy of Gus Stark / LSU Athletics)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57km5wcm1jbnxzfJFrZmlxX2aDcLjSrmSfp5%2Bpr6K4y2aZq6GRo3qssculsGaclmKus7rOpZto