ROLL UP YOUR SLEEVES

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider
            Whether it was driving a forklift when he was 15 years old, earning a scholarship at LSU as a student manager or adding extra tasks to an already full plate as Baylor's Assistant AD for Football Operations, Jeff Grigus has never minded rolling up his sleeves.

            "My dad was a blue-collar worker, worked across the lake at the Port of New Orleans," Grigus said. "And then transferred my freshman year to Lake Charles, where he worked at the Port of Lake Charles.

            "All growing up, he would take us into the office and gave us that blue-collar mentality of, you have to work on everything. Just set your mind to something and then strive and work and do what you love."

            The 36-year-old Grigus has certainly found something he loves, even if it wasn't his "Plan A." Graduating from LSU in 2010 with an engineering degree in construction management, he worked in equipment management before switching to football operations six years ago.

            "Thought I wanted to do construction my whole life," he said. "I worked a few summers doing construction as an intern. Loved construction, loved building plans, still love it to this day. But I kind of had to grow up really quick. The job was there, so I ended up staying in equipment for (seven) years, where I loved it."

            Jeff was a student athletic trainer at Barbe High School in Lake Charles, La., and was working the Louisiana High School football all-star game in Baton Rouge at the end of his senior year when he met the equipment manager at LSU.

            "He said he noticed my work ethic and asked if I wanted to come and kind of try out (as a student manager at LSU)," Jeff said. "When I got in my freshman year, I showed up at his office. And at LSU, as a student manager, you had to work your first year before you got hired on scholarship. But at the end of my first semester, they asked me if I'd like a full-time position as a student worker."

Jeff Grigus

            Initially assigned to defensive line coach Earl Lane, Jeff was promoted to the head coach's manager role for head coach Les Miles until he graduated in 2010.

            "That gave me the experience of how to one, approach a head coach," he said, "but also, being young, approaching the position coaches at practice and voicing what the head coach wanted. I kind of grew up really quick in regards to that."

            Prepared to jump into the construction business, Jeff was instead offered a full-time position to stay on at LSU as staff equipment manager.

            "At that point, I didn't know for sure what I wanted to do with my life, so I agreed to it," he said. "I was in charge of Tiger Stadium and also had gymnastics, men's and women's basketball and soccer and was assigned to football, so I traveled with them."

            Toward the end of the 2016 football season, then-LSU Athletic Director Joe Alleva approached Jeff about transitioning to a football operations role.

            "At that time, Coach Sam Nader was the director of operations and had been at LSU for 40 years," Jeff said. "He started off as tight ends coach, was director of recruiting and then fell into director of ops. He had been through eight coaching changes and survived them all. So, I took that opportunity and slowly transitioned. At the end of the '16 season, I was working both equipment and operations."

            Learning "from the legend," Grigus was the assistant director of football operations until Nader stepped down in 2020 and served as the director for his last two seasons in Baton Rouge.

            "Coach Nader taught me all the lessons; very old-school," Jeff said. "Everything he wrote out was with a No. 2 pencil. He'd give it to me, and I'd make it look nice for the coaching staff. He was one that instilled in me that it's all about the relationships you build. On road trips, it's writing a letter back to the police escorts that took you to the game. It's writing handwritten letters saying thank-you to the hotel staff. I think with the newer generation, that gets lost."

            While he's been at Baylor since December 2021, Jeff said he has stayed in touch with the police escorts and hotel hosts from the SEC, "asking me about the new staff."

            "But day-to-day, it's just what Coach Nader instilled in me and what my dad instilled in me about being a blue-collar worker," he said.

            After being part of LSU's 15-0 national championship team in 2019, Jeff was caught in the middle of a coaching change at the end of the 2021 season "and was told basically a week before bowl prep that I wouldn't be retained."

            "Being at LSU for 17 years as a student and staff member, that was the first time I had ever been put in that situation," he said. "I was at a low point and turned off my phone."

            Turns out, Baylor head coach and former LSU defensive coordinator Dave Aranda had called Jeff when his phone was off and wanted to talk to him about a job at Baylor.

            After driving up on a Sunday, getting the job offer and then talking about it with his wife, he stayed in town for a couple of days, signed all the paperwork, "drove back to Baton Rouge, got as much stuff as I could, drove back and just started planning for the Sugar Bowl."

            Hitting the ground running, Jeff was part of Baylor's prep for the Jan. 1, 2022 Sugar Bowl.

            "Luckily, it was the Sugar Bowl," he said. "I had been there many times, been in New Orleans, been in the Marriott on the canal multiple times. So, it was like riding a bike there."

            The hardest part, he said, was learning "the ins and outs" with Baylor Director of Athletics Mack Rhoades and then-Senior Associate AD Marcus Sedberry. "But with my personality, I can gravitate to anybody. And luckily, there were no issues. We had a little bit of COVID protocol, but everything was fluid and we won the game, which is always better."

            Already heavily involved in the day-today operations with the football program, Jeff took on even more responsibility when he was promoted to Assistant AD for Football Operations after the 2022 season.

            "There's been some new roles, but nothing I haven't done under Coach Nader or Coach (Ed Orgeron)," he said. "Just more of the administrative, meeting with Brent (Ingram, Assistant AD for Communications), meeting with Jovan (Overshown, Deputy AD and sport administrator for football). Day-to-day, it's just service mindset, making sure we provide an elite experience for our players and then also making sure the staff is taken care of."

            Overshown calls Grigus the definition of a servant leader, putting others before himself, "which is admirable not only in (the athletics) industry, but in the line of work you're in with football."

            "When your plate is already so full, you manage to think of others in everything that you do," she said. "We ask you to go an inch, and every time you go a mile."

            Grigus also does the advance scouting for hotels, airports and the visiting team locker rooms, "which I provide all that video or information back to Coach Aranda so that he has knowledge prior to going into these new places."

             "Same thing for the home hotel. We will meet with the home hotel on Thursday to make sure our banquet orders are correct, all the meeting room spaces are set," he said. "And then, we'll also have a follow-up with the hotel if there's any issues and also to thank them. In-season is pretty straightforward."

            Jeff is also mentoring associate director of football operations Landrie Walsh, who returned to Baylor in the new role after serving as a Director of Recruiting at both Baylor and Texas A&M.

            "She's new to it, but recruiting is very similar to operations," Grigus said. "You still have large events, you're still bringing in recruits. Now, she's just directly using those skills with our staff. She wants to grow, she wants to learn, so I'll start giving her more responsibilities."

Jeff Grigus and family

            In 2013, Jeff met his wife, Samantha, while she was interning in the weight room with LSU men's basketball.

            "I actually asked her a few times to go out on a date; she said no," he said. "I finally asked her to go to church with me, and we ended up going to church and having lunch and started dating from there."

            Jeff calls Samantha, who went on to get her doctorate and become a nurse practitioner, "the glue that holds the family together." They have two daughters, Mary Rose (3 years old) and Layla Ireland (6 months old).

            "In any coaching staff relationship, it's a strain on any wife or significant other," Jeff said. "And she's been 100% behind me, to allow my career to grow. I can't thank her enough for that. She's from Jacksonville, Florida. So, when we go to UCF this season, her whole family is going to come to the game."

            At the end of a long day, Jeff said his detox comes in mowing the yard.

            "My wife thinks I'm crazy. She thinks I need to pay someone," Jeff said. "But it's my detox. I can go out there, put my headphones in and push a lawnmower. And I think that goes back to my parents instilling in me that hard work. No matter what, we had to cut the grass at the house once a week, and we always had to bag it. And hopefully, when my kids are old enough, I'll do the same thing. 'Here's the lawnmower. Here's how it works.'''

ROLL UP YOUR SLEEVES

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