Klint Kubiak is a busy man these days, and he’s handling serious problems. He’s trying to rehabilitate the roster of a team that went 3-14 team, so his to-do list as the new coach of the Las Vegas Raiders is incredibly long.
But there is a lighter side of the job, and Kubiak talked about it as part of a roundtable piece by Mike Jones of The Athletic, who asked a group of rookie coaches that included Mike LaFleur, Jesse Minter, Joe Brady, Todd Monken and Jeff Hafley about some of the silliest things they’ve had to do in their new roles.
“I feel a little embarrassed,” Kubiak said when the question was first posed to him. “I don’t have a funny answer for you yet. I’m sure that’s coming now that I say that. I jinxed myself."
He quickly course-corrected, though, and came up with an item of his own that’s definitely not perceived as part of the job responsibilities.
“I honestly think the thing that I didn’t think about is when Matt Capurro, who’s our chief of staff, asked me where I want people to sit on the airplane,” Kubiak began. “I really never thought about that before, and “What’s the dress code for the airplane?” Two things that probably don’t affect the game very much, in my opinion.
“So that one was a little off the wall, but yeah, just those organizational things that, when you’re a coordinator or position coach, are important, but you just have never had to think about.”
One of the best nuggets was provided by Minter, who’s taking over for the Baltimore Ravens this season. If Kubiak’s experience truly parallels Minter’s, then he’s making a whole bunch of new friends he’ll never actually meet in person.
“Some of the mail that we get from our fans,” Minter explained. “Like, I’m getting invited to different weddings and different events of people that I’ve never met that I have no idea who they are. They’re just diehard Ravens fans, so you know, it’s kind of funny.
It’s one of those awkward social moment that doesn’t come with a pat response in the etiquette playbook, so Minter added that he has to go off-script a bit with that one.
“I’ll send a note just to like, congratulate them, but obviously, I’m not going to show up at some random person’s wedding,” Minter said. “So, just those types of things. You don’t realize the limelight and what it’s going to be like until you’re definitely in the seat.”