SAN FRANCISCO — Long before former Broncos assistant Klint Kubiak followed in the footsteps of his father to eventually become an NFL head coach — a role he is expected to assume a week from now with the arch-rivals of his dad’s beloved Broncos — the younger Kubiak took a detour into the oil fields.
It wasn’t what Klint Kubiak wanted to do at the time. He’d played safety at Colorado State and thanks to his father, he’d lived the football life in his childhood — mostly in the Denver area, as Gary Kubiak was the Broncos’ backup quarterback during Klint’s infant and toddler years, then returned as the Broncos’ offensive coordinator when Klint was in second grade.
But after a spell on the staff of Texas A&M — his father’s alma mater, and the place where Gary himself got his start as a coach nearly two decades earlier — Klint felt the pull of more practical concerns. He took a position with an oil-field service company.
“It was money,” he acknowledged. “I was making 17,000 bucks at Texas A&M as a GA (graduate assistant). I was recently married. I didn’t feel like I was contributing much to the relationship, so, I felt like I had to get a job and to go make some money. And another year as a GA wasn’t going to get it done.”
A relative helped Kubiak get the job — “to inventory a lot of pipe in East Texas,” as he explained.
“I just wanted to try out what life was like outside of football,” he said.
But Klint Kubiak learned something in a hurry: working in the oil fields wasn’t going to get it done, either — at least when it came to settling his soul.
One day as he drove home from a day on the job, his phone rang. On the other end of the line was Uzoma Nwachukwu, one of the wide receivers he coached at Texas A&M.
“A guy that I was really hard on that I didn’t think ever would talk to me again,” Kubiak said. “And he basically said, ‘Hey, thank you for working with me, helping make me better.’”
That was Klint Kubiak’s moment of clarity. The oil fields weren’t for him. The football field was.
“I ended up quitting that job the next day and trying to get back into football. And so, it was just that phone call. The realization of it’s about these relationships and it’s kind of like being a teacher.
“You build great relationships and you get to teach football instead of a subject. So, I didn’t want to mess around too much more in the oil-field business.”
KLINT KUBIAK HAS A BRONCOS BACKGROUND OF HIS OWN
On two separate occasions, Klint Kubiak worked with the Broncos — first from 2016-18 as an offensive assistant under his father for one season and then-head coach Vance Joseph for two campaigns, then as the passing-game coordinator and quarterbacks coach during the ill-fated 2022 campaign under Nathaniel Hackett. That included a six-game stint as offensive play-caller in the back half of the season.
To be certain, he reached his current opportunity the hard way. The Seattle Seahawks are his fifth team in the last five seasons; when he takes the Raiders’ reins, it will be six clubs in six years. His four seasons with the Broncos remain the most he’s spent anywhere.
Four times since 2018, he’s been fired — including twice by the Broncos. It wasn’t anything personal or about his abilities as a coach, but when the team loses, good assistants get sacked. All one can do is learn.
“I think that you just take all of your experiences with you, but the main thing that you learn is that relationships matter and treating people the right way matters, and building relationships with the players and coaches matter, because that’s what this job all about is, is getting to coach people and see them get better,” Kubiak said.
“And whether you move on to another job or not, the reason that I like to coach football is to help see people get better so you can. You become a better teacher throughout different experiences.”
Those experiences included a pair of stints with his celebrated father.
Klint Kubiak knows his father helped him reach this point; he worked with him both on the Broncos coaching staff in 2016 and the Minnesota Vikings in 2019 and 2020, when the elder Kubiak served as Vikings offensive coordinator. When Gary Kubiak stepped aside after the 2020 campaign, Klint Kubiak became an NFL offensive coordinator for the first time.
“I wouldn’t be talking to you guys if it weren’t for my dad, and obviously, I don’t get to coach in the NFL at a young age without him allowing me to be on his staff,” the younger Kubiak said. “Then you get on a staff like that, and you’re the head coach’s son, and you better make sure you make your dad proud. You don’t want to be slacking it at all.
“So, I think that’s just the way that my mom and dad raised us, and I know how fortunate I was to have that opportunity with him, and I just never wanted to let him down.”
But even with the familial ties and connections of offensive philosophy, Klint Kubiak is his own man. And for that, he’s following what he believes is the most vital piece of advice from his father to him about coaching.
“I think the thing that stands out for him is just [that] you’ve always just got to find a way to be yourself, because the players will see right through it if you’re not,” Klint Kubiak said. “So, it’s really easy advice.
“Just try to be the best version of yourself and don’t try to act like him or don’t try to act like Norv Turner or Mike Zimmer or Mike MacDonald. Take lessons from them, but just be genuine.”
That genuine article has plenty of influence from the Broncos and from Colorado itself. It’ll be a bit weird watching him guide the Silver and Black, but that’s just the way of the NFL.
It won’t be weirder than two weeks in the oil field for a man who hung out at the Broncos facility when growing up and seems as though he was born and raised to coach.
