How to Interview a College Football Coach

In the Green Room with Arizona State University President Michael Crow

Michael Crow has been president of Arizona State University since 2002. Previously, he was executive vice-provost and professor of science and technology policy at Columbia University. Before a panel on whether universities can save cities, he sat down in the green room to talk about his childhood aspirations (weatherman), sun devils (they’re like tornadoes), and his admiration for dolphins (the animal he’d most like to be).

Q. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

A. In fourth grade I wanted to be a weatherman, because I was fascinated by science and change, and the weather was interesting. And I did get involved in climate-related science later.

Q. Does Phoenix have anything in common with New York City?

A. It’s very similar in many ways: it’s just flatter and more spread out. Both are high-energy, changing rapidly, and heavily influenced by forces of change and immigration. [Phoenix is] just a lot younger.

Q. What do you eat for breakfast?

A. Cereal.

Q. What is the greatest technology innovation of the past two decades?

A. Probably the ubiquitous nature of computing-that is, its movements into all aspects of life, so much so that it’s almost invisible.

Q. If you could be any animal, what would you be?

A. Dolphin [without skipping a beat]. They have this mastery of an environment I know so little about. They have the capacity to actually see inside other objects-their sonar reflects images back in their brain. It’s a very sophisticated organism.

Q. What’s something very few people know about you?

A. Lots of things [laughs]. I loved to take my children when they were young on expeditions through the North Woods of Canada to strengthen their bodies and minds.

Q. What was your favorite class in college?

A. Ecology.

Q. What’s the first question you ask a prospective football coach at the interview?

A. What are you: Are you a coach, are you a teacher, are you a philosopher, a mathematician, a soldier?

Q. What’s the hottest temperature in which you’ll exercise?

A. I’ll take my bike out up to 110 degrees. There’s been a couple times where I regretted that, but not so much that I didn’t make it back.

Q. What’s the strangest thing an Arizona State student has asked you?

A. Many strange things. Probably something like, what does it feel like to be so old?

Q. What’s a sun devil?

A. A sun devil is a burst of energy near the surface of the earth that’s derivative of the flow dynamics of the atmosphere as it’s energized by the sun on hot summer days. They look like tornadoes-cyclonic wind patterns derivative of intense variability in heat near the surface of the earth.

*Photo by Sarah Rivera.